Music Blogs

Disgusted from Windsor has yet another reason to rage against "RIP-OFF BRITAIN!!!" in the red-faced letters page of the Daily Mail after the calamitous collapse of travel company XL. Around 100,000 people were left stranded abroad when the tour operator went bust on Friday, while thousands more have little chance of salvaging holidays or the money they spent. All of which must be quite unimaginably depressing for everyone caught-up in this latest episode of Credit Crunch doom.

There are many fingers of blame being pointed and countless villains in all this, from the miraculously hapless Gordon ‘Where am I?' Brown to weeping XL chief Peter Wyatt. But it seems there is only one hero. Yes, it's Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden frontman, mildly malevolent rock Satanist behind metal behemoths "Number Of The Beast", "Run To The Hills" and "Bring Your Daughter...To The Slaughter" and qualified pilot to the rescue.

Because hundreds of trapped Brits in airport hell have been given unlikely salvation by the star this weekend. On Saturday, Dickinson took 221 stuck in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt back to the UK before flying to the Greek Island of Kos to collect more victims of the saga. BBC news reports of the singer all trussed-up in his uniform, shirt, stripes and sensible haircut, were made all the more comical by the mild-mannered singer's revelations that he also laid on sandwiches to everyone by nipping down to Sainsbury's.

Dickinson may seem an unlikely hero but this is not his first mercy mission. In the summer of 2006, he flew 200 UK citizens home from Lebanon during the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. "It 's obviously very stressful being stuck in a foreign country and not knowing 100 percent what's going on. It's probably even difficult even for reps of the company to find out 100 percent what's going on", he told reporters. "My life's great. I get paid to do my two hobbies". Good work Bruce. There might be a role going running the country this time next week if you're bored of the day job.