Great and good turn out for Steve Jobs' memorial

CELEBRITIES, POLITICIANS and industry heavyweights turned out for a private memorial for Steve Jobs this weekend.

Reports say that the private ceremony was attended by luminaries including U2 front man and sunglasses wearer Bono, twinkle-eyed ex-president Bill Clinton, Maria Shriver, News Corp chief digital officer Jon Miller and a smattering of journalists.

The Wall Street Journal mentions, perhaps unnecessarily, that many of the guests were wearing black and were accompanied by security guards, while according to the Telegraph the local area was closed down for around eight hours to allow the politicians to attend in private.

With this media blackout it is no wonder that the WSJ and indeed most of the reports are low on detail. The fact that guests wore black is repeated, as is the fact that many arrived in limousines, which presumably were also black.

The New York Times seems to have got the closest, and as well as Clinton it saw Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and the folk singer Joan Baez, who once dated Jobs.

Apple will hold an on-campus ceremony on Wednesday for its staff. µ