This one's dedicated to our favourite planet

Rant begin. Live Earth... well?

My first thoughts have to be how pissed off I am with the BBC for cutting off Metallica, the Beastie Boys and worst of all Spinal Tap, each of whom when they were getting to their best. I really hope 'Big Bottom' with all those basists on stage finds its way onto YouTube somehow, I really do.

But also I'm a bit weirded out. Everyone who organises a charity or political gig wants to capture the spirit of the two holy grails, the two magical points in history that can never be recreated, being Woodstock and Live Aid. Boy have they tried over the years and boy have they failed and today was no exception.

A big problem lies in the fact that the whole climate change movement lacks a flag carrier (James Lovelock doesn't count). Instead of Bob Geldof telling us to "get on the fucking phones" we have Al Gore giving us his seven pledges about reducing carbon dioxide emission by X percent. It's not like I blame him because he has a much bigger mountain to climb; Michael Buerk's pictures of starving children don't compare to a bunch of numbers from the IPCC saying we're all going to find it a little hotter in generations to come. It's just that being an ex vice president and the husband of the woman who gave us the parental advisory label do not make you cool by default, no matter whether you wear a polo shirt or not. The fact that he lacks any sort of charisma by anyone's definition only makes things much, much worse. Uniting behind that man takes effort.

But he has the message. Opening the US leg in a native American heritage centre (despite dropping a bollock when he said "God bless you" to them) reinforces the sea change that people in general need. We need to think global and we need to get into the mindset that we have this two-way relationship with our planet. Sounds a bit hippy, but that if anything will be the way forward and engaging the current generation is how to do that. As Arnold Schwartzenegger has pointed out, we need to make it fashionable. And that means going MTV.

Not that that showed for the most of this evening. The majority of the stars attacked it with the usual amount of conviction they approach charity events ("yeah, I think XXXX is a really important cause, I think it's great that we can raise awareness, etc. etc.") and it didn't help that the great British cynicism kicked in right from the get-go. We had Ricky Gervais gleefully pointing out the hypocrisy of the high-carbon lifestyles of the celebs and God knows how many stars joking about how they'd accidentally left their TVs on standby and such. And the peanut on the turd was Jonathan Ross, who was peddling his usual trademark of being simultaneously encompassing and dismissive at the same time. Why has committing to any sort of opinion become so uncool in this country?

So as much as it galls me to admit it, the Americans were the ones who lead the way. Al Gore started it and Madonna certainly finished it after a blistering set by the Foo Fighters. No apologies, they had something to say and they just went out there and they fucking said it loud, clear and on our turf. I've got to admit, that's something that we as Brits living in today's society can learn a lot from the Yanks. Hats off to them.

Rant over.