albeit: zij het.

breach: bres.

Chancellor: minister van Financiën.

G8: Groep van Acht (rijkste landen), het gaat om leidende industriële naties die afspraken maken over economische, financiële programma’s, maar sinds kort ook over politiek en milieu.

Henry V: verwijzing naar een van de koningsdrama’s van William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Daaruit komt niet enkel de geciteerde zin, maar ook de uitdrukking ‘Band of Brothers’, oorspronkelijk de naam voor de edelen die samen met Henry de Slag bij Agincourt (1415) vechten tegen een Franse overmacht.

Live Aid: op 13 juli 1985 werd het eerste benefietconcert georganiseerd door Bob Geldof. De opbrengst ging naar Ethiopië waar op dat ogenblik hongersnood heerste.

to pertain: het geval zijn.

tepid: koel.

“Once more unto the breach, my friends”. With this (almost word-perfect) quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V a few weeks ago at a music awards ceremony, Bob Geldof uttered the rallying cry to the great and the good of the rock music world to one more effort to combat poverty and suffering in Africa. Saint Bob (or, if your prefer, Sir Bob) had decided to do what he always promised he would not do – to organise, 20 years after the original, another Live Aid.

A few days later, he was at the centre of a press conference where he announced that this time it will be called Live 8. Surrounded by glitterati from the rock music world and two of his chief brothers-in-arms from 20 years ago (Midge Ure and the promoter Harvey Goldsmith), he explained that this time the aim is not to raise money but to raise awareness. Live 8 is being organised to coincide with the meeting of the G8 countries at Gleneagles in Scotland next month. It will form part of the Make Poverty History campaign which has been going on all this year and – in contrast to the situation 20 years ago – even has the support, albeit somewhat tepid, of the British government. Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, want to use the G8 summit to push for vastly more aid and vastly more debt relief to African countries than pertains at present.

Live 8 is to include concerts in Berlin, Rome, Paris and Philadelphia. And London on 2 July, after which, Geldof has appealed for “a million people” to make their way to Edinburgh (the nearest city to the G8 meeting) and hold a celebration of protest against poverty. And this is where Geldof’s unlikely alliance with the authorities is being strained. How are a million protesters to be accommodated? What if more than a million turn up? We will soon see.