Well done Marija, well done Europe!
Yes, indeed, well done Marija for winning Eurovision and well done Europe for choosing the best song and singer in the competition to win Eurovision. It is always good for a competition when the best team wins and I think this is what happened last night.
It seems as if many, especially in the UK, are not happy about the result, pointing, as they do to the voting patterns, where certain countries were (too) predictable in their voting, like the 12 points from Cyprus to Greece and the 12 points give to Turkey by Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland (with a similar pattern for Armenia).
Howvere, at the end of the day, I thought that the results last night, with just a couple of exceptions (the ex-pat votes for Armenia and Turkey) were absolutely spot on.
The top three fully justified their positions, Serbia very much deserving to win with their powerful and emotional ballad, sung extraordinarily well. Ukraine won the gimmick vote and Russia had a good song which sounded very good on the night.
In the meantime, the very worse songs were left at the bottom of the heap. I thought Ireland were the worst and they ended up bottom, with UK and Lithuania not far off.
You can argue about (some of the) placings in the middle, but it was good to see Bulgaria and Hungary getting recognition for their efforts. A pity that Sweden didn't do better as that was our second favourite of last night, but their sound was from the mid-70's heyday of glam rock adn might not have appealed to audiences who had missed out on that the first time round.
All in all, I thought they were a (nearly) perfect set of results. The Brits are complaining a lot about so-called bloc voting, but it is good that Serbia received some 'help' from its Balkan neighbours, otherwise the gimmicky song from Ukraine would have won, a result which the Brits seem to have preferred given that they gave 8 points to Ukriane and none to Serbia. Apparently the UK was one of only five countries NOT to award points to Serbia, which just goes to show how out-of-touch the UK is with the rest of Europe, when it comes to music. (It turns out that the UK also failed to give any points to The Netherlands in the semi-final as well, showing again that they would not be able to reognise a good song if it hit them in the face!).
Anyway, we had a great time at Annemiek's where Angelo joined us to give the votes of the Roman jury, as well as Jannig, a friend of Annemiek's who professed a complete absence of interest in Eurovision but was sporting enough to listen to all the songs and mark them up. Annemiek was serving us a delicious buffet, which unfortunately kept her in the kitchen most of the time. We three lads all had Serbia at the top, with Fred favouring Hunagry for second, above Sweden. Unfortunately, Annemike's television was a bit small so we could not really read the scores too well, but Serbia started off well and carried on well, winning fewer 12's than I had expected, but enough to win, nevertheless.
Time to go at the end of the evening and the three of us went to De Prik, where we danced to old and new Eurovision numbers until the early morning. Great fun!
posted by Charles Roffey and Fred O at 19:14
3 Comments:
The Jam, The Smiths, The Beatles, Oasis, The Stone Roses, Joy Division, Duran Duran, Sting, Arctic Monkeys. We don't about good music? Give over. Eurovision is not about real music and to add to this, the vast majority of the British public see the competition as a joke. It isn't taken seriously, evident in the way Terry Wogan commentates on the event. Looking at the Sunday papers, most of them are more annoyed with the fact that we put out such a poor song and group in. I just wish we pulled out of this waste of space on the TV schedule amongst other things that we've entered into in Europe.
I think Terry Wogan is one of the problems. His sarcastic comments quickly become cynical and then negative, so it is not a surprise that the British treat it as a joke.
The UK is good at commercial pop music and makes alot of money out of it.
Eurovision is different and needs to be taken on its own terms if you want to succeed. Serbia did this, by sending one of their top singers and promoting the song. The UK sent a bunch of silly people singing an annoying song. So, theer should be no reason to complain if they lose.
I just can't but help thinking that the best thing for us to leave Eurovision and let those countries that want to do well, enjoy themselves. The bedrock of the British music lies in pubs and small clubs across the country. Thats how our great bands were formed. There needs to be shift away from the large record companies and their undemocratic hold of the charts. If we pulled out of Eurovision, that money could be better spent on bringing up new talented acts, rather than promoting four hopeless people unable to dance or sing. The song was nothing short of crass.
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