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From Live Ate to G8: Seven days that shook the world

We at The Rockall Times, unswerved by accusations of being presumptuous, have pored over the week's events to bring you a list of the winners and losers in the Great G8 Deeb8 or GGD-88, as future texting generations will come to know it. (Indeed, rumour has it that a Northamptonshire rock band has already registered the domain name.) What began as a worldwide shindig of galactic proportions ended with a lavish dinner party attended by the so-called eight most powerful leaders in the world. The venue, Gleneagles Golf Course in Scotland, had already seen a day of feverish activity over an 18-hole matchplay contest, with Vladimir Putin playing off scratch, and beating Jacques Chirac in the final. "Very happy," beamed a delighted Russian President who had only learned to play two days before the meeting. "Ian Woosnam was very good tutor."

As a result, we believe Mr Woosnam now has a controlling stake in Dnepyepremovcom; a fifty billion dollar state-owned oil company based in Minsk. He is our first winner on the illustrious GGD-88 winners/losers list.

Up there at the giddy heights he is joined by the BBC's very own Bambi-eyed Ferne Cotton. Backstage at the Hyde Park Live Ate gig she battled through numerous halfwits and piles of discarded zimmer frames like the professional she is. Her reward was to be propositioned by a jet-lagged Robbie Williams. Astonished by the former pop poppet who had blossomed into something all the more mature, he suggested they get it together, and while Ms Cotton put on her bravest sensible BBC interviewer's face she must have been thinking "Robbie Williams wants to sh*ag me."

In contrast, Radio One's Jo Whitely had to endure arch-tw*at George Michael demonstrating his new surgically implanted self-deprecation, cheap Tesco sunglasses and retro stubble imported from Turkey. She is the first unfortunate on the GGD-88 losers list.

But it could have been worse for Whitely, who along with Bobby Friction and Nihal, is one of only three DJs at Radio One who still has an ounce of street-cred left. The alarming spectacle of a drug-ravaged buffoon trying to remember the words of a song he'd obviously never heard of put Pete Doherty on the losers' list. Struggling with the only hat on earth with more life than its owner, hapless Doherty lurched and weaved as Elton John (real name Reg Dwight) watched in horror. In Africa, the continent's wretched stared in disbelief that a white westerner could be in worse shape than them.

Contrast this with Birhan Woldu. Twenty years ago she was ten minutes away from death, but Sir Lord Bob Geldof introduced her to the Hyde Park crowd following another harrowing video of African suffering. Amongst the millions watching around the world she was probably the only individual who appreciated what it is to be alive. But before she had time to enjoy the moment she was dragged across stage by Madonna, eager to be associated with a real human being. Birhan was then subjected to Like A Prayer, the number one hit for Madonna and notorious for it's video in which she shags a Catholic priest. Ironic that someone should be plucked from the jaws of death only to end up twenty years later being crooned by some old walloper with a silly name. But Birhan Woldu was still a winner.

As were the lucky throng at the front of the crowd being harangued by our Madge. The pampered minions of the Golden Circle, mollycoddled and comforted with an endless supply of prawn sandwiches and Pimms, took advantage of their corporate jollies and punched the air like seasoned concert goers and regular music lovers. Notwithstanding the fact they didn't have a clue who The Who where, why Razorlight had such a daft name, what the fuc*k Peter Kay was on about or why the whole thing was kicking off in the first place, they bopped and jiggled and had a thoroughly decent time. At the end, an exit poll conducted by The Rockall Times revealed the astonishing statistic that 88.7 per cent of them were systems analysts, whilst the remaining 11.3 per cent worked in human resources departments.

Elsewhere, another regular section of the community were being solidly catered for: the Daily Mail/middle England stiff backboned set who write endless letters of complaint to the BBC and Advertising Standards Authority. Their orgasmic cries of delight were audible above the sound of Mariah Carey as Snoop Dog's industrial language brought out the Parker pens and William Morris gift set writing pads, ready for another round of "I was appalled by the language of Mr Snoop Dog who..." Jonathan Ross looked slightly embarrassed, but his red face was no defence against the tsunami of complaints from people already angered that Dame Vera Lynn and Roy Hudd were not included in the line-up.

They should consider themselves lucky. At one point "Britain's Favourite Comedian" Ricky Gervais stumbled on stage, tangling with a technician testing the microphones. What could have been a foul-mouthed stand off between "Britain's Funniest Comedian" and the Daily Mail/Middle Englanders, turned into a damp squib as Gervais's joke writer had obviously gone awol. Unable to move even the Golden Circle, who were ready to cheer anything with legs except Elton John's piano, Gervais eventually resorted to his "Britain's Funniest Silly Dance" routine and even fuc*ked that up. In front of a global audience of eleven billion, the opportunity to become the "World's Funniest Comedian" slipped by except in the most ironic meaning.

At least he wasn't bottled off. At one point during the Hyde Park gig, Sir Lord Bob Geldof began to introduce an individual whose identity at that moment was unknown. The silenced crowd wondered who it could be: Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, the Pope, Jesus Christ? No, it was none other than Bill Gates, a Seattle-based software developer. The epitome of globalisation and the free market was not however, glassed to within an inch of his life, but rather given the ear of the crowd and then allowed to leave. A definite winner in anyone's books. But it did leave the impression that a) the only projectiles capable of reaching him would have come from the Golden Circle or Iraq, circa 2003, or b) that even if Robert Mugabe had walked on stage with a headless baby the plebs at the front would have given him a warm welcome.

Obviously the real pariahs were in Jonathan Ross's pod, sitting on the sofa. One such telly celeb who should have been bristling with excitement ended up having his day ruined by a slipped disc. Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson exhibited his discomfort and more pills than Pete Doherty's suitcase. He was there to see The Who, but was hoping that he wouldn't be on the toilet during their allotted fifteen minutes.

As the first salvo of the GGD-88 week died away and the too brief memory of Italy's Laura Pausini dueting with some geezer on the piano, attention turned to a weird alliance of winners: farmers and arms dealers. The only previous connection between this unlikely odd couple was the use of fertiliser to make very effective bombs for the loons of the IRA. Now the two camps were brought together again as Africa was held to ransom by the subsidised muck spreaders of Europe and the USA. "You get rid of your CAP," George Bush told EU leaders, "and I'll cut farm subsidies." The offer, which everyone knew to be as fatuous as it was cruel, ran alongside the shadowy demands of arms dealers who were hoping that their supply of powerful automatic rifles to ten year old Liberians would not fall foul of G8 sentimentality. They worried in vain, though. And Christmas will be coming early to the child warriors of Africa who want more than a dodgy Action Man figure.

So, who would be at the top of the GGD-88 winners and losers list? Elton John's hair alarmed by Pete Doherty's singing hat, Mariah Carey who told an MTV reporter: "You can't get a microphone stand for love nor money." Ebay, who missed out on thousands of pounds of final seller's fees after million pound bids for Live Ate tickets fell through, or little Ferne Cotton who turned up for work Sunday with a smile wider than the north-south divide.

Well, the number one winners have to be: George Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin, Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi and Junichiro Koizumi. Lucky bastards to a man that they can orchestrate and watch with impassion, the deaths of millions of people, without the fear that they will ever be hauled before an international court.

And top losers: for the twentieth year in a row: Africans, from Chad to Lesotho, Western Sahara to Somalia. The cannon fodder of global economics, subjected to exploitation from the wider world and corruption within their own borders; dragged to the front of the stage to indulge egomaniacs with a conscience, pushed to the back of the queue when they want to sell us anything. And not even allowed to sing at their own party.

Previously

• Warlords slam Saint Bob Lord Sir Geldof
• UK society mobilises against Jeremy Clarkson
• Girls, have you had sex with a celebrity?

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