SHE IS DANGEROUS!!!!!!

In light of the intervention of multi-millionaire Tory peer Andrew Lloyd Webber in the election campaign, I feel moved to point out that this song from Jesus Christ Superstar would make a highly suitable Tory anthem at the moment (if gender-adjusted, naturally).

Also, don't forget Scot Goes Pop's unofficial but wildly popular campaign song -

Chap every door for me
Banish Ed Balls from me
Children of Scotland are never alone
For we know we shall find
Our own peace of mind
For we have been VOWED
A land of our own!

Or, alternatively, there's the updated version of Lloyd Webber's Eurovision song from 2009 -

It's the SNP's time
It's the SNP's time
Our moment
We're not going to let go of it
It's the SNP's time
It's the SNP's time
And we'll stand proud
There's nothing we're afraid of
We'll show you what we're made of
Show you all it's Scotland's time now

Poll results : Flower of Scotland is your choice for an independent Scotland's national anthem

Many thanks to the 507 people who voted in this blog's national anthem poll over the last 24 hours. No great surprise that the current de facto anthem was the clear winner - I suppose it's arguable that a 35% to 26% margin was a bit less emphatic that might have been expected, although I think if you look at the songs that finished second and third, you can begin to see the huge problem faced by those who want to oust Flower of Scotland from its perch. Freedom Come All Ye, in spite of its celebrated outing at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony last summer, just isn't a particularly well-known song, which leads me to strongly suspect that if this poll had been conducted among the wider public and not just the readers of a political blog, the second-placed song would instead have been Caledonia, complete with its home-spun lyrics like "lost the friends that I needed losing". Assuming it's unlikely that such a song would ever be put forward as an official national anthem, where is Flower of Scotland's true rival to be found?

The two songs that have previously been considered unofficial national anthems - Scotland the Brave and Scots Wha Hae - achieved no more than respectability in this poll, and I suspect the majority of people these days don't even know the tune to Scots Wha Hae (although more of that later). My own dark horse pick in the unlikely event that Flower of Scotland is displaced would be the nationalist-yet-conciliatory Both Sides The Tweed, but that finished even further down the rankings.

Which of these songs should be the national anthem of an independent Scotland?

Flower of Scotland : 182 (35%)
Freedom Come All Ye : 133 (26%)
Caledonia : 95 (18%)
Scots Wha Hae : 61 (12%)
Is There For Honest Poverty : 57 (11%)
Scotland the Brave : 40 (7%)
Highland Cathedral : 35 (6%)
Auld Lang Syne : 33 (6%)
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) : 26 (5%)
Both Sides The Tweed : 16 (3%)
Loch Lomond : 13 (2%)
The Dark Island : 6 (1%)
The Skye Boat Song : 4 (0%)
A Man Without Love : 4 (0%)
Land of Light : 4 (0%)
The Thistle o' Scotland : 1 (0%)

The percentages are calculated by dividing the votes for each song by the total number of voters (as opposed to the total numbers of votes), so they add up to more than 100.

There were also a number of 'write-in votes', some of them more serious than others -

Smeòrach Clann Dòmnaill : The song performed by Julie Fowlis at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. I was there at the time, and I do remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It's hard to imagine a Hampden or Murrayfield crowd belting this one out, although it does boast a lovely understated patriotic verse, which translates as...

"If every other bird praises its own land
Why then should not I?
Land of heroes, land of poets
The hospitable, generous land of plenty"

Marche des Soldats de Robert Bruce : The French name for Hey Tuttie Taiti, the ancient tune Robert Burns used in slowed-down form for Scots Wha Hae, and which was reputedly played by Robert the Bruce's army just before the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The reason it has an alternative name in French is that Joan of Arc's Scottish soldiers also played it a century later during the Siege of Orléans. I must admit the original faster version of the tune sounds much, much more plausible as a national anthem than Scots Wha Hae (judge for yourself HERE), and it can't be denied that no other song has a hope of matching it for historical significance.

Scotland Will Flourish by The Corries

Theme for the Early Days of a Better Nation

The lyrics of Scots Wha Hae set to the tune of War Pigs (by Black Sabbath)

Calum's Road by Donald Shaw

Weather With You by well-known Scottish band Crowded House

Teenage Kicks by well-known Scottish band The Undertones, or possibly Teenage Dream by well-known Scottish singer Katy Perry.

No Limit by 2 Unlimited (you get the idea).

The Chicken Song

Hearts of Olden Glory by Runrig

Scotland's Story by The Proclaimers

Dashing White Sergeant

The Ball of Kirriemuir

Fan Dabi Dozi by The Krankies

(At least no-one suggested John Barrowman's butchering of 80s pop classic Baby Give It Up.)

VOTE : Which of these songs should be the national anthem of an independent Scotland?

As I said in a comment on the previous thread, the notion that there is some kind of doubt over what Scotland's national anthem would be after independence is something that's only really clung to by a political and cultural elite who can't quite reconcile themselves to Flower of Scotland.  That includes senior people in the SNP - Alex Salmond, for instance, always notes that Scotland has "many anthems".  The reality is that the public made up their minds decades ago, and any attempt to impose a "worthier" alternative from on high simply won't wash.  In any case, sporting organisations are now pretty much unanimous in using Flower of Scotland as the anthem, and it was even heard at the Cricket World Cup just a few hours ago.

However, as this topic provoked such a fierce debate on the previous thread, let's have a good old-fashioned voodoo poll and see what the readers of Scot Goes Pop think.  The voting form is at the top of the sidebar, and I've tried to include all the suggestions that people made, plus a few other obvious options that weren't mentioned.  The selection is as follows -

Flower of Scotland
Scotland the Brave
Loch Lomond
Both Sides The Tweed
Auld Lang Syne
A Man Without Love
The Dark Island
Scots Wha Hae
Caledonia
Freedom Come All Ye
Is There For Honest Poverty
The Skye Boat Song
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
Land of Light
Highland Cathedral
The Thistle o' Scotland

I've naturally included the only Eurovision entry to be performed by a man in a kilt, and if you don't know which one that is, shame on you.  It finished in a sensational ninth place in 1966.

Multiple voting is enabled, so you can vote for as many or as few as you like.  If your favourite isn't on the list, feel free to add a "write-in vote" by leaving a comment on this post.

I haven't run a poll for ages, because the last time I attempted it there was a massive technical fault, and people's votes weren't being recorded (or when they were recorded, they were disappearing again a few hours later).  We'll see how it goes this time.  This blog currently gets an average of 20,000 unique readers per month, and has had a grand total of 148,577 unique readers over the last year (that works out as 3% of the population of Scotland, albeit admittedly a sizeable minority of readers are in reality from outside Scotland).  So put it this way - if we end up with only fourteen votes on a subject that almost everyone has an opinion about, something has gone wrong somewhere!

*  *  *

UPDATE : The poll is now closed - you can see the results HERE.

My prediction for Thursday's Eurovision semi-final

This is the weaker of the two semis in the sense that it doesn't feature any of the favourites, but it perhaps has more strength in depth, and it's certainly the much harder one to predict. Of the fifteen entries, I think basically everyone but Georgia has got some kind of chance of progressing. I eventually managed to come up with a list of ten that I was reasonably happy with, and then I realised that I had left out Switzerland and Ireland, who instinct tells me are both likely to sneak through. But I compared those two entries with all of the ten I have on my list, and I just can't see who should drop off. So I'll stick with logic and leave Switzerland and Ireland out, even though it doesn't feel quite right.

Near certainties :

Israel
Norway

Fairly likely :

Greece
Romania
Austria

I'm not at all sure about these but I'll have a punt :

Malta
Poland
Macedonia
Slovenia
Finland

That would mean Switzerland, Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania and Ireland all missing out. I hope I'm wrong about Ireland, because it's the song I feel the strongest connection to, having voted for it in the barking mad Irish national selection a couple of months ago (it almost ended in a fist-fight!).

The UK votes in this semi, and that presents me with another dilemma. I normally follow a personal rule of only voting for songs with exclusively non-English lyrics, but for the first time ever it's literally impossible to do that. So I'll have to plump for one of only three songs that are at least partly in a language other than English, namely Israel, Slovenia or Poland. I have a feeling that it'll be Slovenia, by a process of elimination.

Went to desert, made it rain, swam through a shark tank bloodily

Isn't it amazing the effect that lower expectations can have?  Based on my poor opinion of many of the entries, I fully expected the Eurovision semi-finals to drag a little.  But the first one absolutely flew by, and if anything I think I enjoyed it more than the semis last year.  A number of the songs seemed better than I remembered, which is probably the effect of good staging - it's weird how that can trick the brain into honestly thinking that a song is significantly better than it would sound if you were blindfolded.  The most dramatic example of that was the Ukraine "hamster wheel" effect.  From previous listens I know full well that I don't rate that song as highly as some people do, and yet as an overall package I thought it was probably the best entry of the evening.

Ukraine now look much more plausible winners than Armenia.  Nothing I saw led me to revise my observation from last night that Armenia's status as favourites was unwarranted, and sure enough I see that most bookies are now placing them slightly behind Sweden.  But in all honesty Sweden didn't strike me as being a nailed-on winner either. This could be a much more open contest than we were led to expect.  In some ways, the act that stood out the most was the Netherlands - it's probably too understated a song to win outright, but being both good and completely different from everyone else is like golddust, as last year's Dutch entry proved.

My prediction was almost right - I got nine out of the ten qualifiers correct, and I'm thrilled about the one I didn't expect, which was San Marino.  It's bizarre that Valentina Monetta was regarded as a potential winner last year and failed to make it through to the final, but this year turned up with a much less promising song and qualified.  Perhaps it was just that the live performance was more engaging this time.

On the other hand, I'm gutted for Estonia, Portugal and Albania.  With the quality of Montenegro clearly shining through for the juries and televoters, I briefly harboured hopes that the same might prove to be the case for Portugal's equally 'ethnic' entry, but it wasn't to be.  And I was really surprised when I checked my list of ten predicted qualifiers to see which one I'd got wrong, and discovered it was Estonia.  I had them in the middle category of 'fairly likely' qualifiers, and based on the dramatic visual side of the performance I would have rated their chances even higher than that.  So I don't understand it, but there's always one or two aspects of the result that don't make a lot of sense.

The one big disappointment about the show was the presenters - Danish television have taken a big step backwards after reasonably good choices of host from their Swedish and Azerbaijani predecessors.  Recruiting the chap from Borgen initially seemed like an inspired choice based on his undoubted screen presence, but unfortunately someone seems to have hypnotised him and turned him into a gibbering idiot for Eurovision week.  And he was the best of the three.

My predictions for Tuesday's Eurovision semi-final

Marcia is quite right - it's high time for Scot Goes Pop to revert to being a Eurovision blog for a good few days (albeit a Eurovision blog that reserves the right to immediately drop everything if a new referendum poll is published!).  I must say I'm a touch underwhelmed by the standard this year - there are certainly songs that I like, but not a huge number, and there's nothing that has really got under my skin in the way that I Feed You My Love and Crisalide did last year.  However, if you go back to virtually every Eurovision that took place up to and including the year 2000, there were rarely more than a tiny handful of good songs, and yet the contest was still a great spectacle in a variety of other ways (the utter chaos of Rome 1991 being my own favourite example), so hopefully that will be the case again this time.  I do worry that the semi-finals may drag a little more than in recent years, though.

Of course what any Eurovision fan looks out for in the line-up of entrants is old favourites from the past, and as usual there are a few.  Most obviously, Valentina Monetta (aka "the only singer in San Marino") is representing her country for a third year in a row. I would imagine that must be some kind of record - Peter, Sue and Marc famously represented Switzerland four times in the 70s and 80s, but not in consecutive years.  Monetta's first two entries couldn't have been more different, which is odd because they were both written by Ralph Siegel.  The first was an excruciatingly awful - but strangely compelling - novelty song about Facebook, while the second was the aforementioned Crisalide, a powerful pop ballad which in my opinion ought to have been a strong contender to win the whole contest, but which ultimately failed to even make it out of the semi-final.  I'm relieved to say this year's effort Maybe is much closer to being in the Crisalide mould, but it's considerably blander, so logic would suggest it probably isn't going to make it through.  Strangely enough, though, it's still one of my six or seven favourite songs in the contest - it's got the slightest hint of a "60s/70s Bond theme" vibe to it.

Also returning - although we won't see them until Thursday's semi - are Romania's Paula Seling and Ovi, who finished third in the contest back in 2010 with the song Playing With Fire (which I seem to remember Doug Daniel saying was just about the best Eurovision song he'd ever heard).  This year's entry Miracle doesn't have quite such a strong hook, but it's still got tonnes of energy, and up against an unusually weak field it wouldn't completely surprise me if Romania sneak into the top five again.

And last but not least we have Sweden's Sanna Nielsen, who has never actually appeared at Eurovision before, but who has nevertheless been associated with the contest for years and years due to her multiple attempts to win Melodifestivalen - a massive annual Swedish television event in its own right, but which doubles up as the Eurovision national selection.  (Although she came closest in 2008 with Empty Room, the one that sticks in my mind the most is Du Och Jag Mot Världen in 2005 - and she certainly looked a bit different back then!)  Not only did she finally seize the Melodifestivalen crown this year with Undo, but she's also rated by the bookies as one of only two entries with a serious chance of winning Eurovision.  The other is Armenia, which I've listened to a number of times and somehow can't quite picture as a winner - I think the style of the song is going to divide opinion too much.  So almost by default I've come to the conclusion that Sanna Nielsen will probably emerge victorious.

In many ways, that wouldn't be great news for the contest, because it would mean a third Scandinavian winner in a row, and the second Swedish win in three years.  However, maybe my expectations will be different after watching the semi-finals, and there's always a chance of a slightly weaker song coming out of nowhere to win on the basis of some inspired staging, as Latvia did in 2002 and Azerbaijan did in 2011.

So here's my prediction for the ten qualifiers from tonight's first semi...

Near certainties :

Sweden
Armenia
Ukraine
Hungary

Fairly likely :

Estonia
Azerbaijan
Russia

I'm not at all sure about these but I'll have a punt :

Montenegro
Netherlands
Iceland

That would mean San Marino, Latvia (who are singing a song about baking a cake), Belgium, Portugal, Moldova and Albania all missing out.  Of those six, probably Belgium are the most likely to make it through - it's an intensely irritating song, but it does have a big finish.  In my personal opinion San Marino, Portugal and Albania all thoroughly deserve a place in the final, but I just can't see it happening unless the juries go for them very heavily.

Marcia pointed out the other day that everyone's new favourite Tory astroturfing campaign 'Vote No Borders' were tragically too late to put forward Flowers of the Union as the UK's Eurovision entry, although of course we shouldn't entirely exclude the possibility that Children of the Universe was originally entitled Children of the United Kingdom before falling foul of the EBU's rules on political lyrics.  But it set me thinking about previous Eurovision songs that extolled the virtues of Europe as a united entity - perhaps those could have provided some kind of model for our anti-independence friends?  Take for example the Irish entry from 1990, which managed to finish joint second mainly by name-checking pretty much every country in western Europe...

"Don't you remember those Adriatic days?
I miss your laughter and all your little ways
I can still see you in London, walking on Trafalgar Square
And drinking wine in Old Seville, how I wish that we were there

Meet me in Paris on a Champs Élysées night
We could be in Rome again, 'neath the Trevi fountain light
We should be together, maybe we just might
If you could only meet me somewhere in Europe tonight"

A Rory Stewart twist on that song might have reminded us that the 'baa' noise that sheep make in Lanarkshire is uncannily similar to the 'baa' noise that sheep make in Lancashire, before building up to this rousing chorus -

"So I've driven all the way from Penicuik to Hull
Oooh yeah baby, just to get it through your skull
That I don't really care where you hold my hand
Just so long as it's somewhere in the Middleland"

* * *

Sticking to a musical theme, you might remember that at the end of Celtic Connections I mentioned a band called The Cask, who were brave enough to perform a song at the Danny Kyle Open Stage that explicitly called for a Yes vote in the independence referendum. Well, Michael McElligott (who wrote the song) got in touch with me the other day to mention that he's just made a studio recording of it. I've had a listen, and it's rather wonderful. I'm not sure whether I was being given permission to post the sound file here, so to be on the safe side I'd better not, but it'll be available on iTunes soon. Be sure to look out for it - it's called Make Alba Shine.

Celtic Connections photos

Last night I finished off two weeks of immersion in Celtic Connections by going to the Young Traditional Musician of the Year final at the City Halls. As the host Mary Ann Kennedy reminded us about seventeen billion times, it's being televised on BBC Alba tonight, so I hope there aren't too many close-ups of the audience, because I wasn't exactly looking at my finest (I left the house in a bit of a hurry!). I was sitting next to someone who I think may have been the uncle of the winner, Robyn Stapleton. He certainly must have been a friend or relative of some sort, because there was something akin to a volcanic eruption when her name was read out at the end.

The highlight of the festival for me was also at the City Halls about ten days ago, when I went to see Patsy Reid and The Gloaming. Both acts were excellent, but it's Patsy Reid's performance that will linger long in my memory - she and her backing musicians produced some of the most gorgeous sounds you could ever wish to hear.

Last year I posted photos of all the winners of the Open Stage event, so I thought I might as well do the same this time. But first of all I must give pride of place to one of the non-winning acts, a band from the Highlands called The Cask, who were brave enough to perform a song explicitly calling for a Yes vote in the independence referendum. It can still be heard on catch-up HERE (albeit you have to scroll through to about 16 minutes) and the chorus went like this -

Say Yes!
For Alba's day
Say Yes!
For independence day
You have the power to make Alba shine...
Vote Yes.

They were very warmly received (definitely no booing!), in spite of the fact that the audience must have had mixed views on the subject. It was a powerful reminder of one of the natural advantages that the Yes campaign possess, which is that it's much easier to get a generous reaction when you're asking people to positively embrace an exciting new idea, rather than pouring scorn on it. Presumably if that song had been anti-independence, it would have gone something like this -

Say No
Or bad things may happen
Say No
We cannae dae it, cap'n!
You have the power to keep Cammo in power...
Vote No.

Probably not quite such a crowd-pleaser.

Anyway, now to the six winners, all of whom will receive a supporting act slot at next year's festival. They are Austen George, Ho Ro, The Chaplins, Griogair Morrison, Arthur Nicholson and the Mischa Macpherson Trio. Unfortunately I took these pictures from quite an acute angle, so I unavoidably chopped off some of the musicians, most notably transforming the Mischa Macpherson Trio into a duo.  And I'm sure you all know the drill with my photos by now - don't even bother clicking to enlarge, because it'll just make the atrocious picture quality even worse!

A word in my defence, by the way - none of the performers actually handed out Better Together leaflets at any point, so hopefully Kenny Farquharson won't consider me "creepy" for publishing these photos (and in non-pixelated form at that).

 

 

While I'm at it, I may as well post a few photos of memorable acts from the heats who didn't win. I must admit I had the first two of these (Watermelon Moon and The New Prohibition) down as nailed-on winners. Of course I'm not musically trained (leaving aside my ill-fated attempts at the age of 12 to learn to play the flute with the assistance of the tutor from hell), so when I get something wrong like that I always wonder if there were some shortcomings that my ear wasn't picking up, or if it really is just totally subjective and a different set of judges would have come up with an entirely different set of winners.

The third is Jennifer Andrew, who I didn't really expect to win, but who certainly made the hair stand up on the back of everyone's neck with her rendition of The Dark Island, which was about a thousand times more pleasing to the ear than the excruciatingly twee versions of the song that you'll find if you search for it on YouTube.

I believe the fourth and fifth ones are Malcolm Bushby & Chloe Merriott and Jacob & Jane.

Our future is in safe hands with Gavin Pearson

As we all know, budding DJs are required to take a degree in Un-Self-Awareness at the University of Foot-In-Mouth, and I'm delighted to say that all those years of hard work have paid off handsomely for Gavin Pearson of Clyde 1. Earlier today, he hosted a live music stage at the Merchant City Festival, and between acts handed out tickets to other events at the festival to people who answered quiz questions "correctly". You're way ahead of me here - "correctly" is in inverted commas for a reason.

Question 1 was : "What is the capital city of Brazil?" The surprisingly knowledgeable audience shouted out "Brasilia!" in near-unison. But Pearson didn't seem terribly impressed, muttering "nope, doesn't sound right". He turned to the teenage girls near the front (they were there to see the boyband Supernova), and said "help them out here, tell them what the capital of Brazil is". One of them offered "Mongolia" as a suggestion, at which point Pearson rolled his eyes and said "our future is clearly in safe hands, ladies and gentlemen".

"Come on," he implored, "surely someone here knows what the capital of Brazil is!" A voice at the back suggested Rio de Janeiro, which Pearson jubilantly seized upon by saying "Thankyou! At last! Yes, the capital city of Brazil is Rio de Janeiro. Here, come and collect your prize." At which point, quite literally the only member of the audience over the age of 18 who didn't know that Brasilia is the capital city of Brazil was deservedly rewarded for his ignorance with some free tickets. Naturally there were quite a few cries of "No it isn't!" and "You're wrong!", which Pearson was seemingly oblivious to. (And if only I had used the zoom function in the above photo, you'd have been able to see a look of utter disbelief on the face of one of the musicians behind him.)

Twenty minutes later, Pearson was back for more. "OK, as you're all so rubbish at geography and don't even know where Rio is, I'll try a different topic. Now don't call out this time, just put your hand up when you know the answer."

"Brasilia!" shouted a wag at the back.

Ding-a-dong listen to it, maybe it's a big hit, even when your lover is gone gone gone, sing ding-dang-dong

I couldn't quite make up my mind how I felt about the controversy over whether Radio 1 should broadcast Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead on its official charts show yesterday. On the one hand, we're forever being told that Thatcherism was all about "freedom" (except for Chileans, Cambodians and non-white South Africans, naturally), and therefore the logic that good Thatcherites should simply accept that people have the freedom to offend seemed inescapable. And of course that was exactly the line we heard from many conservative commentators during the debate over the offensive Danish cartoons a few years ago, so it would have been nice to see a little consistency of principle from them. On the other hand, the idea that the song could be played in full by the state broadcaster when everyone would know exactly what it represented in this context (direct celebration of an individual's recent death) seemed just a bit too in-your-face. So, on the whole, I came round to feeling that an acknowledgement of the song's chart position, an explanation of what it was doing there, plus a clip of the song, was probably a fair enough compromise.

But that was before the decision to play I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher in full earlier in the same show. Above all else, Radio 1 needed to demonstrate that it was being politically even-handed, so either both songs should have been played in full, or neither should have been. It's not good enough to say that the pro-Thatcher song was not intended to offend - it had only reached its lowly chart spot as a direct result of a campaign designed to counter the one that had got Ding Dong! to number two. If one song required a news report to put it in its correct political context, then they both did.

In purely practical terms, without making any moral judgements, it has to be said that the success of a Facebook campaign in getting an intensely annoying song from a 1930s musical to very near the top of the charts is an incredible achievement. There was a time when campaigns like the "it'll be hilarious if this works" one for Rik Waller to win Pop Idol fell flat on their face as a matter of routine, so the mobilising power of social media really seems to have come of age.

Photos on Sunday : Celtic Connections

Before anyone accuses me of stealing the title of this post from Tris, he got the idea from me. Honestly. (I think.)

Yesterday I went to the finale of the Danny Kyle Open Stage, which was a far more enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon than watching Scotland get gubbed at Twickenham for the seventeen billionth time in a row. Hopefully I'm not breaking any 'on-pain-of-death' rules by posting these photos - I didn't hear any warnings about photography not being allowed, and half the audience seemed to be snapping away, so I thought I'd chance my arm.

Anyway, here are five of the six winning acts (the sixth couldn't make it to the venue). In order of appearance, they are - Elliott Morris, Taylor & Leigh, Genesee, Gria, and Graham Low & Jack Kirkpatrick.  They will all now receive a supporting act slot at next year's Celtic Connections.

(Click to enlarge)

What I deduce from these photos is the following -

1) My digital camera is even more rubbish than I thought it was.

2) It might seem marginally less rubbish if I actually remembered that I have a zoom function at some point before I get to the last photo.

I'm a long-term fan of the Irish folk singer Cara Dillon, so the highlight of Celtic Connections for me was seeing her perform live for the first time, and accompanied by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I couldn't make up my mind whether I should buy a ticket - because I know all the songs backwards, in a strange way I thought it might make more sense to spend money on an act I was completely unfamiliar with. But I'm so glad I did decide to go - it was the best thing ever. (Well, maybe not quite, but you know what I mean!) When the orchestra upped the volume, she really opened out her voice, and it sounded amazing. I don't have any photos of that, but most of the concert was broadcast on Radio Scotland the other night, so it should still be on the BBC iplayer.

Photos on Friday : Rubbish photo of the Queen edition

Long-term readers of this blog will of course recall the irregular 'Photos on Friday' feature (irregular in the sense that it appeared once). I thought I'd give it another outing to mark the occasion of me successfully managing to take the world's most rubbish photo of the Queen.

I had to be in Edinburgh anyway, so I decided to wander down to Holyrood to see the festivities, which basically consisted of a band called Whisky Kiss, a group of Highland dancers, a Robert Burns impersonator doing a reading of To a Louse, and umpteen pipe bands. I must say the whole thing seemed strangely under-rehearsed, as if it had been hastily thrown together at the last minute. But it was good fun all the same.

(Click the photos to enlarge)

You'll be encouraged to hear that it was saltires and Lion Rampants all the way - I did spot a couple of Union Jacks, but they looked very lonely among a sea of sky-blue and white.

Afterwards, I started making my way up the Royal Mile, but I noticed that people were still lining the street. I overheard a policeman say to someone : "I don't have a time, but soon. Stick around." From which I inferred that the Queen was coming, so I waited a few minutes to see what I could see.

In case you're wondering why everyone was looking at the car behind the Queen, it's because Kate Middleton (or the Cambress of Dutchton, or whatever her name is supposed to be these days) was in that one. I didn't get a photo of her, but I dare say the world can survive without one more of those. Nor did I get a snap of Princess Anne in the third car, although I imagine all I'd have to do to put that right is pop round to Murrayfield in November with a long-lens camera.

I'm slightly embarrassed to confess that I waved to the Queen as she went past. Having said that, if waving at someone is to be taken as an indication of political support, it should be remembered that the Queen also waved in the general direction of little old republican me. So it's swings and roundabouts, really.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I've been planning to write a post with that title (a quote from Walt Whitman) for a good few weeks, by way of an admission that I jumped the gun in saying that Engelbert Humperdinck's UK Eurovision entry was bound to have only a niche appeal, before I'd even heard it. But I winced when Alex Massie gave the quote a spin in the Scotsman recently, because now it's bound to look like that's where I stole the idea from. Cheers, Alex.

Anyway, having totally immersed myself in the Eurovision national final season for a few weeks, I drifted away again, and I thought it was high time I caught up with the latest standings in the betting and fan polls. I wasn't really expecting any surprises - but I was wrong. Italy second in the betting, Russia third. What is going on? I was so uninspired by Italy's entry that my first listen to it a few weeks ago was also my last until today. It's grown on me a bit, and I suppose it has a quirky side to it, but unless they do something absolutely astonishing with the staging, it's not a winner. I presume Russia are only so high because British bookies/punters think that 'barking mad' always wins votes at the Eurovision. Well, they're half right - we could easily see it finishing in the top half of the table come the night of the final (particularly with the assistance of the pro-Russian bloc vote), but it has virtually no chance of winning.

One thing that isn't a surprise is to see Sweden leading the betting - it's been the fan favourite from the word go. But again, I'm not at all convinced. Dance tracks have a uniformly atrocious record at the contest, including one or two that were tipped to win - the superb Je t'adore by Kate Ryan famously failed to even qualify for the final in 2006. So at this stage, I'll go out on a limb and more or less exclude Sweden's chances of outright victory.

So who does that leave? Next highest in the betting are Serbia, the UK and Denmark, in that order. I think the UK have every right to go in with as much confidence as they did under Andrew Lloyd-Webber's direction three years ago - when they (or "we" as I must force myself to say) finished fifth. So I think that's the sort of placing we're probably looking at again. We're not going to win, because a new law of physics was discovered circa 1999 stating that the UK can't win Eurovision anymore. As for Denmark, they have a lovely song, but also one that's not desperately original or likely to reach out of the screen and grab people on a first listen.

Having eliminated virtually everyone else's chances, could this then be one of those rare years where a song wins purely on quality? Serbia, Spain and Iceland are the class songs of the field in my opinion, and in comparison with the competition they all look ideally placed. And with Serbia having the Balkan bloc vote behind them, and with the name/face recognition factor of their performer (Željko Joksimović), they would be my hot tip for the time being.

And then of course there's Jedward. Ahem...

Ultra-early prediction for Eurovision 2011

As long-term readers will know, since this blog started in 2008 I've made an annual eve-of-Eurovision prediction for the top 3-5 placings in the contest. I thought for the purposes of comparison (and also just in case I've lost interest in blogging by May!), I'd attempt an additional, much earlier prediction this year, unaffected by reports from the rehearsals which are always such a huge factor in trying to fathom out what is really going to happen.

I think the puzzle this time can be summed up fairly succinctly - will France walk it, or not? It's the best song in the contest by miles, it's hugely distinctive - but it's just possible that it might be distinctive in the wrong way, ie. in the sense of not having enough of an appeal to younger televoters. We could see a repeat of the Natasha St-Pier/Sandrine François scenario, when France also had the best song and the best singer, but never really threatened to win. It's hard to say whether that will happen, but if France does fall short the winner then becomes extremely tough to predict, because bubbling under are five songs that are fairly evenly-matched - Sweden, the UK, Germany, Estonia and Hungary.

My instinct is that Sweden can't win - they've been banging away with these formulaic show-stopping efforts for as long as anyone can remember, and in recent years haven't come within touching distance of victory. The shadow hanging over Hungary is the strikingly poor record of out-and-out dance tracks in the contest over the years - one of my all-time favourite Eurovision entries Je t'adore failed to even qualify for the final in 2006. Germany are presenting a class act in every sense, and although I've always felt the song was a touch too low-key to win, Lena Meyer-Landrut's fame and popularity across the continent may offset that problem. And the UK? Although my first impression was positive, the more I've listened to the song the more I've come to feel that it's a bit 'forced' and soulless - although, again, Blue's fan following may partly come to the rescue.

So, by a mixture of process of elimination and a gut feeling at this stage that France won't win, here is what I've come up with -

Winners - Estonia (Rockefeller Street - Getter Jaani)
2nd - France (Sognu - Amaury Vassili)
3rd - Germany (Taken By a Stranger - Lena Meyer-Landrut)
4th - Sweden (Popular - Eric Saade)
5th - UK (I Can - Blue)

So I'll see if I'm still saying that in a few weeks' time after the rehearsals! Although France is my personal favourite, it would be nice to see Estonia back on top - their fine run of results in the late 90s/early 2000s (crowned by unexpected victory in 2001) was one of the great fairy-tales of the contest's history, and it's been a shame to see them regress since then.

Corsica to the rescue

I was encouraged to learn on a few blogs that France had pulled a late rabbit out of the hat in what thus far has looked like being the worst Eurovision since the 1999 contest in Jerusalem. Having had a listen to Sognu, I'd agree it's probably the best song in a very weak field, surpassing my previous favourite Taken by a Stranger (Germany). And I'll actually be able to vote for my favourite this time, because that won't transgress my long-standing personal rule of only voting for songs not performed in English. Better still, it's not even sung in French, but in the Italian-sounding Corsican language, which is the rough equivalent of the UK putting forward a Gaelic-language entry. I think we can safely assume that will never happen, given that it's difficult enough for Scottish acts to even get into the UK national selection - just one since 1997, with the last Scot to actually go on to represent the UK being Scott Fitzgerald way back in 1988. Indeed, on recent form, Scots have a much better chance of representing France or Cyprus than the UK!

The last remaining pieces of this year's Eurovision jigsaw are the Swedish Melodifestivalen final at the weekend, and the long-awaited presentation of Blue's UK entry on Friday night. As far as the latter goes, we're promised something wonderfully anthemic, and the best entry in years. Hmmm. I'll keep an open mind until I actually hear it, but as a reality-check it's worth bearing in mind that Pete Waterman honestly seemed to believe he'd crafted a potential winner last year...

UPDATE : The UK song has now been leaked, 24 hours ahead of its official unveiling, and the reaction so far seems to be overwhelmingly positive. It's not my cup of tea, it's not as distinctive as the French song, and it's not as imaginative as the German song. But, whether by luck or judgement, it's just possible that the powers-that-be have stumbled across the formula to take the UK to a second top-five finish in three years. Credit where it's due!

Stranger things are starting to begin

Perhaps this is the time of year that I always think this, but I'm beginning to seriously despair of the 2011 Eurovision crop. Of the songs I've heard from the national selections so far, a mere three have really reached out and grabbed me (although there may be some good ones I haven't caught up with yet), and of those, two failed to win the ticket to Düsseldorf. Admittedly there were special circumstances - a sympathy vote following the death of another song's original performer - that partly explain Jóhanna's failure in Iceland, but the overlooking of Nicki Ponte's I Don't Wanna Dance in this evening's Greek final is utterly beyond me.

The one gem that has made it through comes from that unlikeliest of sources - the hosts Germany. Much as I never found Lena Meyer-Landrut half as irritating last year as some people seemed to, I was still slightly dubious about the wisdom of allowing her to 'defend her title'. However, with a brave choice of song that once again suits her quirkiness down to the ground, it looks like it might just pay off - at least to some extent. Taken By a Stranger is probably a bit too low-key to win outright, but the way things are going it may well deserve to.

One thing that occurred to me when I was listening to it the first time round was that, just like Satellite, the lyrics seemed a bit too offbeat and intricate to have been written by a non-native speaker of English. Sure enough, they appear to have been penned by an American. That's surely one of the biggest downsides of the scrapping of the language restrictions twelve years ago - now that Germany have established it can be an advantage, we'll probably see more and more songwriters from English-speaking countries being drafted in, narrowing the contest's 'gene pool' considerably.

Come back, Dustin the Turkey, all is forgiven

In the light of the BBC's decision not to allow the public any say in the selection of this year's UK Eurovision entry for the first time since 1987 (indeed I believe it's the first entirely internal selection ever), I thought I might as well make sure I voted in this year's Irish national final - UK residents were able to vote by mobile phone, thanks to the dedicated numbers for Northern Ireland viewers. For slightly complicated reasons I had to watch the RTÉ webcast with the sound down, so I could only guess at what was going on at various points. However, Cheryl Baker's presence on the panel - love her though I do - didn't exactly inspire confidence that the people of Ireland were being offered the most up-to-date advice on how to go about winning Eurovision. It could, of course, have been worse. It could have been John Barrowman.

Anyway, having listened to the five songs in advance, I decided to vote for Nikki Kavanagh's Falling. It wouldn't have been the most inspiring entry, but when I tell you that her main competition was Jedward - I'll say that again, JEDWARD - you might understand my thinking a little better. In my naivety I had thought the 67/33 split in the voting between juries and the public probably meant that sanity would just about prevail, but...well, see for yourself. I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for Dustin the Turkey.

Twelve hours to save Portugal from itself

In the past, it's been quite rare for countries to allow non-residents to vote in their Eurovision pre-selections. I think the only time I managed to vote in a selection other than the UK's was Greece a couple of years ago, which was a slightly interminable experience, because I had to sit through a mammoth show waiting for the very narrow voting window. Ireland allowed votes from the UK last year (presumably to encourage participation from Northern Ireland) but a similar problem applied and I gave up in despair! So I'm delighted to say Portugal have made it really easy this year, and are holding an online-only preliminary vote to decide the twelve songs that will go through to the final of Festival da Canção 2011. The poll seems to close at noon today, the 27th (although it might be midnight - the Google translation is a bit ambiguous).

But...a mystery. I defy anyone to listen to the snippets of those songs and not conclude that Carla Moreno's dance track Sobrevivo is the best choice by some distance. So why on earth is it trailing so badly behind the cringeworthy A luta é alegria? Perhaps the only thing that can be said in favour of the latter song is that it's vaguely reminiscent of the quirky O meu coração não tem cor, the song that took Portugal to its best ever placing in the contest in 1996 (a mere 6th). But it doesn't have anything like the same charm, and in any case 1996 might as well be a million years ago in Eurovision terms.

In spite of the title of this post, there's no way of actually preventing the offending song from going through at this stage - with twelve qualifiers, it's bound to make it. So instead of fretting over the "top of the table clash", I decided I might as well use my vote more effectively by looking at the two songs that are effectively battling it out to secure the twelfth and last place in the final. Irritatingly, I found I liked them both more or less equally (which can't be said for several further up the leaderboard). But as Margaret Beckett once sarcastically told Neil Kinnock, "you have to choose...you have to choose all the time". So I've plumped for Esta Noite Vamos Curtir by Pop Pins. May God forgive me.

A cut out and keep guide to navigating through the voting process in Portuguese :

1. You have three votes.

2. You can cast all three votes for the same song, or spread them around.

3. After clicking on the song you want to vote for, click on 'Vote Nesta Música'.

4. Enter your email address and the verification code provided.

5. Click the activation link you are sent by email.

6. Do NOT vote for A luta é alegria. Please. I'm begging you.

On a Nótt like this...

I just had a little frisson of excitement (OK, I'm easily pleased) when I spotted on Esctoday that Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir - singer of my all-time favourite Eurovision entry - participated in the semi-final stage of the Icelandic national selection last night. That rang a bell from somewhere - I must have read the news of her return a while back but forgot all about it. Anyway, having had a quick listen to the new song Nótt, while it inevitably doesn't scale the heights of Is It True?, it's probably the best of the handful of prospective entries I've got round to checking out so far this year. Refreshingly, it's sung in Icelandic, although reading between the lines of Jóhanna's interview, there's probably a less-than-even chance it'll stay that way if it makes it through to Eurovision.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Iceland have foolishly discarded some real gems in their national selections in the past (not least in 2006), but this one is over the first hurdle at least.

Back to Celtic Connections...

A few hours ago, I popped along to the first of this year's free Danny Kyle Open Stage events at Celtic Connections, and I kept thinking that the standard was strikingly high compared to the ones I'd been to before.  Ever quick on the uptake, it wasn't until halfway through that it dawned on me there was a very good reason for that - it was a showcase of all the 2010 winners!  Anyway, that meant I had the huge bonus of being able to see the Seonaid Aitken Trio again, who were far and away my favourites from the sessions I saw last year.  The eponymous Ms Aitken is not only a gifted singer, but also an incredibly dynamic fiddler - there's almost as much pleasure in watching her fingers dart around the instrument as in listening to the music itself.  But it was a much more 'egalitarian' performance from the three of them this time round, with the bodhrán player suddenly jumping up at one point to announce that he was going to sing a song about - startlingly - broken general election promises.  And very good it was too, as indeed was the reel inspired by a computer on the blink.  (I'm not making this up...)

All five acts were superb, though - in particular, Kilairum performed some truly gorgeous tunes, notwithstanding the pedantic quibble of the chap standing behind me that Northumbrian music isn't "Celtic".  It's incredible to think it's even possible to enjoy such high-quality live music for free, especially bearing in mind that I forked out almost £10 for the privilege of seeing Tron : Legacy a couple of weeks ago!  Incidentally, apart from Seonaid Aitken, my other highlights from last year were the uncanny experience of seeing one of my former classmates take to the stage with her band, and perhaps most of all, Amy Lord's evocative rendition of the Jim Malcolm song Waterloo, accompanied by the choir-that-don't-like-to-be-called-a-choir Liltin' Lassies.  It can still be heard here (it starts roughly twelve minutes in).

Will Eurovision 2011 be a Broad Church?

I've just been catching up on the rumour-mill surrounding this year's UK entry for Eurovision, with suggestions that Charlotte Church, Katherine Jenkins, Pixie Lott or even (weirdly) Madonna will be our representative.  We can probably safely discount the latter possibility, but I must say I'm mildly encouraged by all this, because it presumably means the BBC are planning a return to the moderately successful 1992-4 arrangement of an internal selection of the performer, but a public vote to decide the song.  As I've mentioned before, I'd much rather see a completely open selection, but the worst of all worlds is what happened last year, with everything resting on the judgement of a single songwriter who clearly didn't have a clue where the contest was 'at'.  All we need to ensure now is that John Barrowman and his oh-so-helpful attempts to 'guide' the public's choice are kept well clear of the selection show!

As for the three songs to be selected so far, if the contest were to stop right now probably the Swiss entry - In Love For A While by Anna Rossinelli - would be the winner.  That's not saying a great deal.  The Romanian song is pleasant, uptempo, and utterly unmemorable, while the Albanian entry is a complete dog's breakfast - although admittedly that always seems to be the case at this stage in proceedings, so it would be rash to write it off altogether.  Whatever radical surgery they perform, though, I can't believe it's going to be a patch on Juliana Pasha last year.  Hopefully something more inspiring will be along soon from other countries.