"One night I went out to dinner with Bono and the gang. Richard Curtis, the British screenwriter responsible for "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Love Actually" and a prominent activist on poverty issues as well, told Bono that he and Bob Geldof had been talking about arranging simultaneous mega-concerts in major world cities for July 2, to focus attention on the Gleneagles summit - the germ of what would become Live 8. Bono, who was carving up a large steak, got more and more excited."

"In late May, U2 made a swing through New York for the Madison Square Garden concert. Bono insisted on having lunch at Balthazar, the downtown bistro, where the staff welcomed him as an old friend. He ordered half a dozen oysters, the filet mignon and a half-bottle - and then, sometime later, another half-bottle - of a Clos de Vougeot. When my lunch came, he ate the French fries off my plate, Bill Clinton-style.