New & Noteworthy: Desert left them ‘Breathless’

By Eileen Murphy

Singing siblings Andrea and Sharon Corr took the title of their next single a bit too literally last week. While the band was filming the video for their new song, "Breathless," in California’s Mojave Desert, the two girls collapsed, overcome by the oppressive heat.

"Andrea keeled over all of a sudden," said a spokesman for the group. "While everyone rushed to help her, Sharon fell to the ground. The singers were stricken "within seconds of each other."

Shooting was suspended, and Andrea and Sharon were rushed to a local hospital, where they were treated for heat exhaustion and sunstroke.

But they make ’em tough in Dundalk. Within 24 hours, the Corr sisters were back on the set, dancing, singing and doing whatever it is pop stars do.

"The shoot for the video took a week," noted the spokesperson. "Obviously, the heat took its toll during that time."

Hey, Westlife: take THAT!

Anyone who doesn’t think guys are at least as catty as girls hasn’t spent much time listening to the bitchy remarks made by the members of boy bands.

This week, Take That alum Mark Owen took aim at all the members of the genre, while singling out fresh-faced Irish quintet, Westlife, saying that they’re "not his thing" and that his old band were "miles better" than anyone else.

"It’s as simple as that," he told the Irish Star newspaper.

"I’ve not seen anything come along since we split up that could touch what we did."

Owen’s remarks were prompted by the news that the Westies were named the biggest boy band in Britain last week by the Guinness Book of Hit Singles.

Owen, who’s in the process of trying to make a pop comeback as a solo act, had some faint praise for Westlife’s predecessors, Boyzone.

"Boyzone have done really well," he admitted. "Again, not my thing." Or does he mean, "not his bag, baby." Yeah.

Bono blows out the candles

Belated birthday wishes are due for Bono, who turned 40 on May 10. The singer told the Sunday Independent that he’s in denial over reaching this important milestone, but, really, he’s not getting older so much as getting better — if the voting for the "Sexiest Irish Man" is any indication.

Bono’s family and friends helped him mark the occasion with a blowout celebration, which began two weeks before the event. The U2 frontman had a four-day knees-up in Juan Les Pins in the South of France, where best buds Gavin Friday and Guggi preseted him with a painting of himself, titled (with a nod to James Joyce) "Portrait of the Artist as a Man."

Back home, the real party was held on the day with wife, Ali, and the kids at Bono’s Killiney home. And since no good Irish party begins and ends in the same place, the action moved to Dublin nightspot Renards, where the group partied until the wee hours. Not bad for an old geezer.

Sharing the birthday week with Bono were Andrea Corr (a mere child at 26) and singer Mary Coughlan, whom we’ll just call an ageless wonder (a roundabout way of saying that we’re not sure how many rings she’s got around the trunk).

But back to Bono. You know, we all say we’d like to make the world a better place, geez, if only we had the time. Bono, in addition to having achieved rock superstardom, written a movie and maintaining a successful marriage, has spearheaded the campaign to eliminate billions of dollars in Third World debt. Not too shabby for four decades.

MTV slapped for Boyz potty mouth

Whoever said that the wheels of justice grind slowly but surely certainly knew what they were talking about. We hear that MTV has gotten into hot water with the British Independent Television Commission over the music channel’s curse-loaded live broadcast of the MTV Europe Awards, which, as you recall, was held in Dublin last year.

Specifically, BITC objected to the obscenity-laced outbursts by Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson and Boyzone meathead Shane Lynch. The latter caused a stir when he announced that the rumors of the group’s imminent disbanding were just . . . let’s just say, it rhymes with ‘shucking fight.’ Imagine the embarrassment of the show’s host, squeaky-clean Boyzone hunk Ronan Keating.

Lynch’s remarks got him into hot water with the band’s manager, Louis Walsh, who objected to the language. Shane, whose brains may have been addled by one too many close calls on the racetrack, then called Walsh a "complete jerk" and said he was "seriously thick."

Of course, Walsh is laughing all the way to the bank, with his hot new ‘Zone clone, Westlife, breaking into the American pop scene, which always remained just out of Boyzone’s reach. Shane, meanwhile, races cars and swears to his heart’s content. Not that anyone cares.

Travelers don’t think Twink’s funny

Irish comedienne Twink recently found out that not everyone thinks she’s a laugh riot. The blonde funny woman, who got into a bit of a dust-up with a traveler who was camped near her Rathfarnham home a couple of months ago, has come under criticism for referring to travelers as "knackers."

Recently, Twink was invited to make an appearance on the "Late Late Show." But the 48-year-old entertainer wasn’t born yesterday.

"They wanted to bring me on to talk about this, for trial by television," she fumed.

"The only time I’ve been asked on to the show in my own right was when I got beaten up by an itinerant who broke into my house and stole my dog," she added.

Twink chased the woman, Kathleen Cash, up the lane to retrieve her pet. At that point, said Twink, "The [rhymes with switch] turned on me and beat the [rhymes with spit] out of me." Mrs. Cash insisted that her son thought the dog was lost. She also said that they’d had no idea that Twink was living there, since they had just moved up from Enniscorthy.

The comedienne adds that she’s too smart to be a sitting target on a TV talk show.

"No doubt one of the cheap, tacky researchers would have had the knackers in the audience in the hope that I’d get into a verbal contretemps with them. Duh!"

Ring them bells

James Bond won’t be walking up the aisle just yet.

Irish actor Pierce Brosnan has been forced to postpone his marriage to longtime love Keely Shay-Smith due to his son Sean’s health woes. The star’s 16-year-old son was injured in a horrific crash last month. Though the initial prognosis was good, reports indicate that the teenager has suffered some complications that will prevent him from traveling to Ireland for the wedding.

Upon hearing of his son’s worsening condition, Brosnan immediately flew to Malibu from the Dublin set of his current movie. He also called off the wedding, which was to have taken place at Ashford Castle this week. He and Keely are scrambling to find an alternate date for the wedding, which will be covered exclusively by Hello! Magazine.

For those of you who like to know what these things cost, the star has already paid a hefty £75,000 deposit to book the castle for the weekend. One night in the Presidential Suite costs £642, but for that kind of dough, you get to lounge in a bathtub that has solid gold taps (adjustable with one’s toes, of course — wouldn’t want to lean over and spill the champagne). If you’d like a full Irish breakfast, be prepared to cough up an extra £14.

Of course, Pierce Brosnan’s on-again, off-again wedding isn’t the only high-profile nuptial event planned for this year. Actress Victoria Smurfit, who by now qualifies as an old-timer on the Irish soap "Ballykissangel," will be getting hitched on Aug. 3 at a hush-hush ceremony somewhere outside London.

Victoria and her fiancee, Doug Baxter, will host a family-and-close-friends-only bash, which, she notes, has some disadvantages.

"The problem with not having a ‘media’ wedding is that it leaves room for speculation — not all of it good," she told the Sunday Independent.

"The truth is, my tongue is numb from licking invite envelopes, Doug’s back is broken from the move into our new home, and the date is set . . . Happy now? We are!"