Solutions to the Eurovision political voting problem

I went out of my way to defend Terry Wogan on the All Kinds of Everything blog yesterday (I know, I've got an unhealthy fixation with that place), so it was a bit disappointing to hear him make such fatalistic remarks about the future of the Eurovision Song Contest in his commentary tonight. If he's ready to call it a day, that's his prerogative, but the idea that the entirety of western Europe is going to join him in doing so is a bit melodramatic. I wouldn't deny for a moment there's a serious problem with political voting, but the irony is that this is the year a significant first step was made towards addressing that issue. The new rules that applied at the semi-final stage successfully produced a fair balance between western and eastern qualifiers for the first time in years, so now all that's needed is a similar innovation to sort out the problem in the final. Off the top of my head, I can think of four possibilities that would provide at least a partial solution.

1) Allow each country to award points to fifteen different entries, instead of the current ten. This wouldn't have been feasible in the past, but now that only the top marks are read out, it would no longer slow proceedings down at all. Of course, under this system the top points would still be awarded on a neighbourly basis, but it's reasonable to assume the lower set of points would be distributed more on merit, leading to a fairer overall outcome. An example to illustrate - if a country happened to finish twelfth out of twenty-five in every single televote, under the current system it would finish last with no points at all. That simply can't be considered a fair reflection of the result people are actually voting for.

2) Allow each country to award points to five eastern countries, and five western countries. This would have the advantage of still allowing viewers to decide the result, and still to vote for whichever country they like - indeed it would be a strong incentive to cast two votes - but it would also, at a stroke, neutralise the in-built advantage eastern countries currently enjoy.

3) The BBC could surrender its 'Big Four' status in exchange for something more worthwhile - separate representation in the contest for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It would be the right thing to do on its own merits, but it would also produce a new British Isles voting bloc that could balance out its counterparts in the Balkans, the Baltic, Scandinavia, and the ex-Soviet Union. And if anyone tells you Scotland would never award high marks to England, I can tell you for certain they're wrong. Apart from anything else, about 8% of the population is English-born.

4) Revert to a 50/50 weighting for the jury and televote. Probably the simplest solution, in that it's been done before, at least in some countries.

On the contest itself, I was a bit disappointed to see Russia run away with it - as I said before Serbia, Portugal and Albania were my favourites, but I would still have been much happier to see Greece, Ukraine or Armenia take the crown than Russia. Ah well, it's all a matter of personal taste at the end of the day. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing my prediction turn out to be close to the money, although it wasn't exactly a tough one to call this year! And at least the song that was 'clearly the worst in the whole contest' (© Keith Mills 2008) somehow managed to finish 5th out of 43 entries. Wonder how it managed that?

Belgrade boasts

"Belgrade is the city where it is IMPOSSIBLE to sleep!"

So why did Zeljko have to urge everyone to stay awake halfway through?

"Belgrade is the city where you're not allowed to be alone!"

Call me a hopeless intovert, but that sounds like a grim kind of town to me.

"The interval act does weddings AND funerals!"

A band might normally expect an increase in bookings after playing to 150 million people, but in this particular case...

Prediction for Eurovision final (Saturday)

There's an episode of the 1980s sitcom Just Good Friends where Jan Francis' character repeatedly tells Paul Nicholas there's "something missing" in their relationship without specifying what, which eventually results in an exasperated Nicholas screaming "WHAT IS THIS THING?". I felt a bit like that today when trying to make sense of the reports of Jelena Tomašević's performance in the final round of rehearsals. The most frequent comment was that she was in good voice, but that there was "something" missing. WHAT IS THIS THING?

Even leaving aside this missing thing that everyone seems utterly incapable of articulating (maybe Andy Abraham's nightmare vision has already come to pass), I was always a bit sceptical that Serbia could quite pull it off. In my view, it's definitely the class song of the field, but then I thought the same about Serbia & Montenegro in 2004 (they came second) and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2006 (they came third). So my prediction for Serbia is top three, but without any embarrassing need for Zeljko Joksimovic to present the trophy to himself. ("Great song, Zelkjo." "Thanks, Zeljko, you did a great job presenting too. And I love what you've done with your hair.")

But if not Serbia, then who? The bookies seem to agree (although they've been spectacularly wrong before) that the only other countries in serious contention are Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Sweden, and possibly Armenia. Personally, I just can't see Sweden winning - Hero is slightly higher quality than their usual fare, but it's still sticking to the same basic formula that frequently delivers them fifth or sixth place but no higher. I think Greece and Armenia will similarly come up short, so that leaves a battle between Ukraine and Russia. If that's the case, I feel Russia might just sneak it, if only because it cunningly draws the ice skating and violin-loving demographic into the pool of potential televoters (I'm being flippant).

So my prediction is :

Winners - Russia
2nd - Ukraine
3rd - Serbia

Potential dark horses :

Portugal
Norway (aka 'clearly the worst song in the contest', © Keith Mills 2008)

Mr Mills' musings also lead me to have an even greater interest in the fate of the UK this year. He confidently stated at a ridiculously early stage (when many songs had yet to even be selected) that Andy Abraham was 'certain' to finish in the bottom five, and was highly likely to finish last. I responded that I felt he could achieve the UK's best result since Jessica Garlick, which would mean a top fifteen placing. Unfortunately, I made that prediction before the UK received its lousy place in the draw, so I'm less confident than I was, but to be honest I'd settle for top twenty - since that would be sufficient to show up Mr Mills' "certainty" for the closed-minded nonsense it always was. Here's hoping.

My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 8

Andy Abraham of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(just in case anyone thinks he's representing 'England')

"Even if the world stops loving
I could never stop loving you
Even if the sun stops rising
I still wanna wake up with you
Even if all words lost their meaning
You would understand I love you"

I'm not sure Andy fully appreciates the sheer horror of the picture he's painting here. For starters, many would argue that our facility for language is the one and only thing that separates us from the animals, but it seems not for much longer if 'words have lost all meaning'. Furthermore, if the sun really did stop rising, crops would fail, and we'd have a major famine in store. Which all begs the question - who exactly is this poor woman that Andy is waking up beside, and what God-awful state will she be in as she meets his 'loving' gaze? Let's face it, she'll certainly be in dire need of a square meal, and at a more basic level, given that it'll be pitch dark will she even be sure that she's woken up in the first place? Let's also not forget that she'll be going through the unimaginable emotional anguish of knowing that her dearest friends and family have utterly forsaken her, since they have, along with the rest of the entire human race (save our Andy) lost their capacity for love.

But fear not, because in spite of these rather serious misfortunes, and in spite of the fact that she'll be in the arms of a man spouting complete gibberish (words have lost all meaning, remember), she'll just somehow know what he feels for her in his sweet little heart. So that'll completely make up for global calamity, then. There's always a silver lining.

My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 7

Maria Haukaas Storeng of Norway

"Love can be hard sometimes
Yes, it can catch you off guard like bad crimes"

Hmmm, this is problematical on just all sorts of levels. First of all, Maria seems to be drawing a curious distinction here between 'bad' crimes on the one hand and, well, 'good' crimes on the other. What are all these good crimes? Perhaps I shouldn't dismiss this out of hand, after all I'm instantly conjuring up an image of Tony Benn with pipe in mouth, arms flailing about like only Rory Bremner can, saying "oooh, think of the suffragettes, they had to break the law". So, in the interests of fairness, I've taken this issue very seriously and done some painstaking research, ie. I googled it. And, indeed, it seems there are some things that are against the law which are, if not exactly 'good', then certainly relatively harmless. For instance, in Miami, it is strictly illegal to impersonate a bison, while in Missouri you could find yourself hauled before a court for shaving without a licence. So presumably these are the sorts of things Maria has in mind for her 'good' crimes, while the bad ones are obviously things like murder, rape, arson, and grievous bodily harm. But while being randomly murdered or having your house burnt down could certainly be said to "catch you off guard", does that entirely capture the gravity of the situation? I think not. On the other hand, it might just capture the lesser gravity of being the victim of an unprovoked bison impersonation, so in my view Maria should really be singing "love can catch you off guard like those not-so-bad crimes they have in Miami".

(Phew, I thought I'd never get to the end of that paragraph).

To be fair to Maria, though, she offers a far more robust and convincing argument later on in the song -

"If it ain't right, it is wrong"

Let's face it, the girl's got a point. Which is more than anyone's ever said about John Barrowman.

My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 6

Teräsbetoni of Finland

"Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa"

TRANSLATION -
"Where the men ride
There the sheep can't pasture"

This is undeniably informative, but does such commendable attention to detail really lend itself to a situation where you're got just three minutes to impress the whole of Europe? Maybe it does, and if Finland win tomorrow, I'll seriously consider entering a song next year that takes regular detours to ponder the latest fascinating evidence on the causes of peat-bog erosion in eighteenth century Kazakhstan.

Por-tu-gal!

Do you know, I actually found myself punching the air when Portugal were named as the final qualifier. I had to remind myself I've never even been to Portugal, but it was my second-favourite song of the night, and I would have been heartbroken if it hadn't made it through. When there was only one spot in the final remaining, I honestly believed it was going to Malta.

And as for my favourite Albania - well I'm obviously rubbish at predictions, but on the plus side there is some justice in this world after all! My dream result for Saturday would now be a Serbian victory, with Portugal and Albania also in the top ten. And a top fifteen finish for Andy Abraham and the UK, if only for the pleasure of watching the sainted Keith Mills being forced to eat his words - again.

Prediction for second Eurovision semi-final (Thursday)

I probably should quit while I'm ahead on the prediction front, but here goes nothing (as my Mum would say). In no particular order, here are the ten countries I think will qualify for the final tomorrow night -

Malta
Ukraine
Bulgaria
Sweden
Hungary
Portugal
Belarus
Iceland
Macedonia (or FYROM if you're Greek)
Turkey

The first thing that may leap out at you is that I've omitted one of the frontrunners for the Eurovision crown this year, in the shape of Switzerland. It's strange to find myself doing that, because I think it's a fantastic song, but it seems to have been completely drained of its dynamism in the two rehearsals I've seen. I'm still a little unsure about its prospects, however, because I haven't seen today's dress rehearsal, and frustratingly the reports of how Paolo got on are somewhat contradictory. Belarus probably wouldn't feature in my list on the merit of the song alone, but it's there because a) the choreography and visual impact of the performance is superb, and b) even with the new rules Belarus will still have one or two natural allies to boost its points tally.

The other point of uncertainty is what you might call the Kate Ryan factor - how many times have we seen a western European country with a superb song, well performed, yet inexplicably failing to qualify? It's not too difficult to imagine that scenario playing out again for, say, Iceland or Malta - especially since the Maltese entry is penned by the same Borg/Vella combination that came a cropper with Olivia Lewis last year. However, my instinct is that both countries will sneak through - perhaps assisted by the new jury vote.

And who will I be voting for? Call me peculiar, but it's definitely Albania for me. As I mentioned the other night, I only vote for songs performed exclusively in a language other than English, but even if I didn't follow that rule I'd do the same thing anyway. It's incredible to think it was way back at Christmas that I first had the chance to fall in love with Olta Boka's beautiful song. I've tried not to let my personal regard for it cloud my judgement in terms of its prospects tomorrow, but if there's any justice at all in this world...

Dustin's Demise is Down to his Diabolical Diction

The TV commentary box isn't necessarily always the first port of call for incisive analysis on the Eurovision Song Contest, but its occupants did make one telling point last night, right after Dustin the Turkey posed the poignant question "did I win?". Caroline Flack observed "I didn't understand a word of that", to which Paddy O'Connell replied "well, I heard something about a wig." This was surely the rather fundamental flaw in Ireland's approach from the word go - what's the use of a joke entry if hardly anyone can actually make out the jokes? Thinking back to when I first heard the track two months ago, I had to resort to the text of the lyrics before I could understand about two-thirds of what Dustin was saying - and I'm a Scot. What chance has your average Azerbaijani got?

My issues with this year's Eurovision contestants - no. 5

Morena of Malta

"Spy One to Spy Four
I’ve deciphered the code, yeah…
Vodka – that’s the secret word
Vodka – and they want it so bad
Vodka – I’ve deciphered the code"

That's a tremendous achievement, Morena, congratulations. Just one small thing though - and brace yourself for some grim news at this point - you've just won a destination in the centre of our resident enigma's heart.