Music's loss was acting's gain says Gillian Orr

'When I look in the mirror, I see someone who's caught up with his age'

For all their scream-inducing skills, British boy bands such as Take That consistently failed to colonise the bedroom walls of America's teenage girls.

In 2002, John Osborne won a competition on John Peel's Radio 1 show. The prize was a box of records from the DJ's shed, including such gems as Oizone – a punk Boyzone covers band – and Atom and his Package's "Pumping Iron for Enya".

Of all the implements you wouldn't expect to see Steve Mason – ex of The Beta Band and his own side projects, King Biscuit Time and Black Affair – to be wafting around in Kings Cross's dingy Scala, it's a light-up, see-through plastic tambourine. The kind of thing you might buy outside Manchester's Nynex Arena while queuing for a Boyzone gig... in 1995. It looks silly, but seems to fit in with a newfound lightness of soul in the Fife singer. One that was evident – albeit in parts – on his majestic 2010 LP, Boys Outside.

'New York is where I like to go to wind down'

A 4-0 humbling and a red card is a horrible day at the office. We'll have to be much better next game – it's only Chelsea at home!

Twenty years ago this week Kenny Dalglish called the most emotional press conference of his life, the one in which he announced he would be leaving Liverpool. It says something that there were vastly more television cameras jammed into the club's Melwood training ground for a routine discussion of this evening's encounter with Sparta Prague than there were in Anfield's Trophy Room in February 1991.

The chairwoman of the press watchdog today hit back at claims that the organisation is "toothless".

Victoria Richards counts down the top 10 cheesy tributes to our mums – and, four decades on, catches up with the boy for whom Opportunity Knocked

It's like they've never been away. Which, given the continuing existence of Westlife, they arguably haven't.

You couldn't make it up. First, it was compulsory sex education for teenagers. Now, five-year-olds are going to be taught it's wrong to beat women. Alan Johnson and Harriet Harman think they know better than parents; is nothing too sacred to stop meddling Labour ministers interfering? Whatever happened to the innocence of little children? I'm paraphrasing, but that's the right-wing reaction to one of the key elements of the Government's strategy to stop violence against girls and women. In reality, five-year-olds aren't going to be taught about domestic violence, although the Government believes they should be taught bullying is wrong. But let's not let facts stand in the way of a story.

Friends of Boyzone star Stephen Gately fear he may not have made a will.

Shows with Billy Joel cancelled as superstar recovers in hospital