'Look, Rupert, you bastard,' Henry snapped, 'I'm one of those iniquitous politicians who need to be getting the wake-up call and personally I'm quite happy to pick up that phone and smell the coffee. This generation is talking to us. We need to listen.'

'Which generation, Henry?' Rupert said. 'Bono's at least ten years older than you are. Paul McCartney's twenty.'

'Yeah, actually that's right,' David said. 'I think this whole event would have been much more relevant if they'd booked some hipper bands.'

'True,' Jimmy said with mock seriousness, 'that would really have made it work for the starving Africans.'

'I'm just saying if they want to connect with young people they need something off the wall and a bit alternative. Bit of Trance/Fusion maybe.'

'Your problem, David,' Amanda said, 'is you still think you are a young person. You really need to sort that out.'

'Anyway,' said Robbo, 'bollocks to duff duff dance trance wank. We want tunes. We want to rock!'

Henry, like any good politician, was not going to allow himself to be diverted from his political agenda.

'We all know that everything is a compromise,' he said, 'and it's perfectly possible to sneer but at least it's happening, right? At least people are doing something.'

'Yes, they are doing something,' Rupert said, popping the first cork. 'And what they are doing is being a great big bunch of fucking hypocrites.'

'You mean us,' Henry asked, 'the politicians? Easy to shift the blame, isn't it, Roop?'

'I mean all of us. Every single person here.'

'Oh, give the bloody rich a break!' Jimmy chipped in. 'The whole Golden Circle thing has been gone over again and again. Somebody had to pay for the gig, why not the rich? And if they get a bottle of champagne and a decent seat for their trouble-'

'I don't mean just the Golden Circle, Jimmy,' Rupert said, 'and I don't mean just you politicians, Henry, although I know you think that you're the most important people on earth. I mean everyone in the whole park. They are all a great big bunch of fucking hypocrites. And the people watching it on the BBC. And the BBC, for that matter. Actually, particularly the BBC because they're not even screening the political appeals. It's just a free concert to them.'

Monica very rarely got angry and if she did she tended to bottle it up. She had been brought up always to be nice. This time, however, her cork popped along with the champagne and she let rip.

'How can you be such a nasty bastard, Rupert!' she said, her face going bright red. 'Every single person in this huge crowd cares. Apart from you, that is. Of course they care! How can you possibly doubt it? And they want things to change too. It's stupid and arrogant and utterly pathetic to be all cynical about it. In fact I wish you'd go, Rupert. I really wish you would. Sorry, Amanda, but it's just awful of him to be so negative and destructive. It isn't funny, you know, or clever. People are starving and it's just horrible.'

Such was Monica's passion that even Rupert's studied sangfroid seemed to take a momentary dent. The old gang weren't used to Monica getting up and having a go. She was famously a peacemaker.

Jimmy gave her a hug. He'd known she'd be extra-emotional that day. The concert had not begun yet but they had been playing documentary stuff on the enormous screens (the stuff the BBC wasn't showing). There was terribly moving footage of the devastating consequences of poverty in the developing world. Inevitably it was the children whose suffering featured most tellingly and Monica couldn't bear that, particularly since she was pregnant with their second child. The pictures of starving babies combined with Rupert's smug negativity had pushed her over the edge.

After she had said her piece she began to cry, which Jimmy knew she hated.

'Sorry,' she said. 'It's the baby. My brain's going to milk. It happened in Waitrose the other day, for no reason at all, while I was choosing a muesli. Don't look at me, I feel an idiot.'

'Come on, Mon,' Jimmy said. 'Rupert's just being the arse he always is. Trying to be clever. And this is supposed to be a party, isn't it? We're celebrating the human spirit, aren't we?'

'By getting pissed, gorging ourselves and watching top bands from the best seats,' said Rupert. 'Sorry, is that the wrong thing to say? Just me being an arse and trying to be clever.'

All eyes turned on Rupert again.

Henry and Jane looked particularly angry. As teenagers they had each individually attended the original Live Aid concert and had carried this coincidence as a kind of talisman for their mutual integrity ever since. Henry often said that Live Aid had been one of the reasons he had gone into politics in the first place. To try to make a difference.

Silently Henry opened one of the information packs that had been placed on the corporate tables and slid it across towards Rupert. It was the picture of a dead baby in its mother's arms, the mother, half mad with grief and hunger, still attempting to put her empty breast into its fly-blown mouth. Rupert glanced down at the picture and then shrugged.

'Make you think at all?' Henry asked. 'I imagine that even you care about that, don't you?'

Then Rupert smiled. You did not rise to become a senior director of an entire bank before your fortieth birthday as Rupert had done without being able to withstand a bit of emotional blackmail. Since taking over at the Royal Lancashire, Rupert had come to be known as Roop the Boot for the record number of redundancies he had instigated in the name of streamlining his bank's 'business model'. You couldn't shame Roop.

'Of course I care about it,' Rupert said easily, 'and I imagine that I probably do as much about it as you do, Henry. The only difference is that I don't insist on the right to congratulate myself on my moral integrity as well. I know that every step and every breath I take on this earth are selfish ones. I know that the only number in life that really matters is numero uno.'

Henry's lip tightened. He and Rupert had always been the least close members of the gang and had actually had a fist fight at university over the rights and wrongs of the first Iraq war. Of course after Monica had got so upset everyone had assumed that the discussion was over, and now they all clamoured to ask Henry and Rupert to drop it.

'Guys!' Jimmy said. 'Come on, this is supposed to be fun.'

'Let it go, Henry,' Jane said. 'You know you won't change Rupert.'

'Well, if we can't change the bastard at the Live 8 concert, when can we?' Henry snapped back. 'Come on, people, I've been in Parliament for eight years now. I know all about complacency and so-called compassion fatigue. Where I work, every day is a fucking compromise but that's no excuse for not trying. Things can change. Things are getting better.'

'We banned foxhunting,' said Jane.

'Exactly,' said Henry, 'and that's only the start. We're not just here to get pissed and watch U2.'

'Well, maybe not just to,' Jimmy put in, 'but it's a good basis from which to build a day.'

'No,' Henry insisted, 'this is supposed to be about raising consciousness. Let's start with our own. You just said that you do as much as I do. What do you mean by that, Rupert? What exactly do you do?'

'Amanda and I have a charity budget just as I imagine you and Jane do, Henry.'

'Yes, mate, we certainly do.'

'Oh please,' Jane protested, 'let's not have an argument about who gives the most money away. It's horrible.'

'So you give money to charity, Henry,' Rupert pressed on. 'So do Amanda and I, as it happens. Mainly school bursaries and my historic churches foundation but as Jane says, let's not quibble over causes and sums. What else do you do about the poverty that you want to make history? I don't mean as a politician, I mean as a private individual. What do you do that I don't?'

'Look!' Laura shouted. 'Come on, Dave, I think it's about to start. You'll have to put me on your shoulders later.'

'One one! Two two!' a man said on the stage into various microphones while another man hit the drums.

'Is that U2's drummer?' Monica asked, feigning excitement.

'How would you tell?' Amanda said. 'I mean could anyone recognize the other two members of U2?'

'Let's just forget it, hey, guys,' Jimmy said to Henry and Rupert, pouring more champagne. 'This is a party and it isn't the time.'

'Well, I don't know about that, Jimbo,' David observed. 'I reckon if we are going to have a discussion like this then now clearly is the time.'

'Absolutely,' said Rupert, who still had Henry in his sights.

'So would your point be, Henry old pal,' he continued, 'that because I earn ten times more than you I am ten times more responsible for the death of the baby in that picture?'

'Rupert, this is not seemly,' Amanda snapped. She had appeared to be enjoying the earlier part of the conversation but now that numbers were involved she obviously felt it had gone too far.

'It's entirely seemly. Well, Henry?'

'Yes, actually,' Henry replied, 'in some ways I think I am saying that. Of course we all bear responsibility for world inequality but the inflation of corporate incomes is a symptom of the ever-increasing imbalance between-'

Rupert interrupted him. 'But this leaflet says that five pounds would have saved the baby's life. Clearly the mother didn't have a fiver, because the baby's dead. So by your logic of income comparison that makes you at least twenty thousand fivers more responsible for the child's death than the adults in its own community. Doesn't that make the difference between your culpability and mine somewhat semantic?'

There was a moment's silence. It was clear that everybody knew Rupert was talking rubbish but for a moment they were not sure how to counter it.

'It's not that bloody simple, Rupert, and you know it,' Henry blustered. 'I earn a reasonable wage, you earn a ridiculous and obscene-'

'Let's stop this,' Lizzie said, 'please.'

'Yes, come on, guys!' Robbo chipped in, having finally got bored enough to protest. 'Do you think they do anything besides champagne? I'd love a beer.'

But Henry had no intention of allowing Rupert to have the last word.

'The people in this crowd are decent, caring, hardworking people, Rupert,' Henry shouted. 'They do not earn insane bonuses. They earn decent livings and they earn them doing proper jobs. Not bloody banking.'

'And every single one of them is in debt to a bank, Henry. As indeed are you. And like you, they want those debts to be cheap. Just like you wanted the mortgages on both your homes to be cheap.'

'Hang on, Rupert,' Jane began, angered at Rupert's implication. 'Don't start bringing in second homes! Henry's an MP, he has to work in two places. And what's more, we did both our homes up ourselves, working bloody hard every weekend for a whole summer.'

'Are you suggesting, Jane,' Amanda retorted, 'that because you did your own grouting your second home is somehow less unfair on the world's poor than mine?'

'You've got about ten second homes, Amanda!' Jane said, having to shout above the increasing noise of the sound check.

'At which point I refer you,' said Rupert, entirely relaxed once more, 'to the argument of the five-pound baby. The real difference between your wealth and mine is minute, it's tiny, it's nothing, compared to the distance between your wealth and this African mother's about whom you care so much. And all our wealth, the wealth of everyone in this crowd, all the cheap mortgages, ballooning property values, low taxes, cheap training shoes, all of it is created and maintained by the workings of the very system about which everyone here is claiming to be so angry.'

Rupert stood up and, turning his back on the stage, surveyed the vast crowd. So many happy, eager faces. Many girlfriends already on boyfriends' shoulders. Comedy hats in the shape of huge bananas, earnest banners, raised plastic bottles saluting the roadies on the stage.

'Look at that,' Rupert said. 'Just look at that, a sea of placards saying that those girls want to "make poverty history". Do you see any placards saying, "and I'm prepared to pay more for my Gap clothes and my Nike shoes in order to make it happen"? Is anyone pleading for higher interest rates so that their bank can invest more in the third world? More expensive petrol so that Shell and BP won't screw the poor African quite as fucking viciously? No! They're bloody not. Because the people in that crowd want to make poverty history but not if they have to pay for it themselves. Not if it means sacrificing their cheap clothes, cheap food, cheap credit, cheap air travel and low taxes.'

Henry leaped to his feet, squaring off in front of Rupert. It looked as if Henry was going to hit him.

'Life involves compromises,' he shouted, 'so does principle. That is not an excuse for moral inertia!'

'Pardon?' Rupert curled his lip. 'Do I hear a politician making noise and saying nothing? How very rare.'

'Of course these people care about their own jobs and services, their homes and their well-being. But they still want some moral justice. How can you doubt it? I mean seriously, Rupert, how can you fucking doubt it? They are calling on us politicians to get off our arses and create a new mindset. To start working towards a fairer and more equitable . . .'

'They are fucking NOT,' Rupert replied, raising his own voice for the first time. 'They say they are but they don't mean it. Because if they did mean it, you'd do it. You're a politician, Henry, and you know that you and your cronies will do whatever it takes to get re-elected. If sending the entire contents of the Bank of England to Ethiopia would secure you another term, you'd do it in a second. But you know that it wouldn't because if people really wanted to make poverty history they'd vote Green or Socialist or Anarchist or some other pointless silly bollocks, but they don't. What people want is low taxes and cheap money, which is why they vote Tory or New Labour or Lib Dem. Why do you think the entire media is behind this event? Every newspaper proprietor? Because they know it will change nothing. It's a joke. A party. Just like Jimmy says. Yes, people would like to make poverty history, it would be very nice, but NOT if it means taking a cut themselves. Any more than Bono and U2 want to pay the tax they've been lucky to avoid these last twenty years just by being Irish. That's why we're all fucking hypocrites. You, me, Bono, Coldplay and every bloody overexcited shop assistant in the crowd. Why the fuck should we, having condemned half the planet to living in abject misery to support what we see as a basic lifestyle, then expect to be able to strut about in Hyde Park boasting about how caring and generous we are at the same time.'

On the stage the roadies seemed finally to have finished their counting and banging. At Jimmy's table there was an angry and depressed silence. Rupert had sat down but Henry was still standing, his fists clenched, his knuckles white.

'You're wrong, you shit,' he said, 'really you're wrong.' But as the noise of the crowd grew in expectation of the imminent arrival of rock superstars, he offered no further argument.

'Blimey, Rupert,' Jimmy said finally, 'you know how to piss on a parade.'

'Well, actually, on another subject entirely,' Rupert said, 'I have some rather fun news. I'm to be knighted by Blair for services to banking.'

'Yes, I'm to be Lady Bennett.' Amanda beamed. 'Of course I shan't insist that close friends use the title.'

There was a huge cheer. Familiar chords filled the air.

'Hello, Hyde Park!' said Bono.

A farewell piss-up On the second evening after the night Robbo died, his many friends assembled in London. The funeral plans had not yet been put in place, but the death of such a hugely popular man had left many people struggling to cope and feeling the need to meet up immediately to share their loss. Therefore with the blessing of Lizzie (herself too upset to attend), Rupert had arranged a kind of pre-wake piss-up in the function room of his London club with a malt whisky tasting, several real ales on tap and a takeaway curry delivered.

Fittingly, in view of the character of the deceased, the evening, though desperately sad, was good-natured and ribald. Rupert spoke first.

'Look,' he said, 'I loved the bastard dearly. We all loved him. He was the best and kindest bloke I ever knew. I think everybody here feels that and no doubt at the funeral we'll all get a chance to bang on about it. But this evening, since darling Lizzie ain't here, let's be honest, one of the things we loved about him most was that he was so utterly bloody useless!'

There was laughter, of course, and many comically stern cries of 'Shame!'

'Useless?' Jimmy shouted. 'Bollocks he was useless! He knew every British number one since charts began and he could burp the National Anthem!'

'That is very true,' Rupert conceded, 'and I bow to no man in my appreciation of those skills. But when it came to the practical side of life I don't think I have ever encountered such a cack-handed arse as Robbo, and were he here, he'd tell you so himself.'

There was a pause. The fact that Robbo was not there and never would be again was such a very recent and shocking development that it sounded strange to hear it referred to so bluntly. Even Rupert, a notoriously hard case and clearly determined to treat the gathering as a roast, had a tiny catch in his voice as he proceeded.

'You may or may not know this,' he went on, 'but Robbo's official position within his and Lizzie's firm was "business manager". He supposedly handled the investment, property and pension aspects of the family business. What a bloody joke!' Rupert shouted with mock outrage. 'As far as Robbo was concerned, business management meant sticking your cash in the bank and hoping for the bloody best! Can you imagine what it was like for a bloke like me having Robbo as a mate? It was torture! Absolute bloody torture, I tell you. As far as I'm concerned, making money out of money is a religion! A sacred duty! And here was this old arse sitting on shedloads of the stuff and doing absolutely nothing with it. Just eating curry, getting pissed and occasionally buying new fluffy dice for his ancient wreck of a car! No investment strategy. No tax avoidance. No offshore havens. This man insulted my faith!'

There was laughter, many cheers and much comical groaning at Rupert's speech. He delivered it well and made an effective point. It was certainly true that there could scarcely have been two more financially opposite personalities than the business manager of Lizzie Food and the celebrated CEO of the Royal Lancashire Bank, and it was rather touching that they should have been such old and firm friends.

Next, Jimmy got up to raise a glass.

Jimmy had probably been closest to Robbo of all the gang, but then Rupert, Henry and David also saw Robbo as their best friend. He was that kind of man. Jimmy knew that he must keep things fun. There would be time for solemnity later, but tonight required jollity and good-natured finger-pointing. That was unquestionably what Robbo would have wanted. Nonetheless, even on this deliberately raucous occasion Jimmy was determined to do Robbo justice. He himself was still struggling to deal with the fact that while grieving for his dead friend, he was also about to go deeply into that dead friend's debt. Robbo and Lizzie's loan would save Jimmy and his family from financial disaster and Jimmy wished with all his heart that he did not have the added complications of guilt and gratitude intruding on his grief. As he rose to his feet he struggled to put those thoughts from his mind and focus solely on celebrating the memory of the friend he loved.

'Let's be very clear about this.' Jimmy banged the table with one hand and held his slopping glass aloft in the other. 'Robbo was not remotely financially useless! In fact, Rupert, he had the only bloody decent economic strategy among us! And do you know what that strategy was, mate? To sit back and enjoy his bloody life, that's what! Fag Ash Rob knew what to do with money all right. He spent it on stuff he liked and ignored it the rest of the time. Brilliant! Inspired! A lesson for the whole bloody nation! In the truest sense of the word Robbo was a financial genius.'

This sentiment was greeted with huge cheers and much refilling of glasses. Jimmy was half drunk but he spoke with genuine passion, the passion of a man who had made the mistake of ignoring Robbo's example. A man who, instead of simply enjoying his good fortune and using it to enrich his life and increase the sum of his own happiness and that of those around him, had listened to siren voices (particularly Rupert's) and seen his money as merely a stepping stone to more money. He had tried to use money to buy more money and in so doing had lost the lot.

'Yes, Rupert!' Jimmy went on. 'Like you say, Robbo used his cash solely to eat, drink and be merry. Those were the things that mattered to him. He loved his food, his car, his booze, his mates, his wife and children. In that ascending order! That was what he cared about and you could stuff your wealth management portfolios up your arse!'

There was further huge cheering at this and much stamping of feet.

'Bravo! Well said!' David called out good-naturedly. 'Although I think you'd find he liked his booze more than his mates, or at least he preferred its company.'

'More than Rupert's anyway,' Henry shouted.

Jimmy took a swig of beer and surveyed the gathering with a boyish twinkle in his eye, that twinkle once so familiar to his friends but so often absent in the preceding months.

'Now I'm not saying Robbo didn't do his bit for Lizzie's business,' Jimmy went on. 'Never let it be said that our old mate didn't occasionally finish his beer, put down the crossword and make an effort. Some of you will, I'm sure, recall his famous plan to open a male waxing salon!'

Jimmy was on even more solidly popular ground here than he had been with his previous comments. It was well known among Robbo's friends that every now and then some residual store of latent energy had roused him to attempt a contribution to the family lifestyle empire. His efforts had been the cause of much hilarity over the years.

'You may remember,' Jimmy continued as the crowd settled back to enjoy what they knew would be a good story well told, 'that he decided to call it Back, Sack and Crack. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, it did to Rob when it came to him in the taproom of the Dog and Duck! Lizzie had just begun making hair products and Robbo was reading an article in the Evening Standard's Friday magazine about male grooming. You may recall that this was at the time when David Beckham had been photographed wearing a dress! You remember that?'

There were cheers and nods at this.

'He called it a sarong but we knew it was a bloody dress. He's English, for God's sake! Anyway, the thrust of the article Robbo was reading was that heterosexual blokes who had previously been noted for their homophobia all suddenly wanted to look gay! So, armed with this brilliant bit of in-depth research and despite the fact that Robbo himself usually wore an old cricket jumper and never trimmed his bloody nose hair, he rented a shop and went on Morning TV, courtesy of Lizzie's celebrity, and made a complete arse of himself talking about metrosexuals! Do you remember?'