Callin' Out Around the World...

Do you remember the day of Live Aid... the first one, the real one?

The promises of star acts, amazing collaborations, the like of which no one had ever, ever seen before; and they delivered.

We were in Fort William. My flat mate lived there, and my Ma and Da had taken a weekend up there too. We watched the start on the TV at 12 noon, and stood in awe in front of the TV when we realised it was beaming all over the world, everyone was watching.

The town was awash with people in fancy dress shaking buckets at you. If you had a drink in the pub, they kept your change and threw it in their buckets.

It was like a massive party, a massive party generated by a desire to help other people. David Bowie and Mick Jagger had promised to do something amazing. And they did. They sung a well known song, not terribly well and Mike Jagger demonstrated his amazingly bad dance moves, while Bowie swayed around and be'd cool.

By the time we got home from the pub, the TV was still playing. Geldof,( or Gandolf as Joss Stone thought he was called in 2005), was swearing like a trooper down every microphone. Bono was on speaking gibberish and sliding sideways off a seat. Everyone was drunk, drunk on life, or Booze, or drugs or whatever... and tired.

It was an amazing day when loads of famous people came together and "gave". They "gave" their talents, and the ordinary people "gave" of their money. What good has it done? People are still dying in Africa. We still fund raise every year... and nothing changes.

It makes me melancholy.