Must. Get. More. Popcorn!

Bob Geldof tears into BBC reporter Rageh Omaar’s critical article in ‘CiF’:

Rageh Omaar's piece "Even Band Aid is not above criticism" is ridiculous… He allies himself with the programme's dubious technique of using a "star" name to attract attention to an otherwise unexceptional or dubious point of view in the hope that it will gather attention.

Oh, my...

It's not like Band Aid itself ever relied on star power, then, Bob?

No, Rageh, rest assured, I am definitely not above criticism – but again, please, for the sake of veracity, and again, I extend this to the wretched Martin Plaut, your fellow journalist, stop venturing palpably untrue statements dressed up as fact.

Or else!

And how arrogant you are, how self-important, that you should deign to lecture on the implied assumption that you, and by extension all journalists – and specifically in this case the BBC World Service – are above the criticism that you are so busily wagging your finger at me for, and which I (clearly getting above my station) have last weekend meted out to your incompetent mate and his associates at the Beeb.

The audacity of Bob Geldof, of all people, criticising someone else for 'finger wagging' fair takes the breath away, doesn't it?

It's about time a little humility was allowed into your closed self-regarding little media world.

*choke*

The Band Aid Trust is reporting BBC World Service to Ofcom and the BBC board of directors, and we have requested transcripts of all interviews from the show in question from the deputy chairman of the BBC. We will also take a view on what legal action we may take both against the journalist in question and World Service in general.

Fantastic! Well, god knows, you wouldn't be the first charity to spend donated money futilely pursuing court action but I wouldn't boast about it, if I were you...

The real story of this sorry saga is the intense systemic failure of the World Service, that cherry on the cake of the BBC's reputation. It's a rotten old cherry these days. And I am as bereft as a jilted lover. Of all the taxes I pay, I pay only one gladly – my licence fee. I am Mr World Service. I have done ads promoting the BBC, I have written and spoken in its defence, it is indeed the BBC who started me and others on this African journey; I believe it must, at all costs, be retained very similar to what it is now, albeit cutting away the deadwood and slack. But basically: "I Want My BBC!"

You should talk to your pal Bono about those taxes you aren't gladly paying, Bob...

Where were the producers and editors and seniors? Why was Plaut allowed to go mad on his pre- and post- media interview circus around the world with bonkers wild accusations? Just to get an audience? Did he and the World Service for one second comprehend the enormous damage and danger he immediately put every humanitarian worker in?

Oh, noes! What if all those third-world bandits and jihadis read Rageh's piece in CiF..?

What if the Red Cross, now compromised in their neutrality, were ordered away from war zones, or forbidden access to the deepest dungeons, or concentration camps? What then, Rageh Omaar and Martin Plaut? What then of your smug certitudes and thin pieties?

You've got blood on your hands! How dare you question Bob's authoriteh!

How dare you, Rageh Omaar, attempt to defend the awful indefensible. Just for that alone, Plaut should be fired. You people, you self-important mediators of "news", should wise up and accept a little humility rather than attack the aid agencies and their workers for being above criticism and ask yourself, as I do, who the hell are you to lecture?

Yes! Who the hell do you think you are? Did you have a few hits in the 70s? Well, DID YOU?!