Bono and the other members of U2 have been threatening to release No Line On The Horizon for a while now and finally they’ve delivered the bombshell with a March 19 2009 release. Is one new release bad enough? No, Bono has to be an extravagant twat and release it five bloody times.

Of course this isn’t a move designed to fill the bands pockets with enough cash to enjoy a lifetime supply of potatoes and Guinness. No, surely releasing the same product five different times is a celebration of all things U2 and a test to see who’d actually buy the same crap again and again. Think of it as an intelligence test without having to work out which funny shape connects the pattern.

Once people either download it illegally or stump up some cash for the bog-standard CD version, what’s going to be so special about the new album No Line On The Horizon? We have some suggestions of what we’d like to see included with the album. You know, just so Bono and the rest of his merry band of rockers can disappear further up their own arses as they rejoice together for pushing the boundaries of album packaging and superfluous additional extras.

For £20 extra, an interview with the band’s creator Larry Mullen, Jr. It would be nice to hear what he thinks. As we all know, Bono just takes over all conversation and namedrops his mates such as the Pope and Bill Clinton.

For £40 extra, a replica copy of Bono’s magical sunglasses. Maybe we’ll be able to tell if they source his power and make him act like the moron we know and love.

For £100 extra, a used hat from The Edge.

Whilst we know they’d go down stupidly well with the legions of U2 stalker fans, it seems that their record company don’t see things like us. As the NME reports, the additional three versions aren’t anything like ours:

“The digi-pack version offers the full album along with a 36-page booklet, a fold-out poster and a downloadable film by Corbijn, featuring the music of U2. A magazine version of the album comes with a 60-page soft cover magazine-style book, along with the Corbijn film as a download. The most excessive of the five releases is the box set, which features a 60-page hardback book, a second poster and a DVD version of Corbijn’s film.”

Oh wow! A poster! Something that’s printed on paper! For hours on end, we can stare in utter awe at a picture of bloody U2. Who would have thought a band would ever think of releasing pictures of themselves in moody looking poses as they stand against a backdrop of a beach, coffee shop or burning car?

And a U2 magazine? We shudder to think what crap they’ll use to fill 60 pages with. Perhaps loads of photos of their faces with captions like ‘We are brilliant’ ‘Feel the love’ and ‘Don’t eat Irish pork’.

Whatever the case, we at least know of one album that won’t feature in our 2009 best-of list. If we wanted to listen to the older generation babbling on about non-important issues, we’d check into an old folk’s home. At least there they might have cool stories about war and stuff.

After he made millions with Indiana Jones 1, he sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 2. It worked. But what next? He sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 3. Incredible.

How was he to beat that? It wasn’t easy. For twenty years he brooded, furrowing his brow and scratching his little beard, and finally his eureka moment came: Indiana Jones 4.

But, people asked, what about the fact that Indiana Jones will be far too old? Don’t worry, said George, if we make jokey references to it throughout the film no one will care. Wow, he’s good. What next? George says ‘how about Indiana Jones…5, with Shia Labeouf as the lead?’

Time to retire George.

Old man Lucas doesn’t scoff though. He told Fox News:

I haven’t even told Steven or Harrison this, but I have an idea to make Shia the lead character next time and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out.

Before we jump to the conclusion that the corrupting culmination of his success, wealth and age is turning George prematurely senile, it is worth remembering that he is also responsible for the casting of Jar Jar Binks.

Rumours suggest Shia LaBeouf has stipulations in his contract which lock him into a sequel/spin-off if Paramount want to make one, and Shia (a distant cousin of French footballer Frank LeBeouf) told MTV he would be interested:

I don’t think a Mutt spinoff would be as big as Indiana Jones, but fingers crossed!

Mutt Williams and the Temple of Doom. Mutt Williams and the Last Crusade. Mutt Williams and Another Piss-Poor Offering from Lucas and Spielberg That Makes Us All Wish They’d Retire. He’s right – probably wouldn’t be as big as Indiana Jones.

But what about Harrison Ford – won’t he be dead by then? Not so, according to Lucas:

It’s not like Harrison is even old, I mean, he’s 65 and he did everything in this movie. The old chemistry is there, and it’s not like he’s an old man. He’s incredibly agile; he looks even better than he did 20 years ago, if you ask me.

Harrison himself has said he’d consider playing a part should the fifth installment happen, and even Steven Spielberg won’t rule it out. Ages ago he told the Chicago Sun Times:

Oh, I don’t know. Of course, I said the third Indy would be the last one. And obviously it’s not. So I can’t even comment whether the fourth will be the last one or not. I’m not looking to redesign the wheel. I just want to continue the saga.

Bless him. We bet for a moment there he thought back to the days when selling out on his principles seemed a cheap thing to do.

Read More – George Lucas: Indiana Jones 5 a possibility, The Celebrity Truth