Ireland picks puppet turkey for Eurovision

DUBLIN—Ireland has voted for a puppet, Dustin the Turkey, to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Belgrade in May. The puppet bird, which has been a star of various local television programmes for almost two decades, beat off five other finalists in RTE state broadcaster’s Eurosong 2008 late on Saturday.
The winning song, “Ireland Douze Pointe”, is a parody on the continental-wide song contest. Ireland has won the contest a record seven times and took the title three years in a row during the 1990s. But in recent years it has done badly.
In 2007 Ireland came last and it will now be up to Dustin, with his strong Dublin accent, to restore battered pride. Since he first came to prominence on an RTE children’s programme, Dustin has become somewhat of a cult figure. He unsuccessfully ran for president of Ireland and has recorded with Bob Geldof, the co-founder of Live Aid and a former frontman for the Boomtown Rats rock group.—Agencies