Connect: It's hard to know about this Bob'n'Bono business. On one hand, they're trying to help some of the world's poorest people, so carping about them is arguably mean-spirited. However, on the other hand, while lobbying powerful countries to change policies, they risk endorsing forms of G8 power that generate and maintain much of the poverty.
Bob'n'Bono would presumably retort that at least they are operating in what is frequently - if narrow-mindedly - called the "real world". Their stance is that, whether people like it or not, G8 leaders wield most of the world's political power so appeals for change are best directed at them. This may be a realistic view of power or it may be naive. It depends on how you view it.
Conservatives tend to see such a view as realistic and practical, while radicals consider it naive and even dangerous. Then again, conservatives want to maintain a distribution of power which, although it grossly favours the wealthy white world, has, they argue, been earned. Radicals believe excessive capitalist power can be curtailed only by building alternative political movements.
That's the nub of the matter. Bob'n'Bono have done well for themselves within the existing power structures so it's unsurprising that, while they wrangle over policy, they endorse the world's leaders and lend them a certain, albeit fading, rock'n'roll legitimacy. Certainly, there have been cringe-making photos and remarks along the way.
Do you remember Bono and George Bush; Bob and Charles Windsor; Bob'n'Bono bear-hugging G8 leaders in Genoa in 2001? Dreadful! Truly dreadful!
The singers defend such horrors with versions of "I'd talk to the devil if it saved people from starvation" and, fair enough, that sentiment can't be dismissed lightly. Then there was Bono, Pope John Paul II and the shades. Monumentally naff! It's revealing, however, that both Bob'n'Bono have such a sense of themselves that they invariably seek to bypass layers of power to get to the top.
"One question I always used to ask when I started wandering around the corridors of power in Washington was: 'Who's the Elvis here?' In whatever area I was, I wanted to know 'who's the boss, who's the capo di tutti capi'," Bono has said.
It's all very well to seek out the "lad with the shout" (as building-site ganger men were once known) but this generally bolsters rather than disrupts the prevailing power. You must be careful not to be used by people much more used to the ways of power than yourself. Bearing that in mind, there must be a suspicion that the G8 power-brokers are really sniggering at Bob'n'Bono.
Geldof, too, appears to have excessive regard for power and clearly has a distastefully robust ego. His drive seems manic, as though fuelled by unresolved anger and an insatiable desire to prove something. There may well be, as some commentators have suggested, Blackrock College self-regard underpinning his attitude. But there must be a more personal aspect to it than that.
Anyway, this day next week the Live 8 concerts will take place. There have already been spats over the fact that African bands were absent from the original line-ups. Although they are now expected to play, they will not be invited to appear on the same stages as the European and American acts. Critics complain of an apartheid-like attitude and they clearly have a case.
Andy Kershaw, the BBC Radio 3 presenter, says he's "coming to the conclusion that Live 8 is as much to do with Geldof showing off his ability to push around presidents and prime ministers as with pointing out the potential of Africa. Indeed, Geldof appears not to be interested in Africa's strengths, only in Africa on its knees. [ He is] a supreme manipulator of his own public image".
That's a strong condemnation, which goes on to suggest that Geldof "has carved out his reputation by an opportunistic attachment to Africa's suffering". Now that is damning indeed and may be unfair. Yet how many people suspect there could be more than a grain of truth in Kershaw's contention? The "Saint Bob" malarkey has never really been believed in Ireland. It just doesn't ring right.
Still, people may feel guilty at endorsing Kershaw's line. After all, Geldof, even if you dislike his hectoring, motormouth, foul-language style, delivered in that thoroughly unpleasant DORT-speak accent, has helped to raise about $200 million for famine relief in Africa. Unless you have given your skills and time to the cause, it can feel churlish to criticise him.
And yet and yet . . . there's something about Live 8 that doesn't feel right. The feeling could, of course, be based on resentment at what appears like unearned wealth, fame and influence on the part of pop singers. It might also - to disagree fundamentally with Andy Kershaw - have to do with bigwig politicians pushing around deluded and egomaniacal rock'n'rollers.
Whatever the case, it feels like Bob'n'Bono are portraying the enemies of the poor as their saviours and promoting the kind of corporate globalisation that is raping Africa. We'll see.