Criticisms of Bono are fairly common. He is self-centered, self-righteous and preachy. Indeed, he's probably the most painful interview subject I've ever had to deal with. But now it seems to be getting worse with AC/DC singer Brian Johnson getting stuck into him.

As reported by the Herald Sun, Johnson says Bono says Bono should help people in private without telling the world about it. "

"I don't tell everybody they should give money - they can't afford it,'' Johnson says. "When I was a working man I didn't want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa. I'm sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry. I become all tyrannical."

Johnson is not the only one. Noel Gallagher from Oasis has accused Bono of turning all his concerts into a guilt trip. "At a U2 or Coldplay concert there is always a message about poor people or people dying from hunger. OK, but can't we just have a nice evening? Do we always have to feel guilty?", Gallagher says.

Daniel Korski in The Spectator has even gone so far as to blame Bono for the failure to reach a breakthrough climate change agreement at Copenhagen. "I don't blame him for the failure of world leaders to agree a legally-binding agreement, of course. But I do blame him for the unrealistic expectations that were raised in the run-up to the meeting,'' Korski says. climate change, he says, is simply too complicated for the kind of simplistic campaigning undertaken by Bono.

Come to think of it, so is global poverty.