Geldof claim puzzles elders

London -- Bob Geldof has many guises: saint, human rights campaigner, shabby-chic rock star and giver of alarming names to daughters.

But is he also an Aboriginal leader?

Yes, according to him.

When a British newspaper asked whether his recent political activity had inspired him to bid for a House of Lords seat, Geldof's reply was characteristically assured.

"Can I see myself sitting (in the House of Lords)? Of course I could," he told the Evening Standard.

But he said he already had plenty of titles.

"I'm an elder in Tasmania," he said. "I'm a chevalier in France. "I'm a king in Ghana, a proper one. Nana Coffe Comasa the First is who I am there, in an area called Bisi Assi. "It just means thanks very much for doing those things. It's the most those people of that country can do."

But Geldof's claim mystified Tasmania's Aboriginal figures.

They denied all knowledge of a secret decision to anoint the Live Aid and Live 8 organiser as an Aboriginal leader in the Apple Isle.

Asked whether Geldof had been honoured in this way, Trudy Maluga, of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, said: "Not that I am aware of at all."

Dorothy Murray, chairwoman of the Aboriginal Elders Council of Tasmania, concurred: "I am not aware of it."

No one at Geldof's management company was able to shed any light on the claims.

"It's very strange," former Tasmanian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission member Rodney Dillon said. "I don't know where anyone has had dealings with Bob Geldof, or even heard him mention Aborigines."

Geldof has an honorary knighthood, but because he is an Irish citizen he is not permitted to use the title formally, much like Bill Gates, to whom the Queen extended a similar decoration this year.

Geldof is not the first famous resident of Britain to claim special status among the Aboriginal population.

Germaine Greer, the expatriate Australian academic, raised eyebrows in 2000 by avowing that she never disembarked at an Australian airport without ensuring that there was a representative of the traditional owners waiting to welcome her.

She insisted that this was the case, even when radio presenter John Laws confronted her about it.

Laws reminded her that his producers had once met her at Melbourne Airport and embarked on a shopping trip with her, with no traditional owners in sight.