So Ireland is to be represented at the Eurovision semi-final in May by a rubber turkey. How droll. Many fine folk were spitting feathers at Saturday's result, writes Killian Doyle.
"Michael Collins and De Valera must be doing cartwheels in their graves," they wailed and gnashed. "For what died the sons of Róisín? Was it birdseed?"
Personally, I fail to see what the fuss is about. Sure, it's a bit extraordinary, but then, haven't more than half of us been happily voting for turkeys - many of them unashamedly engaged in feathering their own nests - for years?
Anyway, with all the fuss about Dustin, few outside Mayo knew that a day before his victory, another song contest took place in Ballina.
Six hundred people - including the RSA's Wise Old Owl himself, Gay Byrne - showed up to hear the finalists performing their entries to S Factor, an event jointly organised by Mayo County Council and Midwest Radio to promote road safety.
The winner was a ditty with the achingly-catchy title of Cars and Coffins - which sounds like the name of a ZZ Top b-side - while the runner-up was the unfortunately-monikered Such a Fine Line, which, in another context, could be paean to society's other ill, cocaine.
Predictably, all concerned deemed the whole shebang a great success. I know I, for one, will be humming the winning tune for weeks. Not.
I'm sorry for being such a cynic. I don't wish to be denigrating their work, but I just fail to see how worthy singalongs are going to stop some bumfluffed boyracer ploughing his battered Civic into a wall.
The six final songs are to be put on a CD that will be distributed around all the schools in Mayo. Why? Do they expect their target audience to play them on repeat on their car stereos?
If they really want to get through to them, they should be knocking out mind-numbing hard house anthems and gangsta rap tunes imbued with subliminal messages. (How about "I am a careful driver, stringent law-abider . . ." to the tune of The Prodigy's Firestarter? That ought to do it.)
The two events got me thinking. No disrespect to the good people of Mayo, but I think a national campaign fronted by a misshapen muppet might be infinitely more effective. Step up Dustin, the gig's all yours.
Mad? Perhaps. But there is a precedent. Readers of a certain age (ie mine) were taught road safety by a floppy-eared hound called Judge, the Wanderly Wagon's voice of reason.
I'm delighted to report that I can still recite his Safe Cross Road almost verbatim, 30 years later. Judge's lyrics have been a divine intervention saving me from death on countless occasions. I haven't been run over in years. Even now, I find myself humming "One, look for a safe place . . ." as I watch hapless teenage junkies stumble headlong into traffic. They may not know it, but their generation is crying out for a new Judge.
Therefore, I propose Dustin be hired as Ireland's new face of road safety. Why not? Admittedly, he's not the greatest of role models. Most people would have to be buried up to their necks in guano to look up to him, given the fact he's only knee-high to a transport minister. But, as his Eurovision triumph showed, he's high enough up in the celebrity pecking order for at least some elements of the general public to listen to him. So I'm prepared to look beyond his shortcomings.
Granted, he's fairly unsubtle and uncouth in his delivery. But as long as he gets the message through to the birdbrains causing carnage on our roads, I don't care how he does it. Be it by fair means or fowl.