Hubris redefined
Consider this - you are a successful rock band, if not quite as big as you were a few years back. The conventional activities of recording, playing live, haranguing politicians (can you guess who it is yet?) and so forth are getting a bit stale, so what could be more rock and roll than getting into property development, and giving Dublin (getting warmer?...), and moreover the Republic, apparently - its first skyscraper.
"As well as the band's recording studio, the inspirational building will include a public viewing platform at 100 metres, a public amenity area at the base, hotel, retail and residential accommodation including 20% social and affordable housing".
The U2 Tower, for that is what it will be called, is to be designed by Norman Foster. I do wonder how often they will actually us the recording studio, and whether there are enough obsessive fans who will wish to pay to lurk a few floors short of their heroes. For what it is worth, the lead singer appears to have his main residence in the Dublin stockbroker belt (very R 'n' R), but otherwise flits between NYC and the South of France.
I am sure the business plan and the extent of the band's actual involvement in the consortium would make for fascinating reading, but as Homer Simpson put it, "Rock stars ... is there anything they don't know?"
"As well as the band's recording studio, the inspirational building will include a public viewing platform at 100 metres, a public amenity area at the base, hotel, retail and residential accommodation including 20% social and affordable housing".
The U2 Tower, for that is what it will be called, is to be designed by Norman Foster. I do wonder how often they will actually us the recording studio, and whether there are enough obsessive fans who will wish to pay to lurk a few floors short of their heroes. For what it is worth, the lead singer appears to have his main residence in the Dublin stockbroker belt (very R 'n' R), but otherwise flits between NYC and the South of France.
I am sure the business plan and the extent of the band's actual involvement in the consortium would make for fascinating reading, but as Homer Simpson put it, "Rock stars ... is there anything they don't know?"
Labels: popular culture, Southern Ireland
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on Monday, October 15, 2007 at 7:07 am.
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I thought Dublin had a seven storey limit, or perhaps he will get round that with a bung like many other developers have... allegedly.
It's an amazing thing to think that ours is the first generation in history that really can end extreme poverty, the kind that means a child dies for lack of food in its belly That should be seen as the most incredible, historic opportunity but instead it's become a millstone around our necks. We let our own pathetic excuses about how it's "difficult" justify our own inaction. 'Be honest. We have the science, the technology, and the wealth. What we don't have is the will, and that's not a reason that history will accept.
Paul David Hewson, World Press Freedom Day, 2004
An earlier musician by the name of Val Doonican foresaw this 30 years ago thus:
Mister Patrick McGinty, an Irishman of note,
Came into a fortune, so bought himself a goat.
Said he, "Sure, of goat's milk I mean to have my fill!"
But when he got his Nanny home, he found it was a Bill.
Change the names to fit the scene. Maybe the locals will object to the beauty of their town being desecrated, especially by the usual Foster lunacy.
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