Adult Gig review: Guns n Roses, Not in This Lifetime Tour, Westpac Stadium

Earliler this week, as Guns n Roses landed in Wellington, I made a joke. I should've known not to really, as it turned into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Because the weather last night was awful. I rocked up to the stadium on an eerily empty train around a quarter to six, hoping the lines might be short enough to get in relatively quickly and settle down to see support act Wolfmother. The wind was driving a heavy shower across the Fram Wilde Walkway, and I was not regretting any of the four layers I had packed myself in. Reaching the queue for the gate, it soon became apparent that it was not moving at all, and sure enough, soon across the PA system came a message apologising for a 'technical weather-related issue' preventing the gates from opening at the advertised time of 5pm. So we waited, in driving rain, the wind getting up, on an exposed, elevated slab of concrete. Phone battery steadily decreased. Finally, at 6.30, fifteen minutes before the opening act was due to start, the line started moving, and we were in! Just enough time to grab a cider drink and a lager drink (Stadium drinks limits prevented the addition of a whiskey drink and a vodka drink for the true rock n roll experience), grab my wristband allowing me access to the pitch, and I entered the bowl just as Wolfmother took to the stage.

Bling

Wolfmother performed with a flourish, and probably deserve more of a review than half a sentence, but then the wait for the main act started. Through the week, promoters had been promising an 8 o'clock start, saying Axl Rose's diva behaviour and habits of forcing crowds to wait hours before starting had mellowed with time, and were firmly a thing of the past now. So hopes were high of a short wait. 8 o clock came and went.

So did half past 8.

I could feel my refreshments working their way down my bladder. I knew if I made a dash to the toilet, it would no doubt be sure to bring the band to the stage. There was no other option though: I pushed my way back from my position near the front of our section, and made a dash into the stands.

I got back. 8.45 came and went. Finally, at five to nine, with a brag that they 'put the punk back into punctuality', there they were.

Slash, ageless in his top hat and glasses, but presumably due to stadium smoking regulations, minus his trademark cigarette.

Duff, his bass proudly sporting Prince's symbol, as if to boast that although 2016 had killed off half the world's musicians, somehow it left its most dangerous rock band untouched.

Richard Fortus, Slash's replacement since 2002, but looking like he'd been there all along.

A Fred Durst look-a-like on the drums. I mean, he was wearing a red cap backwards, anyway.

And Axl. Not the bloated, past it Axl who became a punchline with his rotating pool of session musicians in the early 2000s. But not the skinny, runty Axl of the late 80s and early 90s, threatening to tear the band apart at any moment with his self-absorbed douchery either. Maybe he has finally matured. His voice may not be quite what it was 25 years back, but he was committed to this performance, ripping in to It Ain't Easy, following up with Mr Brownstone. Four songs in and we were being screamed at that we were in the jungle, and we were gonna dieeeeeeee. It was a cold and wet jungle, but there were fireworks, and it was fun, and no one cared any more about the late start.

Axl, making sure the wheels don't fall off once more

I was in the cheap seats, which were a slight misnomer, being general admission (standing), and upwards of 170 dollars plus booking fees. Still, from half a stadium back, there were few problems with view of the stage, and with massive screens flanking either side, it didn't really matter. The acoustics of Westpac stadium have never been great for any of the three concerts I've attended there, but no one seemed to care, this was Guns n Roses, a band no one had thought they'd ever see again, let alone in NZ, and they weren't going to let slightly sub-par acoustics derail it.

Hit followed megahit, interspersed by the odd lesser known song from Chinese Democracy, then by slightly indulgent Slash guitar solo. Perhaps fittingly, he ripped into the theme from The Godfather, then segueing into the opening riff of Sweet Child of Mine, and 32,000 voices rose, and screamed back at Axl about  smiles that remind of childhood memories, and faces that take away to special places, and the nostalgia was real. Because this song is our childhood memories, and this place seems so very special right now.

And the rain continued to come down. Or rather, horizontally into our faces, because this is Wellington, and there's wind, too. But nobody cared, not the fans. Not Axl, who was getting  drenched in water and sweat and changing shirt and jacket every second song. Not the music journalists, who were writing Cold February Rain headlines in their heads. No one.

Yeah, I was guilty of that one too

Through the furious last quarter of the set (Slash and Fortus duelling on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here! Axl getting the ivories and intense pyrotechnics out for November Rain! Knockin' on Heaven's Door! And of course Nightrain!) and they were gone, off the stage. I had just enough time to wonder if Axl would leave us waiting half an hour for an encore, and they were back, with Don't Cry, a cover of the Who's the Seeker featuring inexplicably creepy tuatara audio visuals, and a stonking run through Paradise City with more fireworks to finish. It was lapped up by everyone.

Given the pyrotechnical imagery, I'm wondering if November rain
is more akin to some sort of golden shower 

Except maybe by the guy standing next to me on the train home, who made his views loudly known whilst we waited 15 minutes to depart the station ('who's driving this thing, Axl Rose?'). Apparently the sound was awful, Axl can't sing, the wristband system for audience on the field was overkill, the opening number was a weird choice, they shouldn't have done a Who cover in the encore, and they didn't play Patience. But you know what? That guy can GGF.

Because for three hours, Wellington was in the presence of a band that a year ago most thought they'd never see together again. And despite the rain, despite the wind, despite getting a bit passively stoned, it was a bloody awesome three hours.

A theory about Paw Patrol, from a parent who has been subjected to it a few too many times

My 3 1/2 year old son and I frequently enjoy a bit of bonding time, and our recent trip to Australia provided us with the perfect opportunity when we both came down with gastroenteritis within hours of each other. As my wife and the 20 month old left for some mother-daughter time at the swimming pool, we lay on our respective couches, bowls and water bottles close at hand, and watched hours upon hours of the Nickelodeon Kids Channel. From this experience, I can report many things:

1. Parenting a sick child is harder when you're struggling to keep down your own stomach contents.
2. Sam the temporary Yellow Wiggle has found meaningful employment since his cruel axing when Greg briefly returned to the band in 2013.
3. Hi-5 are more multi-talented than I had previously given them credit for in my opinion of them as a knock-off Wiggles.
4. Despite 20+ years of practice, Alvin and the Chipmunks still have horrible singing voices.
5. Preschoolers have little understanding of what 'just take small sips so it doesn't come straight back up' actually means.

I also learned a helluva lot more about the Paw Patrol than I had previously known. Chief amongst my learnings was that local nautical enthusiast Captain Turbot is almost certainly the absent father of Fireman Sam's Norman Price: the absent minded disaster-prone nature, the myopia, it all adds up. I know some feel Sam himself must be Norman's dad, but would a responsible pillar of society who's personal motto is 'safety first' really have accidentally begat such a little shit?

Such an open-shut paternity case it doesn't even need a Jeremy Kyle episode

Except, in all likelihood, Captain Turbot probably isn't Norman Price's long lost father, because my second realisation was that none of the happenings in Paw Patrol are likely to be real. A clue to this is that the show centres around a group of six talking, driving puppies. We know that it is possible to teach dogs to drive: there's televisual evidence that John Campbell managed that in the first of his miracles on the path to Twitter Sainthood. (His second miracle, of course, was uniting the Internet in mild dislike of Guy Williams, after Guy stole his 7pm weekday TV3 time slot, #ThanksALotGuy). But to teach them to talk as well? I'm not sure even JC could manage that.

No, instead, the goings on that Paw Patrol depict are the creation of the fevered imagination of lonely Adventure Bay adolescent Ryder. It's not just the talking dogs that give this away, either... In what reality would the mayor of a humming city not only rely on a youthful tween and his six canine pals to keep the town from falling into chaos, but also carry around a pet chicken in her purse everywhere she goes? Indeed, Mayor Goodway is so disorganised, so prone to comical gaffes, it is a wonder she got elected in the first place. Though to be fair, Invercargill do keep electing Tim Shadbolt.

How else, but through the power of imagination, would a 11,12 at most year old be able to afford a fully pimped out tower base, with high tech vehicles, and a spiral slide around the outside? A slide! Not a standard emergency exit or chute, but a fairground attraction! And where is the operating budget coming from when the type of emergencies dealt with include helping baby turtles cross the road, or assisting geese on their migration? Sure, occasionally the squad may perform a lucrative out-of-hours plumbing job if the local swimming pool has maintenance issues, though these are few and far between. And even when an emergency like a potential train derailment is on the cards, the adolescent mind can think  of stakes no higher than the possibility of the latest Pup Pup Boogie not being delivered on time.

But is Ryder's over-active imagination really a bad thing? He's clearly lonely, without any other children his age. Sure, there's Alex Porter, the apparently parentless impressionable young lad under the care of his grandfather. Alex is half Ryder's age, and would surely be easily convinced to play along with the older boy's make believe games involving a linguistically advanced crew of rescue dogs if it helps him fit in with the older child. And there is Katie, a girl of a similar age who Ryder is clearly sooo desperate to impress. So with no obvious parental guidance of his own, it's not surprising that Ryder will disappear into an imaginary world of his own, where he's on equal footing with adults in positions of power, where there is no greater civic honour than winning a hot air balloon race or a game of football against the next town over (which of course has an immaturely rude name in Foggy Bottom), where he gets to ride his very own quad bike that turns into a hovercraft at the press of a switch, and of course where he controls a team of hyper-intelligent pups who will obey his every command.

It's clearly a developed coping mechanism. And really, who are we to judge Ryder so harshly, when he's ignored by his parents and has so few peers to associate with that he has to create this make believe world? Maybe we should just sit back and enjoy it with him, as he controls Chase, Zuma, Marshall, Rocky, Rubble and Skye through various imagined scenarios, in his quest to become Katie's true Adventure Bae.

Your Official Christmas Day Drinking Game Guide

You've just about made it through the festive season! Only a matter of hours to go, and you'll be in that blissful period of time when the kids have opened presents and are distracted by shiny new toys and consumer goods, but before they're howling because said toys and consumer goods have been broken beyond repair. Just the time to sit back with a glass of Pinot Gris, a can of pale ale, or a bottle of meths, and drink yourself into that happy state beyond caring*.

But why just drink festively, when you can drink with festive culture? After the relative success of last year's Queen's Speech Drinking Game, this year I've persued the Christmas programming, and have prepared options to take you late into the night!

Speaking of which, it's an absolute travesty that The Sound of Music is not being shown on any channel this year. Long has it been tradition to watch Georg von Trapp's slow transformation from grumpy old bastard to Cool Dad, but perhaps this year the political themes cut a little close to the bone. Whatever the reason, I feel nothing less than a full parliamentary enquiry into this oversight is needed.

Frozen (TVNZ2, 5.20pm)

You might have to watch this one, so may as well try and make it tolerable. 

One drink

Elsa freezes something

Anna talks about true love

Snow is mentioned

The importance of family is mentioned

Someone you are watching with starts singing

Two drinks

Olaf's head falls off

Kristoff talks to his reindeer

Trolls are mentioned

You start singing

That's two drinks

Three drinks

If you notice that bit where Elsa's ponytail flicks right through her arm

Additional

Everybody must  drink for the duration of Let It Go on the assumption that you're going to start singing anyway

The News (Prime, 5.30pm, TVNZ1 and TV3, 6.00pm)

Everybody loves the news at Christmas!

One drink

Reporters you have never seen before are anchoring the bulletin

Lead item is about Christmas

Mention of 'the Big Man in Red'

Story about 'Those who have to work at Christmas'

Two drinks

Mention of Richie McCaw or John Key

Live cross to City Mission Kitchens

Random irrelevant rugby story

Story about the weather

Three drinks

Sports presenter turns up drunk after Christmas lunch, starts singing 

Weather presenter turns up drunk after Christmas lunch, makes crude innuendo about warm fronts

Political editor turns up drunk after Christmas lunch, proclaims this to be the fucking news

Down in one

Government releases controversial policy on Christmas Day in hope that no one notices

Her Majesty the Queen's Speech (TVNZ1, 6.50pm)

Let's get this message over with and get back on the piss 

One Drink

'My family and I'

'Difficult year'

Mentions Phillip's health troubles

'Thinking of those in need'

Two Drinks

'Faiths coming together'

'Friends around the world'

'Welcome Meghan Markle to the family'

'Successful Olympics for Team GB'

Three drinks

'Mr Trump has small hands'

Corgi wanders into shot, takes a shit

Princess Charlotte wanders into shot, takes a shit

Phillip wanders into shot, delivers racist tirade

Drunk Prince Harry wanders into shot, delivers racist tirade

Finish drink

'Brexit's gonna screw us over, I quit, suckers'

Home Alone 2 (TV3 7.00pm)

Start drinking at the beginning of the film, and keep drinking.  Hopefully by the time you get to Donald Trump's cameo, you'll have forgotten he's gonna be leader of the free world in under a month.

'Let me tell you, kid, your family lost you. They're losers. SAD. I like winners. I'll make your film franchise great again'

Mrs Brown's Boys Christmas Special (TVNZ1, 9.40pm)

Hopefully after almost five hours of drinking games, you're well gone by this point. If not, just keep on drinking away the sorrow that showing this is how low our national broadcaster has sunk.

At least they got the grade of the movie right

*Netflix and Children in no way condones heavy and irresponsibly drinking, of course.

Festive App Review: A Call From Santa!

Parenting is hard, which is something that most parenting blogs won't tell you (Not this one though, it's realsitic!). And what a lot of parents don't realise when starting out is that bedtime is one of the hardest tasks a parent can face. IT'S SO DIFFICULT! Recently, over the last four years or so, our four year old has had difficulty going to sleep. 'I want another story', 'I want some more dinner', 'I need a drink of water,' 'I don't want to go to bed.' All common refrains coming out of the mouth of a small child.

Sometimes the not evening the threatening tones of Samuel L Jackson
are enough to convince them to shut up and lie down

So as Christmas grew closer, I decided to get a bit crafty and exploit his expectation that Santa would visit and give him presents. At first, simply saying 'Santa wants you to go to bed' would work a treat, but soon I had to resort to lying to my own son, dialling the home phone and pretending to answer a call from Father Christmas to tell the young un' to go to bed. But he was too crafty, not to mention suspicious, and within 48 hours was demanding to talk to the big man himself. So, I downloaded on to my iPhone 5S the A Call From Santa! App.

If Santa's not real, how come I have a whole contact book especially for him?

Why risk becoming the bad guy in your child's eyes, when you can get a strange, heavily bearded man to do your parenting for you by phone?  No sooner had the download finished, I decided to give it a spin. It was well past bed time, and the four year old was stubbornly refusing to stay in bed, so I entered a few programmed choices into the scheduling screen, and not fifteen seconds later, a jaunty Christmas ringtone was blaring out of my phone.

- Ho Ho Ho! Hello, it's Santa! Who am I talking to?
- It's me, the four year old replied.
- Excellent, I was hoping to talk to you. My records say you're four years old, is that right?
- Yes.
- I thought I'd phone you right away, because my elves told me (pause) that you're not going to bed as well as you normally would. (Pause) And I just thought I should tell you that (pause) sometimes I have to put children who don't go to bed very well on to my Naughty List...

Message across, Santa hung up. No sooner had I moved to silence the Game of War ad blaring from the free version of the app, than I had a sleeping child on my hands.

Works for ages 1 to 100. Having exceptionally
small hands will help with navigating the menu 

Of course, just like real parenting, you can't always use the Big Man in Red to gently scold your children, or you're going to do far more damage to his image than Auckland's Creepy Santa could ever do. And if there's one thing New Zealand doesn't need, it's for its unemployment statistics to be bloated by Mall Santas being laid off, because kids are too scared to come near them. So the next night, I scanned through the options, and chose to send a call to my almost two year old daughter to thank her 'for being nice to everybody.' Having been out of the house at work all day, perhaps I should have asked Mum's opinion first, because the four year old was having none of it.

-Ho Ho Ho! I thought I'd phone you right away, because my elves told me (pause) that you've been very nice to everybody. And I just thought I should tell you that I'm putting your name on my Nice List...
-No Santa, put her on the Naughty List! She's being naughty! She's been hitting me all day! Give her a sack of coal Santa! She's been naughty!

Evidently Santa hates narks, as he just ignored the rude interruption and barrelled on.

Looks like a certain President-elect has been sending abusive tweets again 

I've used the calls a few more times since, to stop arguments, damn with faint praise, but mostly to get those bloody kids into bed, damnit. And although the calls are now frequently interrupted with demands for presents, they still in the whole are pretty effective. So if you have a small child, or a particularly gullible adult, who you need to manipulate for your own ends, there's really no excuse for not having A Call From Santa! on your phone.

Three Ho!'s out of three.

Adult Food Review: Heller's Christmas Chipolata

Behold, the bringer of controversy

It sometimes seems these days corporations are more interested in pissing people off with ill conceived novelty products than actually making money. And, by and large, judging by popular millennial echo chamber 'Twitter', many companies are doing a pretty good job. This became most apparent to me this evening on my purchase of Heller's new Christmas Chipolata, a 'delicious, fruity sausage' promising hints of Apple, sultana, currant and mixed citrus peel.

On my way home from work tonight, I popped in to New World for a quick sausage purchase. Seeing a new Heller's festive product, with the 'Free Farmed Pork' sticker emblazoned across the front, I decided I'd be game to try anything once and grabbed them. When I got home, I realised the reason the pork had been free farmed was to give the pigs at least a shred of dignity before being made into such an abomination of a meat product. For these Christmas Chipolata contained fruit mince, one of the most polarising food products of Twitter. Seriously, look at the ingredients!

Also: Festive gold meat tray!

Still, I'd bought the things, so, at least purely for science, I may as well try the things so others may avoid my mistake.

The sausages certainly looked the part, slim, pork coloured fingers, with small little nodules of fruit protruding through the thin skin. Into the oven on bake for thirty minutes, possibly slowly too long, and they still looked not too different from your standard pork sausage. Scent wise, the pork strongly came through as well, but with weird undertones of orange rind and currants. Cutting the Chipolata in half, I was greeted by little nuggets of fruit peering back at me.

Taste wise, it was almost a disappointment how much these tasted just like your average pork sausage. Sure, occasionally you might catch a shrivelled currant or a hint of citrus between your teeth, but I found the maligned fruit mince to be almost disconcertingly absent in taste. The texture was there occasionally, which added a strange sensation of eating a meat product with little squishy bits in the middle. That said, it wasn't really true fruit mince present, but singular pieces of diced up fruit. That said, I'd say If you wanted a true taste of what was promised on the packaging, I'd probably advise buying a bag of homebrand pre-cooked pork bangers, and chucking in a pack of raisins.

So do these sausages really deserve to be so hated? Probably not. But do they really warrant a special packaging and a hefty price tag of $1.33 a sausage? Again, probably not. There's better products on the market with much less gimmicky tastes. But they've got people talking Hellers, and that's probably going to help them bring home the bacon.

4.5/10

In these tough political times, what can we learn from Disney?

I wrote this wrote this on Sunday night, a few hours before the North Canterbury Quake, but held off publishing it immediately, with the idea of submitting it to the Spinoff. Obviously, the week has become quite a bit more shit since then, and I figure we could all do with a bit of a distraction from the impending Trumpocalypse, earthquakes, tsunamis and whatnot. So here goes.


Wow. What a shitter of a week. By now, we thought we'd have finally worked off the collective hangover we got from celebrating the first female president of the US. Instead we're still drinking to drown out the actuality that a small handed orangutan will be in the Oval Office at the start of the year. I blame Mowgli for teaching King Louie to be so human-like.

Never seen them in the same room

People have been dealing with the impending Trumpocalypse in various ways. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, has taken to boobietrapping the White House in preparation for Donald and Mike's arrival.

I am more of a practical problem solver, and thought it would be good to learn from others who have lived under a despotic regime: regular Disney townsfolk. So I sat down with a few beers (cos that's my other coping mechanism, remember), and watched Frozen and the Lion King, in order to find any advice I could.

1. Do nothing, just play along and hope for the best
This was the option all the lions in the Lion King took when Scar killed the widely loved and respected Mufasa, and I guess what Trump is hoping will happen for the next four years, now he's chased the Clinton dynasty away. Thing is, it really didn't work well, did it? Scar had no idea what he was doing, the kingdom fell to pieces, and the climate changed and the pride were completely unprepared to be able to make any changes at all. It's kinda like its some sort of metaphor for what's going on now... Which presumably means that Chelsea Clinton is out there somewhere eating bugs and having the time of her life before returning in four years time to a soundtrack of Elton John to reclaim the United States of America for the Clinton dynasty, with assistance from a wacky warthog/meerkat duo. You heard it here first.

Washington DC, 2020AD

2. Chase them away, then try and kill them
Here's a statement that's going to land me in controversy. Queen Elsa is somewhat analogous with Donald Trump. She has power that she has no idea how to control. And she's isolationist, she doesn't want her power to get out, so she shuts a gate/builds a wall. Also there's an army of trolls, though they seem to be quite nice, as opposed to Donald's Deplorables. When her ability to summon ice and snow out of nothing becomes simply too terrifying for her subjects, Elsa sees no option but to flee into the mountains, where she builds a large tower and sings a song that haunts the lives of parents everywhere. Not content to see her gone, Elsa is persued by an army intent on seeing her permanently disposed of. Of course, the army fails, but still, the intention is there.

Build a wall, build a wall
Can't hold them back any more
Build a wall, build a wall
Mexico will pay, you can be sure 

Similarly, in Beauty and the Beast, the titular Beast is confined to his castle, and furthermore all of his household are transformed into various items of crockery or utensils for carrying out housework. Given most of the President-elect's inner circle are actually already tools, this could be easier to pull off in Trump Tower than it may seem.

3. Sing!
Really, this should go without saying. All Disney heroes face adversity with a song, be it a heartfelt ballad alone in their basement bedroom, staring whist fully out the window, or a crowd marching to confront their common enemy and to drive him out of town. Even the drudgery of a day down the mines can be cheered up by whistling a merry melody! Cinderella, Simba, even Peter Pan and the Lost Boys didn't suffer silently: They fought back with a song in their hearts and an irritating ear worm in the ears of their audiences. It's not just a tactic completely devoid of historical precedence either: if Hugh Jackman has taught me anything, it's that the French aristocracy were overthrown by soulful anthems sung in the street, and a huge pile of rubbish. And the pro-Clinton team have form! Why can't Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Sprinsteen, Madonna, J-Lo, the Dixie Chicks and Katy Perry lead a mass musical uprising?

Sure, the villain usually gets a musical number too, but it's usually the least popular song, and in a depressing minor key. And the best the Trump-Pence campaign could come up with is Ted Nugent. (And apparently Kanye for the next 4 years til he runs in 2020).

3. Protest. Stick it to the man!
Popular uprising and civil disobedience? It's too obvious, surely! But without the people of Paris realising what a bad, bad man Judge Frollo was for wanting to kill all the gypsies, Quasimodo would never have won the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Sure, defences made out of molten lead helped, but a rioting underclass is what truly strikes terror into the powers that be. With story lines like that, how Public Enemy never got a contract to score a Disney film is beyond me. And in Lady and the Tramp, without Old Trusty altruistically throwing himself under the wheels of the dog catcher's cart, The Man, represented by Aunt Sarah and her Siamese cats, would never have been exposed for the tyrants obsessed with ridding the world of her nemesis, Tramp.

F#@k Tha Dog Police 

And it looks as though this may be the way the US is heading, with major protest across the eastern and western seaboards. Signs saying 'Not My President' are all well and good, but we need re passion. Where are the pitchforks and flaming torches? Because calling the Vice President-elect slightly immature names is all well and good, but it's probably going to get a bit old before four years are up.

Surprise and shock as Bono announced winner of 2016 Presidential Election

There was surprise and confusion expressed in the United States of America and around the world today, as U2 lead singer and one of nine reigning Glamour Magazine Women of the Year Bono was announced the winner of the 2016 Presidential Election, despite not having being amongst the candidates in the running for the post. Those in the running included Democrat Hillary Clinton, aiming to make history by becoming first woman to gain the job; and orange skinned Republican Donald Trump, looking to become the first Oompah-Loompah to take on a position in human governance. However the ageing rock star and self proclaimed saviour of mankind was cited for his humanitarian work and thirteen studio albums of exponentially decreasing quality and sales. It is the first time in the 241 year history of the United States of America that a foreign born rock star has been chosen as president.

The President Elect gets a few tips from his predecessor 

'For many years the House of Representatives has been discussing the possibility of announcing a President who not only isn't a politician, but who isn't even a citizen of this great country,' House Speaker Paul Ryan (R) said in a released statement. 'In 2016, with the two most unpopular candidates in living memory, it seemed to be the right time. As a House, we have come together in our beliefs that Bono's stated values of self-aggrandisement and forcing his lofty ideals upon the rest of an unsuspecting world match well with those of the United States. We are delighted to name Bono as our Commander in Chief and President of the United States 2016-2020.'

Bono himself reacted with trademark humility and grace to the shock honour. 'U2's music has always stood for the empowerment of every man, woman and child on this earth, and through this music we have managed to bring about the change that the world has needed. I'm humbled to be able to continue this change through this surprise elevation to a position I am sure I was born to fill,' he said. 'It's a Beautiful Day!'

Reaction amongst the other candidates has been mixed. Clinton, until recent days thought to be the unassailable forerunner in the election, was generous in defeat. 'The American people and their elected representatives have spoken, and I'd like to congratulate Bono on his election win,' she said at a somber reception for supporters in Brooklyn, NY. 'Our campaign can learn from this election race, and will come back stronger to fulfil what I believe is my destiny in 2020. #ImWithHer.'

Trump, however, was less accepting, sending out several furious tweets. 'CROOKED BONO steals rigged election!! SAD. Why won't Bono release his tax returns, hasn't paid in US or IRELAND since 1984.'

World leaders were quick to react to the unexpected news. British Prime Minister Theresa May was keen to point to the Irish citizen's rapid ascension to the top of US politics as yet another example of the creeping insidious influence of European politics. 'Brexit means Brexit,' May declared. 'An independent United Kingdom refuses to be beholden to Continental influence, be it from Brussels, Dublin, or Washington DC.'

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, however, sent his congratulations. 'Look, obviously Bono is actually a pretty successful singer, and he likes his golf. I've been in touch to say, look, if you're ever in New Zealand get in touch for a round, or come and watch the All Blacks play rugby. I could get him into the dressing room if he wanted. And I sent him a mixtape Max made, see if he wants to put it on his next album.'

Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressed relief that maybe with a whole country to look after, Bono wouldn't be hanging around trying to do good at the General Assembly so much any more, and bemoaned that the singer's appointment hadn't come four years earlier.

With power to chose the Vice President, speculation remains rife as to who the  Upper House might chose as Bono's deputy. Rumour has it that chief amongst the names being bandied around is Kanye West, in preparation for a run at the top job in 2020.