Let me start by making my annual public service announcement. This is the TWENTY-SEVENTH consecutive year in which there is no Scottish involvement in the UK Eurovision entry. Both France and Cyprus have been represented by Scots more recently than the UK has. The 'Union Dividend' in action, folks.
If you go back far enough, Scotland does have a bit of a Eurovision pedigree. The 1972 contest was hosted at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Lulu won in 1969 as a singer, and Bill Martin won in 1967 as a songwriter (with Puppet on a String). But in recent decades we might as well not have existed. It's hard to see that changing until independence - the UK entry has become the de facto England and Wales entry.
So is it any wonder that I identify more with the Irish entry these days? Until a few years ago, we were at least given some kind of 'ownership' over the UK entry by having the chance to vote in the national selection, but even that has been taken away. Nowadays, the Irish selection is the only one that UK residents can vote in (courtesy of a technological loophole). Although the political situation has meant that I haven't been following the national final season as closely as usual, I made sure I cleared the decks one Friday night in late February, and watched the epic Irish selection in its entirety. I really enjoyed it - happy memories flooded back of the good old days of watching A Song for Europe. It had a bit of everything - three very closely-matched songs, tactless comments to the competing Swedish band ("Who's the President of Ireland? Wrong guess, it's Michael D Higgins, lovely man. You've got to learn these things."), and an outcome that remained an enigma until the very last votes had come in. I didn't vote for the winner, but in retrospect I wish I had done - Playing with Numbers has grown on me with every listen, as you may have noticed from a blogpost title the other day. It's now just about my favourite song in the whole contest. By contrast, I liked the UK entry the first time I heard it, but it's progressively got more and more on my nerves as time has gone on.
I don't think 2015 is a vintage year by any means, but it does have the immense saving grace of a song penned by Željko Joksimović, who has surely now supplanted Johnny Logan as the true "Mr Eurovision". And although I didn't really approve of the gimmick of giving Australia a one-off berth in the contest, it's actually worked out quite well, because they have one of the best songs (arguably a potential winner).
Anyway, to business. Having hurriedly caught up with the rehearsals on YouTube, here are the ten countries that I think will qualify from the first semi-final -
Greece
Russia
Moldova
Albania
Georgia
Romania
Belgium
Estonia
Belarus
Armenia
I doubt if there's an outright winner in there, but Estonia is probably the pick of the bunch. The studio version of the Moldovan song is a thing of brilliance, but unfortunately the singer's live performance seems a bit ropey.
James, can you give us your analysis of the potential effectiveness of tactical voting? ��
ReplyDeleteI also think it could be worth addressing whether or not we should grant peerages to any UK Eurovision winners. While we're at it, we could discuss the possible implications of the Eurovision results for next year's Holyrood election.
DeleteI didn't give Kelly my hard earned money for this rubbish.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't give Kelly your hard-earned money at all. But thanks for dropping by, Mr Bravely Anonymous PB Tory Troll.
DeleteI did donate and I expect political analysis not lightweight pop gossip. I'm not a Tory but a Green voter who's come to appreciate your work. Not every dissenting voice is a troll!
DeletePoint 1 - You're lying. Innocent 'dissenters' do not rudely address people by their surname only. You have a very distinctive prose style that gives the game away - you're one of our regular Tory trolls.
DeletePoint 2 - For anyone naive enough to think you might be telling the truth, you haven't got a leg to stand on anyway. The last fundraiser was to get the blog through to the general election. That has now expired, and I'm still considering whether to run another one. In any case, I always reserve the right to blog about whatever I like. So 'expect' away, but it makes no difference to me.
Point 3 - If you don't want to read 'lightweight pop gossip', try not to visit blogs with the word 'Pop' in the title.
I did reply to these points using my Google profile but wondering if my reply has been deleted?
DeleteSeems a bit harsh, Anon. James isn't offering a service, nor are we buying one. So if he wants to blog about EuroPop that's kind of up to him, surely?
DeleteIt's not my area of interest, but it's not like the other articles disappear or anything. People are capable of being interested in more than one thing, after all.
Except nutters.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when we financially sponsor this site, the relationship changes. We are then in effect purchasing a product and have legitimate expectations of that product. I support other worthy causes but have limited resources so would have to think twice about continuing to support a site that has a 'magazine' element at the expense of political analysis. I can find this kind of whimsy elsewhere.
DeleteAnon : Your comment has not been deleted. It appeared in my email account, and I've no idea why it's not here. It's probably been caught by the automatic spam trap. I may try to retrieve it when I get home, but as you can appreciate that won't be my number one priority on Eurovision semi-final night.
DeleteI've no idea whether the explanation in your missing comment was the biggest load of old cobblers ever, but frankly I don't even care if you're telling the truth. You are bang out of order either way. I'm not in the army, and I don't take orders from you or anyone else. I blog about whatever I please. That counts double now that the period covered by the last fundraiser is over.
I will continue to blog about the Eurovision as I have done for the last seven years. This is, after all, a blog about Scottish politics and the Eurovision Song Contest. The clue is cunningly contained in the title. If you don't like it, my message to you is simple : go elsewhere.
That's certainly an argument that has been raised in other areas. I would counter by saying that while I may purchase a copy of the Guardian, that does not give me any rights to dictate their editorial policy.
DeleteDoubly so in the case of a blog or a webcomic which is essentially offered FOC, so you kind of get what you get.
Also, while you did donate (and kudos for doing so), does this small percentage of the total give you 100% control over his content? What if other donators disagree?
Maybe you could have a pro-rata input equal to your donation value.
(Back in my youth I worked briefly for the Civil Service, and people would come up to me and say 'I pay your wages'. My reply was usually 'yes, about 2 seconds worth, and you've just used that up').
Your analogy of the Guardian purchase is interesting and I would agree that I wouldn't have the right to impose my views on the editor or the creative licence of his journalists. But I think it would be fair to say I would have a reasonable expectation of a left of centre political direction and a fair dose of political analysis. Not a right but an expectation. I guess as James suggests its up to us as individuals to decide if we vote with our feet or continue to sponsor.
DeleteThe message just isn't getting through, is it? The period covered by the fundraiser is OVER. There are NO current plans for another fundraiser. There is NO donate button on this blog. Neither you nor anyone else has the option of "continuing to sponsor", regardless of whether you want to or not. This blog is not currently financially supported by ANYONE.
DeleteYou've been unbelievably rude, and I'm not interested in what you have to say. If you don't like this blog, please GO AWAY.
Did you forget about Kenneth McKellar, or is it a case of least said ...?
ReplyDeleteI remember that one well in 1966. At least Ireland gave us full marks. I always recall the presenter telling the Irish to 'have a good sleep' after they cast their votes!
DeleteOh, I always thought Pop was short for poll of polls.
ReplyDeleteGoes doesn't mean 'goes', by the way. It stands for Geese Offer Ethel Salt.
DeleteI think this is the poorer of the 2 semi-finals. It is a pity the better songs seem to be all in the 2nd semi.
ReplyDeleteFor goodness sake, James always blogs about this Euro-tat stuff. He likes it. It's the blog's signature thing. It's like Wings and football, only not so annoying.
ReplyDeleteI don't read every single page of every newspaper I buy. I read the bits that interest me. I don't write to the editor and insist that he drop the sports section or the business section because I paid for an entire paper and I expect the entire paper to contain nothing but what I personally want to read.