THE USUAL SUSPECTS

A TOTP crime squad feature

 A wave of crime is sweeping through the pop world. Rumours of indecent dress, attempted fraud and theft from hotels are rife. We have called in five particularly shifty young men for questioning...

In a world awash with boy bands, not all are as they seem. Turn over for the terrible truth behind these five angelic faces...

Filan, Egan, Feehily, McFadden and Byrne. You have been arrested in suspicion of committing a series of sneaky crimes under the the guise of a clean-living popular music band which operates by the name of Westlife. You have the right to remain silent but you should know that anything you do say can and may be used as evidence against you.

The fashion police are on patrol. Which Westlifer is most likely to be arrested for indecent clothes sense and slung in the back of the van?

KIAN: Shane! He can wear the silliest of things. Do you remember Tenerife? We all met up by the pool in our shorts and flip-flops and then Shane appeared: baseball cap, sunglasses, white vest, green summery shirt, swim shorts, bum bag...

BRYAN: Big white socks and black Nike trainers...

SHANE: No! Don’t remind me of that!

KIAN: we said, ‘Where are you going Shane?’ And he was all (puts on gormless voice), ‘What? What?’ He looked like such a tourist.

MARK: Shane’s not bad overall but that day he looked terrible.

SHANE: It’s a fair cop!

You've just finished a slap-up meal in a café but you've all forgotten your wallet. Who suggests doing a runner?

KIAN: Feehily definitely.

BRYAN: Yeah, Mark's really crafty. You could be sitting there chatting to him and without you noticing, he'll just get up and walk away. 

NICKY: If Mark did a runner and got caught, he'd be the kind of person who'd say, "What are you talking about? It wasn't me!"

MARK: (desperately trying to defend himself) Only for a laugh!

NICKY: I've seen him do it in a café at Heathrow Airport. He picked up a trayload of food, walked straight past the till and sat down.

MARK: You can't let TOTP print that! (Too late!)

You've bought a round of drinks at the hotel bar and the barman mistakes you for one of Five. Which of you guys craftily signs off the bill to Five's room without saying a word?

NICKY: Every one of us!

BRYAN: Hey, we'd never get mistaken for Five. In their dreams!

KIAN: Can I just say, we didn't say any of that stuff in the papers about wanting to beat up Five!

MARK: We weren't even misquoted. It was made up.

NICKY: It made us look silly though cause Five supposedly called us "boring wimps" and we apparently called them (puts on wimpy voice) "rude thugs". As if!

You see some horrible graffiti about Westlife. Who would whip out their marker pen and retaliate?

NICKY: If I sow something horrible about me I'd probably write something in return but if it was about the band I'd ignore it. We saw an awful lot of horrible things about Boyzone when they first started out. You know, nasty names and that.

BRYAN: I once vandalised a Westlife poster in Dublin. I drew moustaches and glasses on our faces.

SHANE: The next day I said to Bryan, "Did you see our posters with graffiti all over them?" he cracked up and I couldn't figure out why!

NICKY: I look up the music page on Ceefax every day and last night I read a letter from this guy slagging Fool Again , He was saying, "Don't Westlife ever do anything upbeat?".

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