Be Excellent To Each Other

Eurovision is one source of amusement that i really dislike being just once an year. Me and a couple of friends had a party and lots of laughs as usual at my place. Political voting (and to most part countries with most emigrants) rendered the whole thing completely unfair. But seeing the Russian gay-ice skater and the songs from Latvia, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Spain and the hot Ukrainian just reminded me what this festival is all about.

Yes, Western countries nowadays have 0% chance of winning it, but the festival is still the funniest thing around. Anyone cares about it at all?

I love it, but the voting annoys me. My plan is that you split the votes into Eastern and Western blocks and only allow Western countries to vote for those in the Eastern block and vice versa.

A load of old dross since they started to let any two bit country take part. The glory years are long gone and the song contest has been a joke for the last 10 years or so.

So let us remember Eurovision before it got ruined by a load of ex-communists and hi-jacked by the (happy's - Ed).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F09DJR9iiHY - The bastard off-spring of Mike Reid and David Icke almost wins in 1988. Beaten by that well known Swiss person, Celine Dione......

Although personally next year I'd send these guys back to express just how shit the UK is these days: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcs3JG90nZc

Why is the UK shit? I like the UK and can't think that I'd prefer to live in many of the other countries taking part in the contest, unless I wanted to go back to a really crap part of the UK in the early 1980s...

It's because of foreigners apparently. And Labour. Britain has gone to the dogs etc.

I thought that said Brian.

Who may well have gone to the dogs.

Someone told me to f**k off back to my own country the other day, which upset me a bit as this IS my own country

Oh, she told me this because she knocked me over trying to grab the shopping trolley that I had (it was the last 'small' trolley - you know how precious they are). I said she was very rude, and that was her reply

So at least it was a short trip.

It's not foreign people that do make parts of this country crap, it's the Britainers

No, I do like the UK - yeah, there are pockets of not-so-nice places, but generally I like it very much. In this part of London there is a bit of degredation) nothing like there used to be, though, the improvements are quite astounding) and there is some gun crime within certain areas of the community, but, generally, people just get on with their lives and get along. Most racism exists in the older generation (not out and out abusive racism, just that stupid and pathetic kind that means that people never give up their seat to an older person unless that person is of their same race, that kind of thing...) I can't remember why I am talking about this now...

But anyway, back to the Eurovision song contest - we'll never get any votes. Also, the small mindedness of some countries means that even if there weren't such block voting our daringness to have voted forward a black entrant means that we wouldn't have had a Ben 'n' Jerry's tub of gorgeous cookie doug ice-cream with large doughy chunks of biscuit in hells chance of winning, anyway.

yes, this whole block voting thing stinks, but imo the british song wasn't any good, so you shouldn't complain only about the voting.

I voted for Finland (mostly for being such a metal loyalist, because the song wasn't that good), but i had to resist the urge to vote for either Azerbaijan or Spain.

I voted for Latvia.

yes, the pirate song was also quite amusing. "Wolves of the sea" by the "Pirates of the Sea".

We had about 9 people in our room, drinking and giving scores to all the acts.

Russia finished 21st out of 25 in our room.

Boo-urns, Europe!

The answer does of course lie somewhere in between, but equally, Cyprus gives Greece 12 points every year, regardless of genre or merit.

That's NOT shared musical taste.

Of course equally, even if every country votes political, points from 5 or 6 down are up for grabs, that's 150 points these days. If you don't get 100 it's not block voting, you really were just shit.

My thoughts on the Final:

Despite the fact that Georgia has only been in it 2 years, they have so far had two songs I've enjoyed. Also I didn't know that was where Rhydians are bred. El Chiki Chiki is really growing on me now and not just in a LOL. FUNY SPANsH. way. I don't like the look of the French guy but his song is quite nice. Greece sounded too American. I suppose Ukraine did as well even though I thought that was a pretty good contender for victory. Iceland get extra credit for being utterly Europop with 'Euroband'. That Swedish woman looked more like a man in drag and her song was boring. The Norwegian woman looked like she could probably fight her way to victory even though her song was rubbish. Nice to see the Finns being Finns. Again. I expect their national anthem has now been re-written for rock guitar. Why did Germany enter three girls that can't sing? Albanian rock ballad singers are hott. That Russian song and performance was dreadful. Latvia has been watching too much lazy town but they're all the better for it. I don't know if there's some funny pollution making the Bosnians a bit mental but whatever causes it, I'm pleased that it is. That Armenian woman had a delightfully nasal voice. Turkey guy was a bit like the scary bloke from NCIS and frightened me. Azerbaijan was vastly overrated, even the gimmick didn't impress me.

I actually picked the Ukraine one for victory. My dad picked Greece.

Much hilarity as throughout the 2nd half, the Ukrainians caught and passed the Greeks.

It's true that we used to put in much stronger entries. In the late 80's, early 90's the UK had a consistant run of high rankings with very strong entries.

This page details our entries:

http://www.squidoo.com/eurovisionsongsuk (that page contains links to Youtube versions of the songs as well)

Scott Fitzgerald in '88 (2nd, beaten by Celine Dione), and in '89 with Live Report (again 2nd),

Micheal Ball was certainly not a lightweight when he came 2nd in 1992, and Sonia again came second in 1993.

All of those entries were more memorable than the winners, but at least they scored well. What decent performer in their right mind would want to do Eurovision now?

The entire thing is just a farce. To be fair the entries in the last 10 years or so have generally been quite shit, but who would risk their career with a Eurovision disaster? There was no shame for Micheal Ball when he came second, but with the voting these days you'd be lucky to scrape 10th. And who wants that? So only no hopers are willing to give it a go.

The ukranian singer was smokin hot. Can't really complain about some eye candy in the competition.

It's not just about political voting. Countries like Greece and Turkey who have emigrants in many other European countries also benefit from this type of voting. Obviously there has to be some merit, but imo the russian song was dreadful. The beginning sounded to much like "unbreak my heart". They got some amusement-points for me for all the funny homosexuality.

Finally Portugal had a decent song, and our fat girl has one hell of a voice. Since we only usually get points from Spain, a 13th place is very good.

And i can't get the Spanish song out of my head!!!!

I liked the old people singing that swing/jazz type affair.

I also liked the indie-rock Foo-Fighters-esque one, whichever country that was.

Germany was possibly the worst entry I've ever seen, other than Jemini.

Can we have this as the BETEO anthem?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_wsvqsU2IY

no way

the Portuguese 1989 entry is the one! Nothing more epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4maqpk6SiA

be sure to check at 1:55

I actually really like Russia's song from last year, and yet that piece of crap wins.

I like both the greek and ukrainian efforts.

Ken Bruce there, proving that there is indeed such a thing as a face for radio.

A strangely epic euro song with a video that is obviously dirt cheap but has glamourous locations and aerial shots. Trouble is that the video helps make the song, I suspect the performence on the night wasn't as good.

Of course, we are forgeting the year that CUS entered. Shame he started to howl at 1:30 or he might have scored some points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxkRc2VZJqU

Or the year Trevor And Simon represented Norwary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTbibIHjo9I

You've really got to stick with that one. It goes from just plain odd to utterly surreal at about 60 seconds in. You just don't get the real batshit crazy stuff at Eurovision anymore.

i suppose black metal was born afterwards, just like Punk was born as a reaction to prog.

But man, that 2nd clip is really awesome. I wonder what we're going to think of the spanish song in 30 years. I bet that song is like a fine wine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yuQD-hMKUg

the (very short) solo at 2:00 still makes me want to air guitar tough.

Air guitar like a total mentalist who may well knock out other members of the band with his guitar!

And when it comes to total mentalists the Germans are hard to beat. This is a rather cheap Bony M rip off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4OptTvX4I0

I feel it could be improved if they shot flames or rockets from their arms when they do the pointing bit in their dance.

And there's the year that Grim.. entered......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6yFvYOBeXo&feature=related

[runs very fast]

You obviously missed Greece hosting the thing a couple of years ago. An opening dance number with about 100 clones of Selhurst The Eagle, a fleshcrafted Tzimisce piano, a dancing robot box-file, We Are The Winners! Of Eurovision!, seven thousand shots of the local motorway plus Lordi. I nearly ruptured something laughing.

I missed this year's because of Rock Band, though.

Opening acts and the other entertainment they lay on doesn't count, that has always been batshit crazy.

I don't class Lordi as that odd, they had quite mainstream appeal. We Are The Winners doesn't quite have the crazy nature of the two links I posted above. I mean, these lyrics:

"Let your hip go hippety pump pump
That's the way we dance till we die.. ay ay ay...
Let your hip go hippety pump pump
Give me shivers all down my spine... ay ay ay...
You are not a moment's playmate
You are the man of my life
Let your hip go hippety pump pump
That's the way we dance till we die.. ay ay ay...

Indeed.