The prospect of Bono becoming the next president of the World Bank may have caught the imagination of the US media but the U2 singer is not acting as if he plans to switch careers anytime soon.
The band is set to announce today the addition of 33 more dates to its Vertigo//2005 world tour.
The show begins in San Diego in a few weeks and will now finish on December 19th in Portland. This means U2 and Bono will be on the road almost non-stop until the end of the year.
Outgoing World Bank president James Wolfensohn is stepping down after 10 years on June 1st and a successor would have to be in place by then. Traditionally, an American gets to head up the 184-nation development bank, and the choice is made by the US president.
But US treasury secretary John Snow, who will recommend Wolfensohn's successor to President George Bush, seemed to confirm that Bono was on the list because of his reputation as an activist on debt relief and Aids.
"He's somebody I admire," Mr Snow told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. "He does a lot of good in this world of economic development.
"Most people know him as a rock star. He's in a way a rock star of the development world too. He understands the give-and-take of development. He's a very pragmatic, effective and idealistic person."
So is he on the short list? "I am not going to review here all the candidates that are on the list," said Mr Snow. "But I will attest to my admiration for Bono."
The U2 lead singer took time off to tour Africa with Mr Snow's predecessor, Paul O'Neill, who subsequently pushed the Bush administration to raise the profile of the war on poverty and Aids in Africa.
Other names mentioned in speculation about the World Bank nomination - one of the most important in Mr Bush's second term - include Carly Fiorina, the recently ousted chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and a friend of Mr Snow's; deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz; former secretary of state Colin Powell; John Taylor of the treasury department, Peter McPherson, a former university head who led the rebuilding of Iraq's financial system; Randall Tobias, Bush's global Aids co-ordinator; and Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Meanwhile, U2 is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York next week.