Bono pays tribute to stylist in court fight

Bono has admitted that he looked like the singer Nana Mouskouri before Lola Cashman - the stylist at the centre of a High Court battle with the band - joined the U2 team.

The now immaculately turned-out singer told the court in Dublin yesterday that he hired Ms Cashman to bring coherence to the band's look on its Joshua Tree tour in 1987.

Ms Cashman has launched an appeal to keep items that she claims were given to her. Last year she was successfully sued for the return of the memorabilia.

As Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, spent a second day in the witness box he was presented with some of the items. When a bright red Christmas bell, inscribed with the words "America Loves U2 1987" was presented to him, the rock star laughed. However, he maintained Ms Cashman's apartment could be like Aladdin's cave, as it was only in recent years they realised how much memorabilia she had taken.

John Rogers SC, for Ms Cashman, said his client maintains she was given the items as a gift and she had been putting them in black bags to be disposed of.

"They shouldn't have been binned," Bono told the court. "That would have been very unprofessional of her." The trial continues.