Millions on the March

It's very kind of Bob Geldof to invite a million people to come to a place he doesn't even live in on the spur of the moment. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for protest (gee, you'd never guess from this site, would you?) and all for supporting the aims he and others are promoting. But since Edinburgh is a relatively small city I do have to wonder where exactly he thinks a million folk could actually go in the city? Where will they stay? There isn't any one space large enough for them and that's the simple truth.

The city's population doubles to about a million during the Festival, but this is over several weeks and most of the folk coming for that period book in advance and have digs arranged. I'd like to see a good turn out of folks, but a million folk flooding into the city at short notice is just plain stupid and its rather irresponsible of Geldof and shows bugger all respect for the folk who actually live here. Then again we and the people near Gleneagles didn't get any say in this from our elected officials either, so why would he take our opinion into account any more than they?

I suppose it is unlikely that many folk will turn up, but it looks like being an interesting time. I really do hope there is a large and successful protest at these international politicians who are being cosseted in enormrous luxury at our expense, but I don't want to see my home over-run in the process. I see today Midge Ure is being the 'voice of reason' for the Live 8 mob - you get the impression they are all shaking their heads as Bob opens his big yap and speaks without thinking once more and they need to sort it out after. Then again, if Bob wasn't the forthright person he is then he'd never have manged to get Band Aid and Live Aid off the ground.