“Shawry…” slurs Ronan Keating in Boyzone’s ode to forgiveness, Baby Can I Hold You. What he means is ’sorry’, but when it comes to Keating’s irritating fake singing voice, you’d be forgiven for mis-hearing.

Anyway, that Boyzone reunion mustn’t be meeting the same levels of success as their arch-rivals Take That, because I read today that they’re apologising for starting a ruck in Dublin during the 2000 MTV Music Awards.

You remember the incident? Shane ‘Eyebrows’ Lynch decided to square up to Sean ‘Puff ‘P.Diddy’ Daddy’ Combs, after one too many shandies. Apparently, they recently told the Daily Star:

We’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to the channel. As a band we are really keen to bury the hatchet. Back in those days, Shane thought if we went prepared we wouldn’t win anything. He’d had more than a few pints to calm his nerves. Because he was drunk he ended up effing and blinding on stage and later had a fight with P Diddy and proper slapped him on the head. That wasn’t very representative of the band. He didn’t show any respect and is very sorry.

I notice no apologies for Ronan Keating’s solo career were made, surely the biggest insult to the fans. In some ways, it’s like the time they made Tony Blair get up and apologise for atrocities during the World War – no-one can quite understand why the apology is being made now, and what difference is it going to make anyway?

My own suspicion is that Boyzone’s awfully dull comeback single isn’t performing to expectations and they’re kissing up to MTV for a bit more screen time. Which shows how out of touch they are, considering the channel hasn’t properly shown music videos since the turn of the Millennium or something.

You heard me right, Maurice Starr’s all-singing, all-dancing boyband, New Kids On The Block are reforming. With all these 90’s pop acts reuniting, there has never been a better time to have a midlife crisis.

Funnily enough, we were sitting in the kitchen the other day trying to remember the dance moves to The Right Stuff. When it comes to music gossip, I swear I’m psychic!

All the furore about New Kids reforming seems to centre around their suddenly-active-again website. As yet, there’s no official confirmation of a reunion, or indeed whether original manager Maurice Starr is behind the venture.

Word on the street is that there’ll be some kind of announcement in the next couple of weeks. Before they split, they shortened the name of the group to NKOTB – which was popular with fans, but confused everybody else. Now that they’re older (and presumably more brand-savvy), I predict they’ll revert to the full ‘New Kids On The Block’ moniker. Even if ‘Kids’ is really stretching it at this point – the youngest member, Joey McIntyre, is 36 this year.

If you weren’t there at the time, New Kids had a virtually unchallenged rise to fame and became the biggest boyband in the world between 1988 and 1992. The Hangin’ Tough album is probably their best known, followed by Step By Step a couple of years later. The group released a remix album called No More Games, but at that point they seemed to be on the slide.

I distinctly remember feeling that Donnie Wahlberg was the most restless member of the group. Not only did he have a wild streak, resulting in an unfortunate arson-type incident in a hotel, but he also seemed to have a growing thing for rap music, which was less in keeping with the NKOTB image.

Anyway, as they faded from the scene and eventually disbanded in 1994, they still paved the scene for the string of boyband acts in the UK that followed: Take That, Boyzone and the rest.

So, an NKOTB reunion could be either very awesome, or very sad indeed. Now, apparently Danny Wood has dismissed the rumours, but sure we’ll speculate a little bit anyway, shall we? They probably just forgot to tell him…

I think legally no publication in the UK is allowed to criticise the Gossip or Beth Ditto at the moment. Ditto seems to have become an overnight sensation and media darling in the UK. It’s not without substance either, because while you’ll read a lot about her view on weight issues, she’s a disarmingly funny and entertaining personality. I watched her guest stint on the Friday Night Project, and loved her sense of humour.

Having addressed the cult of Ditto, Gossip are in the unfortunate position of having masses of tabloid coverage, but little in the way of musical legacy for us to refer to. The biggest release to date was Standing In The Way Of Control, a punk/disco anthem that had virtually universal appeal.

In fairness, if Gossip had released another song like Standing In The Way, I’d have written them off as an unimaginative gimmick act. Other commentators have said that Jealous Girls lacks the substance of the other track, but I’d argue that it shows they have some diversity.

This song is much more minimalist, with a basic drum beat and basic bas and guitar backing, allowing Ditto’s excellent vocal to shine through. It may not have the immediacy of its predecessor, but I reckon folk will warm to it.

By the way, loved the quote over on Fake DIY about how

finally ‘Jealous Girls’ is seeing the light of day, and hopefully about to rescue Gossip’s much-touted credibility. Or, at least convince Beth Ditto’s New Look fanbase she’s not just ‘that girl what sings that song off tv’”

The Jealous Girls Video

WTF? Venetian blinds and a red and blue lighting scheme from the 80’s. Denim jacket and white bow in Ms Ditto’s hair. The Jealous Girls video is a celebration of all things lo-fi.

The bowl haircut makes her look a bit too much like her mucker, Kelly Osbourne: