It's Not Our Time (but we did come fifth)
Ahhh yes, the Eurovision Song Contest. In previous recent years, all those countries that end in the letter A have all voted for each other and nobody voted for the United Kingdom. They didn't like us, and what's more our songs were crap, and they thought we weren't taking it seriously, which, of course, was TRUE.
So this year we brought in the Big Guns in the form of Andrew Lloyd Webber who has written a hit show or two. And we found a singer, Jade Ewen, via a reality TV show but nevertheless the girl can sing, has an engaging personality and a bit of human interest because her father is totally blind, her mother is partially blind, and they all come from the East End of London which isn't known for its riches.
The song is called It's My Time and, to be honest, Andrew, it's not one of your best, is it? I have a feeling that the whole population of Europe was thinking "Who's that funny-looking bloke on the piano?"
However, Jade sang her little heart out: here you go, have a listen.
It was definitely better than most of our recent offerings, and for a glorious few minutes near the beginning of the voting the United Kingdom was even in second place: Graham Norton, who was doing the commentary, urged us to take a commemorative photo of the scoreboard.
As for the rest, I did feel that they were somewhat better than in previous years: fewer gimmicks, more singing. I liked the girl from Iceland who was in the top three. There was an interesting "popera"-type song from Sweden sung by a girl whose voice soared up to the Moon somewhere. I had a bit of a soft spot for Portugal's folky-type song. Turkey did very well but I did feel that a contributary factor was some girls clad in pink, and not very much pink. They also had a bloke in green who just didn't seem to match, but probably not many people were looking at him anyway.
The whole show came from Moscow who had spent about a squillion pounds on it, and it did look very spectacular. There was a jolly little broadcast from two of the Russian cosmonauts on the Space Station near the beginning, which I thought was rather amazing.
The song that won was from Norway - a country that for years was mostly famous for getting Nul Points. It was extremely catchy and was sung - yes, rather well - by a 23-year old who has clearly been practising How To Look Cute And Work An Audience since about the age of three. He also has what I can only describe as very Slavonic cheekbones.
Go on, have a listen to him, too.
Of course, if you're in Europe and you care about any of this, you'll have seen it. If you did, please tell me what you thought. If you didn't, and you don't care, this is Daphne reporting back on the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, and I have told you all you need to know. In fact probably slightly more than you hoped for.
Perhaps next year we should send 'em Susan Boyle.
So this year we brought in the Big Guns in the form of Andrew Lloyd Webber who has written a hit show or two. And we found a singer, Jade Ewen, via a reality TV show but nevertheless the girl can sing, has an engaging personality and a bit of human interest because her father is totally blind, her mother is partially blind, and they all come from the East End of London which isn't known for its riches.
The song is called It's My Time and, to be honest, Andrew, it's not one of your best, is it? I have a feeling that the whole population of Europe was thinking "Who's that funny-looking bloke on the piano?"
However, Jade sang her little heart out: here you go, have a listen.
It was definitely better than most of our recent offerings, and for a glorious few minutes near the beginning of the voting the United Kingdom was even in second place: Graham Norton, who was doing the commentary, urged us to take a commemorative photo of the scoreboard.
As for the rest, I did feel that they were somewhat better than in previous years: fewer gimmicks, more singing. I liked the girl from Iceland who was in the top three. There was an interesting "popera"-type song from Sweden sung by a girl whose voice soared up to the Moon somewhere. I had a bit of a soft spot for Portugal's folky-type song. Turkey did very well but I did feel that a contributary factor was some girls clad in pink, and not very much pink. They also had a bloke in green who just didn't seem to match, but probably not many people were looking at him anyway.
The whole show came from Moscow who had spent about a squillion pounds on it, and it did look very spectacular. There was a jolly little broadcast from two of the Russian cosmonauts on the Space Station near the beginning, which I thought was rather amazing.
The song that won was from Norway - a country that for years was mostly famous for getting Nul Points. It was extremely catchy and was sung - yes, rather well - by a 23-year old who has clearly been practising How To Look Cute And Work An Audience since about the age of three. He also has what I can only describe as very Slavonic cheekbones.
Go on, have a listen to him, too.
Of course, if you're in Europe and you care about any of this, you'll have seen it. If you did, please tell me what you thought. If you didn't, and you don't care, this is Daphne reporting back on the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, and I have told you all you need to know. In fact probably slightly more than you hoped for.
Perhaps next year we should send 'em Susan Boyle.
posted by Daphne at 11:40 pm
7 Comments:
I sense a bit of UK bias here, Daphne, as you've chosen the UK video in glorious stereo but not so the Norwegian entry.
Still, old caterpillar for eyebrows did a good job with his catchy little ditty and as the UK came a decent 5th, honour is saved and therefore, as we don't host it in 2010, so is the BBC.
I'd call that a success.
I was at Sheridan's and, you won't be surprised to hear, I was banned from watching it. He may be gay, but he can't stand anything low brow or campy (although I was trying to explain that it is fun!!)
I managed to catch a few bits by the time I got home. I thought Iceland were good and also agree that the Norwegian winner didn't look very... 'Nordic'. Looked extremely Eastern European to me, but we're all one big melting pot (right?) so I guess we needn't worry!
And yeh, the set looked amazing and like an awful lot of money had been spent on it.
I will never forget the year we won. Was 1997, my last year at university, I was at a Eurovision fancy dress party and as pissed as a fart. Really memorable evening (and there are some incriminating photos somewhere too).
I thought Iceland's was by far the best.
You mean you actually WATCHED the song contest? That is so sad!
....Hello! This is Sheffield calling! And on behalf of the Sheffield people here are our votes....Daphne's last blogpost "Nil points!" Get a life!
Silverback - - good point, I think they said that Russa spent 30 million on it so I'm glad we're not having to try to outdo them!
Milo - - I love your phrase "low brow or campy" - - I'm drawn to all such programmes!
Jennyta - yes, I liked Iceland's song too.
YP - my heart swells with pity for you. When you're tired of the Eurovision Song Contest, you're tired of life, as Dr Johnson would have said if only he'd had a telly.
It's not quite my cup of tea I'm afraid. I won't go quite as far as Yorkshire Pudding....but the last time I watched this contest the winner was..."Puppet on a String".
We didn't realise Eurovision was on until it was over.
Well done on watching. Medals have been awarded for less.
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