General Forum - Why not Sir Bill Gates KBE - Page 1

Its the media that call him "Sir Bob", 4 reasons also spring to mind:

Bob is liked.
Bob has a life
Bob doesnt issue cruddy bug filled software.
Bob doesn't force his vision of your way of life & how it will work with his software at every available opportunity.





If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they will stop bugging us.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 2nd March 2005, 13:59

Quote:
And don't say cos he isn't a UK citizen

OK, I won't - but that's the reason!

He can call himself Bill Gated KBE without any difficulties (other than the fact that the US government is a bit sniffy about its citizens using titles and honours granted by other countries, I seem to remember reading).

I'm not sure "Sir" Bob Geldof does actually get away with it. If he does, it's because Eire is a bit different to most other countries - its citizens are entitled to vote here, for example. So, it could just be that Irish citizens are also entitled to use British titles.

How about vanity?



(taken from here)

Mike

Ohh look at his 5.25" floppies.



If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they will stop bugging us.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 2nd March 2005, 21:05

I've got one of those up in the loft, the IBM not Billy G

It is the one that originally came with 2 full size 5 1/4 drives side by side and a green mono monitor.

Has a had a few upgrades, extra RAM, one of the drives taken out and replaced with a 20Mb Seagate drive, still has the original IBM cover though. And a CGA card and Colour Official IBM Monitor. Still works, got all the manuals and the original sales receipt, £4000 in 1981 if memory serves me right.

Might find its way on to Ebay one day, In the Antiques section

All the best

Ger.

The reason is because he is not a British subject.

People incorrectly refer to Bob Geldof as Sir Bob. He cannot call himself Sir Bob as he is an Irish citizen and has therefore received an honorary knighthood, the same as Bill Gates. I know this for certain because I work for one of the few newspapers that get it right.

The only reason most of the English-based media refer to him as Sir Bob is that he has been kicking around on the world stage so long and has been adopted as an honorary Briton. He and his compatriot Bono were erroneously included in a BBC list of British heroes in August 2002, for example. The full list is here.

By the way, citizens of the Republic of Ireland (which Irish people do not call Eire) cannot vote in the UK unless they are from Northern Ireland, in which case they are entitled to hold both a British and an Irish passport.

By the way, even people who live in Northern Ireland and have dual citizenship cannot vote Tony Blair in or out, as we have a different voting system from that used in England.

We vote using proportional representation and although we can elect representatives to Westminster seats, our choices are limited to either crappy sectarian parties who spend most of their time squabbling with each other or non-sectarian parties who are even crappier, sit on the fence on most issues and are therefore useless. As you can tell, I am among the thousands of voters disillusioned with Northern Ireland's politicians! lol

I hope this clears things up.