World of Chig

Eurovision with attitude - part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:22:00 +0000

And finally,

Please do let me know if you read it, as the attitude website doesn't get many comments, so I'm not getting much feedback. I'd appreciate it, whether the feedback is positive or negative or in between.

Eurovision final - pointless predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:07:00 +0000

Before I came out to Düsseldorf, I was jokingly saying to anyone who asked that I had narrowed down the possible winners to nine countries. It was just a figure plucked out of the air, nothing scientific. I hadn't actually counted. On a positive note, none of the songs I thought could win were amongst the eighteen who have been sent home from the two semi-finals. The rubbish has been cleared out very well this year.

So, yesterday, I did actually count the contenders amongst the 25 finalists, and it would seem I have now narrowed down the possible winners... to eleven! Oh dear.

Really, this year is very difficult to predict those countries at the top, unless the bookies have been right all along and it really is France. I won't complain if we're in Paris next year. In fact, I would love it, but we'll probably never hear the song again after tonight's reprise and it won't be a pan-European hit single.

And there's the rub. According to several people (but I haven't seen it in print - shoddy journalism, I know), the EBU's instructions to the juries say that they should be thinking about the potential to produce a hit song from the contest. I am confident that Ireland's Jedward are going to do well in televotes all over the place, but if this is what the juries have to do, I think it will swing enough jury votes in their favour as well. They also have to look out for presentation and choreography; more points in Jedward's favour. So, I think Ireland are going to win. And who would have thought that, even two months ago? Louis Walsh is here to see it, bless him, as he was on Thursday. He's been the manager of Irish Eurovision winners before, with Linda Martin and Johnny Logan, so if he does it again as Jedward's manager, there really must be something magical about the man.

So, my rough guess for the top of the leaderboard is something like this, but really, you may as well throw the country names up in the air and see how they land. I have no idea.

1. Ireland
2. Germany
3. France
4. Azerbaijan
5. Ukraine
6. Finland
7. Austria
8. Russia
9. Iceland
10. Bosnia-Herzegovina
11. Denmark
12. UK

Unfortunately, the presentation of Blue's song, with their unsuitable suits and the green lighting, makes me think we might not be top ten, but we won't be bottom either. It's 14 years since a UK win, it's the 14th today and Blue sing in position 14. Make of that what you will.

There's one major new innovation this year, which should add some drama to the voting. The order in which countries give their votes has only been determined TODAY by the EBU. It has been published, with Moldova, Belgium and Latvia ending the voting. (The UK votes 13th. Shame it's not 14th, eh?) They have manipulated the vote announcements in order to maximise tension, which is a great idea. It's based on an algorithm worked out by an academic. (No time now for proper research on this!) It takes into account the jury votes, which the EBU already knows, as they voted on last night's rehearsal, mixed in with predictions of the televote, based on each country's televoting history. The order would seem to imply that Russia or the UK will be up there near the end, which is intriguing and obviously runs contrary to my predictions. We shall see.

I'll be watching on the screens in the media sports hall, along with lots of friends. You may think it's strange to come all this way and not go into the arena, but it's too expensive. We have touted around for tickets, and there are some going, but they're up in the gods and it's just not worth it. I saw the show in the arena yesterday in the first rehearsal, so that's good enough for me. I won't see the interval act live though, and we were cleared out of the hall yesterday so that we couldn't see some other surprise that's planned, so I don't know what it is and I look forward to it.

What I was planning to do, as I did very enjoyably in Kyiv and Beograd, was to watch the final outside, or in a bar in the city centre. There are many options available in the Altstadt and City Zentrum, but it's too far away. In 2005, we could easily run back from Independence Square in Kyiv, and I made it to Helena Paparizou's winner's conference before she did, but here, with the distance involved to the city centre and the parking jobsworths here at the arena, who would make me park a zillion miles away on my return, it's physically impossible, which is a real shame. In addition, the closing party seems so limited in size that no one has even mentioned us getting tickets, never mind being given one. So, as we were excluded from the opening party as well, my tenth Eurovision will be the first where I've missed the opening and closing parties. I'll be celebrating with a soft drink in the car as I drive back to the campsite at 2am. Don't feel sorry for me; it really is great to be here and I realise how privileged we are. It's been a lot of fun, but very tiring and very stressful at times.

Enjoy the show, and I wish Jedward and Blue the very best of luck.

I'm in a podcast!

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Sat, 14 May 2011 16:57:00 +0000

The lovely people at and John Kennedy O'Connor, who wrote '. You can either listen to the podcast online or download it as an mp3 and listen to it at your leisure.

It's 54 minutes long, so you'll probably have more fun listening to it tomorrow, when you can laugh your socks off at how ridiculously wrong our predictions were.

Eurovision with attitude - part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Sat, 14 May 2011 09:13:00 +0000

My second report on the attitude website went up two days ago (Thursday) as a preview of semi-final two and Jedward.
Blue turned up the UK and Irish fans' party last night, which was very good of them. I trouped in immediately after them, as the fifth member, and pretended the cheering was for me. Lee drank a pint of Guinness in about 15 seconds (above), while Duncan said what I was thinking and wondered how that might affect Lee's voice for Saturday. (We so depend on Lee's high notes in 'I Can', it's frightening.)

On the way in, Duncan very graciously apologised to me for the drunken conversation we'd had the night before. He said he'd been very drunk indeed.

Which was very nice of him, especially as we hadn't met the night before. We hadn't even been in the same venue. (I did tell him.)

Still, you can never have too much apologising from celebrities, I feel. And at least if proves that Mr James is a very polite young man, with a conscience. We like.

Eurovision with attitude

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:54:00 +0000

What we didn't know, while we were happily watching the first Eurovision semi-final on Tuesday, was that there was 'pandemonium' in the commentators' area, because the feed from the arena back to the national broadcasters failed in many places. A sound desk failed in some way. This affected many countries, including Germany themselves, Ireland and Finland. These countries had no commentary for several songs. Many countries' commentators resorted to using their mobiles to phone in their commentary. My friend Juha said that watching German TV was like going back to the 1950s, with the phoned-in commentary. Scott Mills was less affected, because he was doing the BBC three commentary from London, which turned out to be a good move after all. Israel never have a commentator, so no one will have noticed anything untoward there.

I've heard that some commentators have gone back to their own countries for tonight's semi-final, to commentate from studios at home. They don't trust that it won't happen again.

Vorsprung Durch Technik.

As they've probably stopped saying now in Germany.

Results

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:03:00 +0000

Serbia - good.
Lithuania - shocked faces in here, but I did say she was good!
Greece - of course, as predicted.
Azerbaijan - predictable.
Georgia - yes! Shocked faces in here again.
Switzerland - credit where it's due, excellent!
Hungary - The Gays voted
Finland - of course

So now I'm thinking it's Russia and Turkey

9. Russia

So Iceland must have missed out, as the last one must be Turkey or Armenia...

10. Iceland! I screamed!

So, we've lost Turkey, Armenia and Albania, who all usually qualify! Wow! It looks like the 50% jury votes are really working, and it's not just the usual suspects getting through, but the good songs. Well done to Switzerland and Lithuania.

Interval act

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:52:00 +0000

In German, we call it...."drumline". In English, we call it... a bit boring. Put the kettle on.

Hier bin ich.

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:42:00 +0000

That's me, right now. Note healthy apple. We keep being given them by people whose sole job is to give out apples.

Interval film

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:40:00 +0000

What IS this song? I keep hearing it on the radio in the car.

Time for a photo of Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:34:00 +0000

Here they are, the UK's hopefuls. What the one in the red is hopeful about is anyone's guess...

Reprise

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:33:00 +0000

Phew! All nineteen songs successfully blogged, as they happened . Feel free to add your own abusive comments in the appropriate places below. I might have changed my mind about a couple of my qualifiers now. Hmmm. Thinking hat on...

19 Greece - Watch My Dance - Loukas Giorkas feat. Stereo Mike

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:26:00 +0000

In many eyes (and ears), Greece's worst entry for years. (Didn't I say that about Russia and Turkey as well?) Loukas is probably the best looking man in tonight's contest as well. The mix of rap and epic Greek wailing is peculiar, but I quite like the weirdness.

Qualifying? Yes, it's Greece, but it won't be as high as they usually are.

18 Azerbaijan - Running Scared - Ell & Nikki

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:24:00 +0000

From the box marked 'Strongly Fancied', here's Sweden's entry, labelled as Azeri. A Swedish song, with Swedish choreography and Swedish backing singers. It's nice, but when did nice ever win?

Qualifying? A dead cert.

17 Lithuania - C'est Ma Vie - Evelina Sašenko

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I've just been spooked by google ads. They're offering me properties in Portugal already, just because I wrote the word 'Portugal' below.

Now, Lithuania. Every year, there's a song that passes me by. I don't play it and I miss both rehearsals. This is that song, this year.

Actually, it's quite beautiful, in an old-fashioned, epic kinda way. I just announced to the table that this is actually quite good. "It's like worms crawling inside my skin," says Nina. Oh well.

16 Portugal - A luta é alegria - Homens da Luta

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:15:00 +0000

I don't really know where to start. They're great fun in conferences, but how is a comedy song in Portuguese going to attract votes?

Qualifying? No, but it IS catchy, so...

15 Hungary - What About My Dreams? - Kati Wolf

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:11:00 +0000

Big with the gays. Sadly, it doesn't look like it sounds in a club. May scrape through with the pink vote, but it really isn't presented very well.

Qualifying? Yes, just about.

Green Room break

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Don't those pink rooms look amazing? Much whooping on our table as a doll that the guy opposite me made for Stella Mwangi has just appeared on the telly!

14 Iceland - Coming Home - Sjonni's Friends

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:05:00 +0000

I thought this was another potential winner of the whole shebang, in an Olsen Brothers way, but now I'm not sure it's lively enough. If the story of this song is being relayed by commentators across Europe though, it'll do well. I was almost in tears when I heard this the other day. (The guy who was supposed to perform it died earlier this year, just before the Icelandic final. He was about 36 and died of a heart attack. His widow rewrote the lyric and his friends are performing it. She's here in Düsseldorf. It must be very hard for her.

Qualifying? Yes.

13 Croatia - Celebrate - Daria

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:01:00 +0000

She is, as Wogan would have said, a handsome woman. Why Gerry Sadowitz is DJ-ing for her is anybody's guess. I can vouch that she has a belter of a voice, as I've seen her do two shows in the last few days. The magic act just distracts from a half decent party song though. Shame they changed the title from 'Break A Leg'. It would have confused a lot of people.

Qualifying? Depends on The Gays. But probably not.

12 San Marino - Stand By - Senit

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Welcome back, San Marino. Couldn't really keep away once Italy returned, could you? Senit has, by all accounts from her party two nights ago, a brilliant voice. This song is dull and only jury points could possibly save it. A shame.

Qualifying? No.

11 Malta - One Life - Glen Vella

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:52:00 +0000

We're halfway through already and Malta are three minutes from their exit. How this won in Malta is anybody's guess. Clunky, clunky, clunky. On the plus side, he's been having a great time at the parties.

Qualifying? Ha, ha. Don't make me laugh. Possibly last place.

10 Finland - Da Da Dam - Paradise Oskar

noreply@blogger.com (Chig) — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Cute and brilliant. My winner of the whole damn thing if it can't be Eric Saade. I really think this could do it. The stage looks absolutely amazing and I love Axel's shirt. (He's not really called Oskar.) He's lovely too, and very funny. His album was my birthday present at the party on Friday. I couldn't have been happier.

Qualifying? Yes, possibly winning tonight.