By Eileen Murphy
The Corrs may be Ireland’s newly crowned pop darlings, with best-selling albums and "MTV Unplugged" specials out the wazoo, but to a major recording artist like Dustin the Turkey, they’re just a bunch of johnnines-come-latelies. And an ungrateful bunch, at that.
Dustin, the popular puppet who stars in the Irish TV show "Dustin’s Den," is getting ready to release his latest Christmas album, "Poetry in Motion." The comedy CDs have become a tradition in Ireland, and have featured Dustin’s duets with guests like Bob Geldof. But when the smooth-talking turkey approached the singing Corr siblings, he got his feathers ruffled.
"The Corrs won’t do a song with me – can you believe it?" the indignant bird told the Sunday World.
"But as far as I’m concerned," he huffed, "they’ve no talent and they’re trying to fool us all."
However, even Dustin had to concede, "They’re not bad-looking birds, though . . . I wouldn’t have minded doing a bit of a duet with [Andrea]."
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And though turkeys are not given to crowing, Dustin couldn’t resist: "Go on, Andrea, ya good thing!" he panted.
So, who gets their MTV (awards)?
Yes, the question’s been keeping all of us up nights ever since Boyzone won just two of those precious MTV Awards is: who gets to keep the statues?
After all, at last count, there were five Boyz, not to mention manager Louis Walsh, who surely must count as the sixth (and most important) Boy. And, though we’re no mathematician, even we know that two awards divided by five is . . . well, we don’t have time to do all the calculations now . . . for the sake of argument, let’s just say, it doesn’t go. So that leaves two awards, five chubby, outstretched fists, and a boatload of heartache. Sounds like a case for Judge Judy, right?
Wrong. You see, the boys play nice, and they’ve found a mature way to resolve problems: they call dibs, of course.
Now, for those of you who are not acquainted with the "dibs" system, first: Welcome to Planet Earth. Please don’t eat our cars, and be sure to take the Spice Girls back to whatever distant world you come from. Now that that’s out of the way: "dibs" are what one "calls" when there is competition among the many (say, siblings) for limited resources (say, the television in the living room). This avoids unnecessary fighting between siblings, unless of course, the person with "dibs" insists on watching something crappy, in which case the "dib-less" person can turn on the stereo full blast.
Anyway, since Boyzone is like one big, testosterone-heavy family, they use a modified dibs system. It seems that frontman Ronan Keating called dibs on the band’s first MTV award way back when the band was just starting out.
Said Stephen Gately, "Ronan got to keep one because he said at the very start that if we ever won an MTV award, he would like to hold on to it, and we all agreed."
Stephen got to keep the band’s other award, but says there’s a simple explanation.
"We always take turns to keep awards that come our way," he said. "Last week just happened to be my turn."
"Lucky me!"
Eternal-ly devoted to Shane
Lovely Eternal singer Easther, who’s married to battlin’ Boyzone boyo Shane Lynch, has revealed that her pugnacious pop singer is really just a pussycat at heart. Despite his altercation with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs at an aprés-MTV party last week, Easther says that Shane is a gentle soul who enjoys gardening and raising tropical fish.
When he’s not touring with the other Boyz or saying naughty words on television, Shane enjoys puttering around the couple’s London mansion.
"Shane is a very good gardener and he loves his fish," said Easther. "He’ll often sit in a room for hours on his own just staring at the tank."
This seems to make Easther just a tad uncomfortable, though.
"I think it’s quite mad, actually," she admitted.
Coming soon: Sweetie-V
An Irish production company is knee deep in plans to make a television documentary about the scandalous love affair between disgraced former Taoiseach Charles Haughey and caustic former gossip columnist Terry Keane.
There are reports that Tyrone Productions has been in negotiations with Keane to tell the story from her perspective. Haughey’s former lover has refused to comment.
The story of the love affair between the most powerful man in Ireland and the high-profile writer would no doubt make for "Must-See TV." Terry, whose bitchy "Keane Edge" column in the Sunday Independent was required reading for the high-flying social set, constantly made reference to her exploits with "Sweetie." It didn’t take a brain surgeon to deduce, from her descriptions, that "Sweetie" was a code name for Haughey.
Briefings
Blonde pop singer Christina Aguilera, who briefly dated Bryan from the Irish boy band Westlife, boasts that she’s half-Irish. Which leads us to wonder: is she a genie in a (Guinness) bottle?
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Robbie Williams will make a guest appearance on the hit TV show "Friends" sometime in the – yes, you know what’s coming – millennium.