Here’s a terrifying fact. Irish boy band Westlife have racked up more UK number ones than anyone except The Beatles or Elvis, and if that isn’t enough to destroy your faith in this once-proud country, then you might as well get dressed up in full Nazi regalia and kick the head off a statue of Winston Churchill.
But enough. Some people like Westlife, and don’t care who knows it. And evidently publishers HarperCollins are hoping that enough of them will be let out by their carers andor nurses to buy Westlife - Our Story when it hits shelves with a limp thud this week.
The book promises a rip-roaring account of the boy band’s meteoric rise from the slums of Dublin to the dizzy heights of being voted “best new tour act” at the 1998 Smash Hits Poll Winners party. Along the way, they warble alongside Mariah Carey, lose hamster-faced fifth member Brian McFadden (he walks in 2004 to pursue alleged “solo projects”), and release nine albums of what can only be described as music, but probably wouldn’t be by anyone in possession of a soul.
You have been warned.
