The day I interviewed Dustin the Turkey

From the Boards.ie blog:



Given the fact I talk to people a lot professionally, it's rare that I'm completely speechless in someone's presence. In fact, it's happened only twice recently - one when Terry Pratchett joined us for soup in Clare and the other was yesterday when Dustin started talking to me.

One of the cool things about my job with Boards.ie is what it allows me to do interviews like this. I find other people's questions are always much better than what I could come up with - especially if they have an emotional connection to the subject - it's how the soccer forum members came up with such great questions for John O' Shea and Damien Duff.

Setting up an interview with someone as busy as Dustin is a difficult one. Not content with everything he's done on TV, on the Eurovision, musically or politically, he's also just completed a trip to South Africa with UNICEF to entertain children affected by HIV/AIDS, unemployment and poverty and been in the recent RTÉ show "Dustin: Twenty Years A-Pluckin'" celebrating his own 20 years on Television. So, yes, it was a bit of an ordeal.

However I got to meet Dustin in Kite Entertainment's offices yesterday. I was nervous - I knew he'd go for me but it wasn't until he popped up from under the desk and started talking that I was completely awestruck.

There's me, as part of my job, getting to sit in an office, to look at Dustin, to see his beak, his eyes, to hear the click of his lower beak on his upper beak, the Louis Copeland suit, to just be in the presence of someone who has been on my screen on in my ears so much - magical.



The interview itself went as well as any of mine do - I'm trying hard not to laugh, I'm reading the next question to make sure I neither stammer nor stutter and I'm trying to act professional, rather than just laughing along. Poor Niamh had to hold the camera and put up with his amorous advances. It was a brilliant experience.



You know, there's times that I feel very very lucky. As does the lovely Niamho.



You can follow Dustin on Twitter here.

You can see what Boards.ie members are saying about the interview here.

You can hear Dustin's entire back catalogue of albums (and buy them) here.

A huge thanks to all the Boards.ie members, to Darren in Kite Entertainment and of course to Dustin. You legend :)