It’s the cultural high point of the year
Above is Daz Sampson’s Teenage Life, the UK entry for Eurovision 2006. It could be a classic this year. Finland have sent Lordi, Germany have sent their best entry since Stefan Raab (inventor of wok racing) with Texas Lightning. Iceland’s entry Congratulations by Silvia Night included a line which may, or may not be, “The vote is in, I’ll f*****g win”. Sadly it didn’t get past the semi-final being as it was beaten by Armenia and 22 other countries. It didn’t work for Cliff Richard either — he came second when he sang Congratulations.
I’m wary of making predictions because voting in the Eurovision is so variable. I’ll stick my neck out and say that Cyprus might give Greece 12 points this year. There’s something about the Greek entry with year that might go down well with the Cypriote public.
It’s usual when the British entry does badly to blame block voting by small countries. There’s also broader political influence as well. Jemini lost out in 2003, scoring zero in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, which I thought was unfair. When you listen to the performance impartially then really you can only come to the conclusion that it’s a shame you can’t give out negative points. They said the performance was off-key due to technical glitches. Yet on some notes they weren’t merely off-key but off-crowbar too whilst trying to break into the Mansion of Melody.
There’s an interview with Daz Sampson on YouTube. I saw him on News24 as well yesterday. I agree with him, one reason for some poor UK results is that we’ve sent some terrible stuff. Recently the UK and some other countries have sent aural wallpaper. If the fun entries do well this year then hopefully there’ll be more to watch at Eurovision than the voting.
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I watched it as I have every year for the past decade or so on 12 hour delay here in Australia. It’s true that the UK has sent some crappy acts over the years but the main reason why it doesn’t ever win is the same reason why Germany and France never do.
Former European Great Powers have no continental allies and therefore don’t have enough solidarity to vote in blocs. While the Greek / Cyprus thing is predictable, they’ve got nothing on the Balts and the F.Y.R. of x’s. Just consider the fact that Montenegro is headed for independence! (groan). I did notice a new alliance forming between the Greeks and Armenians. Presumably their recent histories give them plenty to bitch about. I doubt Turkey will be stupid enough to give Greece 12 points again like they did last year (which of course went unreciprocated).
Personally I’d like to see a Classical World bloc to counter to the threat of yet another Scandinavian or Balkan win but obvuiously there’s no present day basis for such an alliance. Portugal and Spain continue to act as though they inhabit completely different universes.
Anyway the only way Britain could have a chance of winning Eurovision these days is if it did a Yugoslavia and ran separate contestants for Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and every friggin island in the Channel. At least Ireland and the UK have finally worked out that at least they should be voting for one another.
I nearly forgot my main point:
Romania was robbed. The alliance with Moldova wasn’t enough to even register.
When Germany came on I thought it was an interlude and they’d brought some professional musicians in. I thought they had the best of the evening. Malta can feel hard done by. It wasn’t a brilliant song, but it wasn’t that bad.
I did have a post on block voting, but I think a power cut may have eaten it.
Yes but I’m interested in what Germany come up with (just don’t mention the war).
I’ll have to respectfully disagree about Malta. I wasn’t so much the song as the singer who was a little off-pitch. I didn’t watch the semis so it may have just been a glitch on the night. The same thing happened to that Macedonian girl who I had high, er, hopes for.
I mean that Germany comes up with something a bit different every year but they will never win.