Westlife's Shane Filan sent out a message for the band's critics today: "Don't write us off just yet".

The Sligo singer said the chart-topping Irish act had no intention of calling it a day, and said he hoped the group would be around for at least another five years.

Shane was speaking ahead of tonight's concert at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.

Westlife will kick off their UK and Ireland tour in Belfast, playing three dates in the city before moving on to Cork and then Dublin.

He said: "We've always said that we would only quit when our fans stopped buying our albums and didn't want us around anymore.

"But our last album Face To Face was the most successful of the last five years and was in the top five best-selling albums of last year.

"We know people are waiting for the bubble to burst but the way we see it is that this is a long-term career for us.

"We all love being in Westlife, we enjoy recording, we enjoy touring. It's our lives.

"We never had any plans to retire when we hit 25. We intend to keep going. Our tour sold out, our albums and singles are doing well, so we have no reason to stop."

For the last three tours, Westlife have opted to start the ball rolling at the Odyssey Arena.

Shane said: "We love Belfast, firstly because the Odyssey is one of the best venues in Europe and secondly, because the fans there are absolutely mental and always give us a great reception."

Westlife themselves are also back in the studio to record another album. Shane said: "We've already got four or five songs written for it and it's looking good."

Which well known boyband singer had a narrow escape from an over-zealous female fan during a night out in London? The famous face got his people to "cover up" his close encounter with her in which he ended up slapping her silly. The gorgeous fella was forced
to fight his way out of trouble before fleeing a nightclub.

Brad Pitt is calling from France, where he's currently living to talk about a project close to his heart. No, not impending fatherhood, or his upcoming movies The Assassination of Jesse James, Babel, Ocean's Thirteen and The Sparrow. Instead, the 42-year-old superstar is pumped about a PBS documentary, Rx for Survival—The Heroes, which profiles people who have found solutions to world medical crises. "We wanted a celebrity who had done work on global health and poverty issues," says senior producer Lisa Mirowitz of her search for a narrator. "He was down-to-earth, patient and very educated about these topics." We couldn't agree more.

You're a $20-million-a-picture superstar. Why stop to do this project? The ultimate reason, of course, is that everybody matters equally. There's a great imbalance when you see so many people dying—especially kids—from mosquito bites or diarrhea. It tells me more should be done. And the main reason is that these kinds of issues don't seem to make our print and airtime. We're not getting this information. And our society has great ingenuity and great empathy and we could create more change.

So America's not doing enough to combat global poverty and disease? I'm not saying that. I'm saying we don't know enough. It's just not on our front page. What I like about the series is not only does it make the humanitarian argument, but it also makes the self-interest argument—that we should be paying attention to global health because diseases can certainly spread. We're all sitting in the same petri dish.

The documentary is about humanitarian heroes. Who are your heroes? The survivors. The people who are fighting every day under horrible circumstances to provide for their families.

Was there a wake-up moment for you? Well, for me, someone who's so fortunate, it became a question about equality. We may have all been created equally, but we're not born equally.

What have you seen that breaks your heart? You hold these children, who have already lost their parents to these diseases—TB, AIDS, malaria—and you know how vulnerable they are. And I look at them and I can't help but ask, "What is their future?" And my response is, "This is unacceptable." But I don't limit it to children—it's the families that really break my heart.

So what can people do? It's more than just witnessing it and saying it's a terrible situation. This should be our focus: the solution. This is where Bono has been very successful. Bono is a wonderfully dedicated beast unto himself. I find him very inspiring.

Did you learn anything from Rx for Survival? I did. I learned about how simple some of the solutions can be, like adding vitamin A to a child's diet prevents river blindness. As the documentary shows, vitamin A costs 2 cents for a dose. A bed net [to prevent malaria] is a third the price of a CD. These things aren't out of reach.

Are you planning any more humanitarian trips right now? What's next? No. My plan right now is to have a child...

Right. Congratulations! So can I ask— [Laughs] I'm absolutely not going to talk about that here.

OK. Well then, congratulations on doing a good thing and on getting yourself educated about some issues. Yeah, who'd have thought?

Rx for Survival — The Heroes is a two-hour special program that presents the stories of unsung champions who protect people worldwide from the ravages of threatening disease. Airing on PBS on April 12th.

DVDS

Brokeback Mountain
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Widescreen)
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Pan&Scan)
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Special Edition Widescreen)
Ambulance Girl
Qiu Ju
Bee Season (Richard Gere)
Crash (Director's Cut)
New York Doll
Returning Mickey Stern
The Story of an African Farm
The Big Question
Hawaii's Last Queen
Patton Oswalt: No Reason to Complain (uncensored)
Gorillaz - Demon Daze (Live)
Bob Dylan: 1975-1981 Rolling Thunder & The Gospel Years
Swept Away (non Madonna version)
Seven Beauties
9 to 5 (Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin)
Glamour Collection: Carole Lombard
Glamour Collection: Mae West
Glamour Collection: Malene Dietrich
Little Manhattan
Ushpizin
Africa Live - Roll Back Malaria Concert
Shoes for the Fisherman (Anthony Quinn)
Six Pack (Kenny Rogers)
The Miracle of Lady Fatima
Nun's Story (Audrey Hepburn)

CDs
The Vines - Vision Valley
Van Hunt - On the Jungle Floor
Flaming Lips - At War With Mystics
Eric Lindell - Change in the Weather
Nelson Rangell - Soul to Souls
LacunaCoil - Karma Code
Ani DiFranco - Live at Carnegie Hall
Blackmore's Night - Village Lanterne
Team - World Premiere
Lila Downs - La Cantina
Medeski Martin & Wood - Note Bleu
X 2006 (various christian contemporary)
Queensrych - Operation Mindcrime
Alligator Records - 35th Anniv.
Rascall Flatts - Me & My Gang
P!nk - I'm Not Dead
Morrissey - Ringleader of the Tormentors
Ultra Electro
Now 21
Erin Boheme - What Love Is
Umphrey's McGee - Safety in Numbers
5 Browns - No Boundries
Bubba Sparxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - Charm
Poison - 20 Years of Rock
Placido Domingo - Italia, Ti Amo
Concretes - In Colour
Pat Martino - Remember
Charles Lloyd - Sangam
Massive Attack - Collected
RBD - RBD Live in Hollywood
John Corbett - John Corbett
Girl Authority

Rebecca Romijn is settling down with her fiance Jerry O'Connell in an old brothel.

"It's called Wagon Wheel Ranch," the star of the WB's "Pepper Dennis" told Time for its issue on newsstands Monday. "Jerry was quite a bachelor when we met. There was nowhere to put your cocktail down in his place. Just the pingpong table."

O'Connell, who stars on NBC's "Crossing Jordan," and Romijn share a 1930s home north of Los Angeles. He put in 800 grapevines last year, and the couple plan to produce their own cabernet, Romijn told the magazine.

The 33-year-old actress, who plays a news reporter on "Pepper Dennis," offered little news on their wedding plans, other than to say it's "definitely" going to be this year.

Romijn, who split from John Stamos in 2004, also stars in the upcoming film "X-Men: The Last Stand."

A new film abut Napoleon Bonaparte’s relationship with a 14 year old girl is being brought to the big screen.

However, not everyone is happy about it…historians are insisting that Hollywood producers are putting a salacious spin on a very innocent relationship.

According to history Bonaparte was befriended by a young English girl Betsy Balcombe when he was exiled to the South Atlantic island of St Helena in 1815.

Napoleon was allegedly nothing more then a Uncle type figure to Balcombe but director Benjamin Ross is hoping to turn up the sauce volume on their relationship…so he has cast Scarlett Johansson to play the young English lass.

A historian Pete Hicks said: "It was a platonic relationship. It would be ridiculous to suggest anything else."

Ross has defended his film saying: "The facts are very interpretable. I'd be delighted to get historians jumping and down."

Or just moving would be good.

The cast of ABC's hit show 'Lost' took part in a photo shoot a few days back at beautiful Wamanalo Beach on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.

It may surprise you, but this was a reunion of sorts. The entire cast doesn't show up for every scene -- it's done in groups. So the photo shoot was an opportunity to reunite. Behind the scenes -- there was tension, wackiness and heat.

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) insisted on stopping the photo shoot numerous times to adjust her hair and make-up. Co-star Yunjin Kim (Sun) was none too pleased, shooting icy stares Evangeline's way.

Jorge Garcia (Hurley) -- who is supposed to be losing weight -- stopped off at a McDonalds beforehand, and then struggled to get into some of the clothes he wore for the shoot.

Naveen Andrews (Sayid) turned heads when he insisted on strutting around the set bare-chested.

Joker Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) did a bizarre "hobbit style" dance for co-star Josh Holloway (Sawyer) and his wife Yessica, much to the amusement of the crew.

Matthew Fox (Jack) - just like his surly character on the show - hardly spoke or interacted with his cast mates.

And, we're told that Michelle Rodriguez (Ana) and Cynthia Watros (Libby) were absent from the photo shoot. The women were arrested last December, both for allegedly driving under the influence, in separate incidents. Watros pleaded guilty to the charge and Rodriguez's case is pending.

Chad Michael Murray is engaged to his One Tree Hill crew member Kenzie Dalton, 18, the Insider has learned exclusively from a source close to the couple.

No other details were immediately available.

Murray, 24, was previously married to Sophia Bush, a co-star on One Tree Hill. The pair split last September after five months of marriage.

Pop star Britney Spears has been slammed as "wicked" and "sick" for hiring dwarves to entertain her husband's guests at his recent birthday bash.

Spears has been criticized by a host of foundations representing the interests of smaller people, who have branded the stunt at last month's (Mar. 21) surprise event utterly tasteless.

At the party, hosted in a Las Vegas, Nevada restaurant, two female dwarves were reportedly employed to carry in Kevin Federline's 28th birthday cake, while another dressed as a miniature Sonny Bono alongside a Cher look-alike.

Horrified sources claim boozy guests giggled and cheered, with some jokingly suggesting a dwarf-throwing contest.

But dwarf groups are enraged at the appearances, insisting the stunt was demeaning.

A member of America's Billy Barty Foundation - named after the late diminutive Hollywood veteran - says, "It is wicked to hurl abuse at anyone of diminished height simply because they are small.

"We know dwarves and midgets who are immense in stature because of their talent.

"Mostly they are able to rise above any insults. But inevitably, feelings are hurt by nasty comments. There's only one word for it - bullying."

As superstar TOM CRUISE awaits the arrival of both his first child with bride-to-be KATIE HOLMES as well as his highly anticipated blockbuster flick 'Mission: Impossible III,' he gets candid about his dyslexia, his volatile relationship with his father and his own childhood.

"I had no really close friend," he reveals in the April 9th edition of Parade magazine. "I was always the new kid with the wrong shoes, the wrong accent. I didn't have the friend to share things with and confide in."

Tom reveals that his father was also someone he was unable to turn to. "He was a bully and a coward," he says frankly. "He was the person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you."

The headline-making celebrity says the poor treatment actually taught him a lot. "It was a great lesson in my life -- how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang!" he says. "For me it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.' There's that anxiety."

Despite their tumultuous relationship, Tom says he did see his father one last time -- after a 10-year estrangement -- while he was terminally ill. "He was in the hospital dying of cancer, and he would only meet me on the basis that I didn't ask him anything about the past," he says. "When I saw him in pain, I thought, 'What a lonely life.' He was in his late 40s. It was sad."

The A-lister also opens up about his battle with dyslexia and recalls how perplexing it was for him to receive the diagnosis.

"The school took me to a psychiatrist to get tested," he says. "They said, 'Oh, he's dyslexic.' I'm labeled. It instantly put me into confusion. It was an absolute affront to my dignity."

It made him determined to get to the bottom of the condition. "I remember thinking, 'I've got to figure this out. What's normal? Am I normal? Who's to say what's normal?' I didn't understand what 'normal' is. It still doesn't make sense."

Sharon Stone is setting her sights on a singing career after her latest film Basic Instinct 2 flopped at the box office last weekend. Stone previously co-wrote "Come Together Now," last November's all-star song for U.S. hurricane relief, and is now aiming for the pop charts herself. After her appearance on a talk show last week, Stone reportedly hit a Manhattan recording studio, and insiders claim the actress has been writing songs with collaborators for the past year.

Courtney Love found a buyer for the 25 percent stake in Nirvana's lucrative back catalog last week, after holding on to the rights on her own for nearly 12 years. The buyer was Virgin Records' former COO/GM Larry Mestel, who now owns the music publishing company Primary Wave Music Publishing. When Cobain died, Love received 98 percent of the publishing rights while Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic received the other 2 percent.

"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming," said Love in a press release. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap. I own almost all of [the publishing] and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it."

Mestel explained, "The appeal to me is that Kurt was one of the most important songwriters of his time. Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."

With ownership of Cobain's music being passed along, not to a loved one but to a former record company employee, fans are speculating on how his music will be used, and how it might be exploited. Cobain was strongly opposed to corporate controls on the music industry. Mestel assures that his "goal is to keep the music very true to who the songwriter was and what his passions and tastes would be and to work through Courtney to figure out exactly the best way to go about exposing his music to a new youth culture to a new generation."

Earlier this year, while the sale was only a rumor, U2's Bono was one of the prospective buyers. Nothing, however, came of the meetings between Bono and Love.

Love also expressed her desire to keep the music untainted. "We're going to remain very tasteful," said Love, "and we're going to [retain] the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before." Nirvana's music has yet to be used in soundtracks or for commercial use, and both Love and Mestel aim to dispel any fears that Nirvana and Cobain's music might end up used in that way.

Though the fate of the Nirvana rights is still open, hopefully not to an exploitation akin to the Michael Jackson owned Beatles rights, the assurance that Love and Mestel will handle the music "tastefully" should set some minds at ease. It would be a shame to hear "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" in a tampon ad.

Rock singer-songwriter, Alejandra Guzman, introduced her latest album "Indeleble" from which the single "Volverte a amar" comes off and one week from hitting the market, it has already gone Golden Record after selling over 50 thousand copies.

In a spectacular way and wearing a tiny white tutu-kind dress, pink chroming boots and a matador-looking suit, the "Queen of rock" as she is known, gave a showcase to present to the media and a few fans, as well as friends and family "Indeleble".

The daughter of the actress and producer Silvia Pinal and the singer Enrique Guzman, opened her concert with the song "Quiero estar contigo".

For all those who said that Alejandra Guzman looked chubby or kind of big, the singer slowly and sensually performed a split, as well as a series of dance movements and steps, which let see her great physical and health condition.

"Indeleble" has eleven tracks such as: "Quiero estar contigo", "Dejalo", "No estoy llorando", "Al final de cuentas", "Volverte a amar", "Mujer", "Necesito amarme", "Tirando piedras", "Marta", "Bye bye" and "Sienteme a tu lado".

A homeless man accused of threatening Howard Stern and spitting on his girlfriend was arraigned in New York yesterday charged with menacing and harassment.

Gregory Forbes, 50, is accused of screaming at Stern Saturday night then charging the shock jock’s girlfriend, Beth Ostrosky, with both fists raised and spitting into her face. He did not enter a plea when he was arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court and is being held in jail.

The confrontation occured at about 8 p.m. Saturday as the couple left a restaurant on Manhattan’s West Side.

Sources told the New York Daily News that the wild-eyed fan recognized Stern and confronted the satellite radio gabber, screaming, “Howard!” The fan allegedly screamed and waved his arms, threatening Stern and Ostrosky - getting right in their faces and making them fear for their lives.

When the terrified couple jumped into a cab, Forbes chased after them with his fists raised and spit through the taxi’s open window into Ostrosky’s face, the court complaint charges.

Stern called police on his cell phone but by the time they arrived, Forbes was gone. So the long-haired shock jock hopped into an unmarked police car and helped search for the alleged attacker.

A few blocks away, two detectives spotted a man fitting Forbes’ description and Stern - from the safety of the unmarked police car - identified the suspect.

Stern, who is regularly approached by friendly fans on the street, was particularly shaken by the “deranged” man’s angry outbursts, a source close to the radio host told the Daily News.

“It was very upsetting and traumatic, but he was very pleased with the professionalism and responsiveness of the police,” the source said.

It is not the first time Stern has been the victim of violent fans. In one case, 10 years ago, a man was busted when he chased Stern’s limo while carrying a shotgun.

The obsessively private yakker recently hit the no-holds-barred satellite Sirius radio network. Stern said he discussed the matter on his radio show to get it out of the way but he is done talking about it.

The Foo Fighters mainman is currently back in the Los Angeles studio, getting behind the drums for Juliette & The Licks.

Following the departure of original Licks drummer Jason Morris, Grohl is picking up the sticks and helping record the band's second album -- the follow-up to 2005's full-length debut "You're Speaking My Language".

Tracks expected to appear on the LP include "Hot Kiss", "Mind Full Of Daggers" and "Bullshit King".

The album is scheduled for release in September, according to NME.

Juliette & The Licks are set to support Foo Fighters when they play London's Hyde Park on June 17. Also appearing on the bill will be Queens Of The Stone Age, Motorhead, Angels & Airwaves and The Subways.

In the Foo Fighters-relatred news, the band is still planning to do an acoustic tour, previously being under question. "We're going to start rehearsing very soon," drummer Taylor Hawkins told Billboard.com of the trek, which will focus on the softer side of their double album "In Your Honor."

Hawkins expects rehearsals to begin right after the April 24 completion of a two-week solo tour with his side band the Coattail Riders. The group's self-titled debut was released March 21 via Thrive Records.

Katie Couric, long-time co-host and star of NBC's "Today" show, is reportedly about to switch networks and trade in morning talk for the anchor's chair.

The Washington Post and USA Today both report on their Web sites that negotiators for Couric and CBS have reached a tentative deal. The reports say Couric will succeed Bob Schieffer as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" and become a regular on "60 Minutes." The CBS news broadcast is currently in third place. The deal would make Couric the first solo female network news anchor.

Speculation about the move has been rampant for nearly a year.

The two networks haven't commented on the latest reports.

John Stamos, who made a brief guest appearance on ER this season, will join the series as a regular in the fall, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Stamos will reprise his role as Tony Gates, a flirtatious paramedic who also is a medical student and a Gulf War veteran. Stamos is currently contracted by by ABC's comedy Jake in Progress, which was yanked after only one episode this season. Assuming Jake is cancelled, Stamos will make his debut as a full-time ER resident in the opening episode of the 13th season.