SOMEHOW at 4am last Friday morning I found myself at a small table in the corner of a packed nightclub in Rome, squeezed between a world-famous rock star and a strikingly made-up Italian transsexual. A throng of clubbers pressed around us, their proximity to U2 singer Bono lending an extra edge of excitement to the already frenetic dancing. Camera flashes mingled with the club's stroboscopic lighting as one scantily clad girl boldly clambered on to the table, vigorously shaking her booty amid the courtesy bottles of champagne and vodka.

Our transsexual friend (whom Bono had earlier accosted to ask if they might know somewhere we could get a quiet drink), territorially shooed the interloper away, but frankly Bono seemed more intrigued by an early edition of Il tempo newspaper. Beneath the headline "Pontefico Funky", the front page featured a photograph of the rock star holding hands with the Pope.

"U2's music has taken me on some odd diversions," said Bono, shouting in my ear to make himself heard above the pounding techno. "But this has got to be the maddest and most absurd experience of my life."

We had arrived in Rome just over 24 hours earlier, where Bono and Sir Bob Geldof were due to lead a delegation from the charity Jubilee 2000 to meet Pope John Paul II at his summer palace in the Alban Hills. A coalition of more than 90 organisations, Jubilee 2000 campaigns for the cancellation of Third World debt in time for the next millennium, with specific proposals to write off some pounds 217 billion owed by 52 of the world's most impoverished countries to the IMF, the World Bank and the wealthiest nations of the West.

All of which might explain the presence in Rome of such figures as Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Sachs and US foreign policy lobbyist Randall Robinson, but one could be forgiven for wondering exactly what two Irish rock stars were doing at the head of the pack.

I suspect that there are times when Bono and Geldof ask themselves the same question. Already well known (and frequently mocked) for his involvement with a multitude of good causes (from Amnesty to Greenpeace), the U2 singer had promised his band mates that he would not allow anything to distract him from the next record. Then Jubilee 2000 called. "This is an idea I just couldn't walk away from," he explained. "This is not just throwing pennies at the poor, it's looking at the whole structure of poverty. And wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up on the first morning of January 2000 knowing that you didn't only make a noise, you really made a difference?"

It was Bono who persuaded a skeptical Geldof to lend his considerable campaigning and marketing skills to Jubilee 2000.
"This is much tougher than Live Aid," Geldof admitted. "Debt is the most boring thing on the planet. We have to find ways of getting people interested." Meeting the Pope was one such way. "He does command a large constituency," Geldof (an avowed atheist) pointed out in typically pragmatic fashion.

Demonstrating his point, the world's media were in conspicuous attendance, the hotel grounds overrun by television crews, reporters and photographers. The sense of artificiality was compounded by the presence of a large throng of young Italians, waiting with an air of pent-up hysteria for a glimpse of Bono.

And there was no doubt that it was Bono they had come to see. Whenever he ventured beyond the protected confines of the hotel
building, he was immediately mobbed by media and public alike. Not the tallest of men, at times he would simply disappear from view, leaving the sharp-suited Italian bodyguards looking extremely tense as they hovered helplessly on the edge of the scrum. To their palpable relief, Bono would eventually emerge with limbs still attached, smiling as he signed the last autograph or dispensed another soundbite for the television cameras.

"He's really sticking his neck out for this," Geldof noted with admiration. "He's a big figure and there's a lot of people who'll be delighted if he falls flat on his face."

Bono and Geldof are an extremely odd couple. Bono is an upbeat, optimistic idealist, motivated by a profound and long-lasting commitment to Christianity; Geldof is a belligerent, pessimistic atheist cynic who seems compelled to do good work.

Together they form a genuinely dynamic duo, rock stars on a mission to save the world. The night before, conversation had
dwelt on Irish show bands of the Seventies rather than global economics, but as soon as cameras or microphones were trained
on them, Bono and Geldof turned into impressive advocates for their cause. They had clearly done their homework, confidently
backing up punchy, emotive soundbites with an impressive grasp of salient facts and figures.

EVEN outside the Papal residence, a crowd of onlookers were yelling for Bono as a police escort led our minibus through an
enormous archway into the vast, walled courtyard of Castel Gandolfo. Any lingering misgivings concerning the suitability of
Bono's purple shades and brothel-creepers and Geldof's mismatched tan jacket and check trouser ensemble were put to rest by the archaic, multi-coloured uniforms of the Swiss guards forming a protective cordon around the visitors. "Just don't tell them I'm not a Catholic," Bono whispered to me as he was led off to the Pope's inner sanctum.

When the Jubilee 2000 party emerged some 25 minutes later, even the permanently unimpressed Geldof admitted to being moved by the lucidity, intelligence and powerful sense of will still driving the physically frail 79-year-old church leader.

Bono returned without his trademark sunglasses, which the Pope had donned during their encounter. The sense of awe with which Bono initially recounted this incongruous incident quickly gave way to humour, as he realised he had an anecdote that would capture the notoriously fickle attention of the media.

"The Pope's legged it with my goggles," he joked, as if practising soundbites. By the time we arrived at the hotel for a press conference, he had come up with a "funky pontiff" motif that would turn up in broadcasts and newspapers from one end of the globe to the other.

Bono could give an interview masterclass. At the centre of a media scrum, he remained impressively focused on his message, stating and restating the case for debt release with a potent combination of charm, sincerity, wit and conviction.

While Geldof discussed strategy with the Jubilee delegates before departing for business meetings in Rome, Bono answered the same questions over and over again, gamely attempting to inject something fresh into each interview. Although visibly tiring as the day wore on, his voice growing hoarse from ceaseless talk, the subject matter always seemed capable of engaging him.

"It's a moral question more than an intellectual one," he insisted during a telephone interview with Newsweek. "You can argue all you want with the idea, but in the end it's a moral issue and if we can't make this happen it says much about our moral torpor."

Bono laughed to himself as he put down the phone. "Just how un-hip is this?" he asked. "I might as well get myself a bowler hat and briefcase."

A day that had begun with an early-morning phone interview with the Radio 4 Today programme finally ground to a halt close to midnight in a chaotic little office in Rome, where an old rug had been taped to a wall to provide a colourful backdrop for a live satellite link with CNN's American news team. Bono was clearly beginning to lose it, stumbling over his sentences and improvising a reggae song about the funky pontiff when the link went down for the fourth time.

"You better get me out of here before I start saying things like 'the poor should give the rich what they want'," he jokingly warned an assistant.

DINING alfresco beneath a full moon in Rome, the core members of Jubilee 2000 toasted the health of the Pope and the success of their visit. True to form, Geldof provided a lone dissenting voice, casting doubts on whether their goals were realistically achievable. But with the wine flowing freely, even his pessimism was considered grounds for another toast. Bono draped an arm over Geldof's shoulders as his friend rattled on in typically belligerent fashion about the impossibility of having faith in these Godless times.

"When you come out with all that stuff it makes me laugh, because you are so close to God," Bono warmly admonished him. It was the only time I saw Geldof lost for words.

By two in the morning, only a few stragglers were left. Even Geldof had made his excuses, declaring that he owned a flat in Rome that he had never seen. Bono, however, was resisting all attempts to persuade him to call it a night. Although due to catch a 6am flight to Washington, where he and Professor Sachs would address a debt conference, Bono was apparently determined to re-establish his rock 'n roll credentials. "Sleep is for economists," he joked as he strode out into the middle of the road, holding up a hand to halt an on-coming car.

The driver's irritation turned to astonishment as the rock star poked his head in the open window. "D'yer know anywhere round here a man could get a quiet drink?" Bono cheerfully inquired. It was then that I noticed the transsexual in the back seat. It was going to be a long, strange night.

© 1999 Daily Telegraph. All rights reserved.