Ananova :

Free tickets for Clinton's £104,000 fee lecture

Tickets to a £100,000 speech by former US president Bill Clinton in Oslo were given away to help fill the Oslo hall.

The tickets had been on sale at £620 each to offset Mr Clinton's £104,000 fee but local news media reported the Norwegian organisers gave away about half to fill the hall.

Before his lecture, Mr Clinton said he was searching for the role he would play for the rest of his life.

He said he missed being president, adding: "I'm taking these first few months out of office to organise the rest of my life. "

Mentioning fighting global poverty and Aids, he added: "I hope I will have the chance to serve as a private citizen to aid the same causes that I worked on as president."

Asked about the performance of his Republican successor George W Bush, Mr Clinton, a Democrat, said: "I think I shouldn't comment on that for a good while yet."

He joked that perhaps the many communications experts in the audience should be lecturing him since he didn't get as much press coverage as he used to.

That seemed an odd complaint, since a ban on recording, photographing and even quoting Clinton was a condition of attending the invitation-only lecture.

Afterward, Geir Sether Aas, who had a free ticket, said "It was fascinating to listen to him, but he lives in a world far from our everyday lives, so it was hard to find points that apply to us."

Last updated: 17:52 Monday 14th May 2001

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001