It’s that time again. We’ll be both livetweeting and liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. Exciting, isn’t it? No, it is. IT IS. Latest entries at the bottom of the page.
[19:58]
The BBC are deeming this SO important, they’re using their “Look at all the brilliant things BBC One has done” montage of classic BBC One shows, like Morecambe & Wise, One Foot In The Grave, and Mrs Brown’s Boys (yeah, we know). Respect: due.
The iPlayer live stream of BBC One (which we’ve got up so we can do screencaps) is about half a second ahead of the digital delay on our actual television. That’s how fast the internet is nowadays.
Hopefully we’ll get better at taking screencaps than this as the night goes on, though:
This Saturday, at 8pm…oh. We’ve rather shot our metaphorical load with that title. Anyway, yes, Saturday at 2000 hours, we’ll be kicking off our 3rd Annual Eurovision Live Blog between here and Twitter. The former when there are entertaining asides too darn long to cram into 140 characters, the latter when we want more than seven people to read what we’ve written. Be there, or be thereabouts.
Refresh for updates, new updates added to the top of the page.
23:13 Germany wins, and all the songs we like got nowhere. And the UK ended up finishing BOTTOM OF THE ENTIRE CONTINENT, meaning we weren’t even right about that. Mind you, in a roundabout way, Wales beat England (as in Cyprus beat the UK, right at the arse end of the table), which is about as Pyrrhic a victory as you can get.
Anyway, goodnight, and thanks for tuning in! We’ll leave you with a glimpse of much happier times.
23:00 Remember when we said the UK would finish second from bottom, right at the start of this live blog?
LOOK ASTONISHED.
22:40 Germany are storming it, despite their entry being so bloody exciting we can’t even remember what it was. Anyway, Estonia’s results are being announced by what appears to be Sasha Baron Cohen’s camp new comic character.
22:24 Ouch. There’s just been an utterly great interval showpiece where the show cut live to dancing flashmobs from around Europe, and about a billion people dancing at a concert in Hamburg. Then they did a slightly weak gag about the main Eurovision boss guy, which didn’t work at all. It went down about as well as when the CEO of whichever company is sponsoring the British Comedy Awards gets to present an award. Anyway, scores! Numbers! Woo! (Exciting food update: the thing we got to eat was: a chilli dog. It was quite nice.)
21:59 That’s all the songs. Coming soon, the only bit we used to watch of the entire evening, because it involves lots of numbers being added up really slowly, and we’re quite geeky like that. Right now though, we’re going to get something to eat. Everyone on Twitter wants Albania to win. We’re a bit worried that having to host Eurovision might just bugger up their economy. Won’t anyone think of the poor Albanian public?
21:31 HOLY FREAKING SHIT. The male host was just doing a piece to camera, when suddenly he stopped talking, and just started staring, blank and utterly emotionless.
His unflinching gaze maybe only lasted about ten seconds, but it was so utterly chilling that it seemed to last long enough for whole continents to form and break away, for entire universes to be born and die.
The camera slowly panned in, as if to press him into reacting, leaving his cold merciless glare looming ever larger on hundreds of millions of plasmas, LCDs and CRTs around the planet. The only faint signs of life were his nostrils, flaring and contracting wildly as his breathing grew quicker and quicker with each passing second, and his eyes, which began to dart around frantically, as if he had just become fully and overwhelmingly conscious that it’s this, this moment right now that will come to define his entire time on this planet, and that anything else he does from this point on will just seem empty, hollow, pointless and futile. As soon as the credits roll in about eighty minutes, he will never again be able to taste the feeling of astonishing power that he has right now. He may be at the top of the rollercoaster ride, but everything from this moment, to the day he dies, will just seem blank by comparison. Every. Single. Thing.
And yet… his body and face was frozen. Utterly motionless. His eyes darted around furiously, as if they were now the only part of his body not utterly, irrevocably paralyzed by the moment, the biggest moment, his moment. His rigid grin granted a terrified and transfixed global audience a terrifyingly revealing clue towards the huge explosion of fear, paranoia, ecstacy and dread going on inside his mind.
Finally, there was an almost imperceptable shake of his head, and he said “Portugal, there. And now let’s take a look at the next contestant.” It was a moment that had us truly spellbound.
Nah, not really. There was a rubbish joke about Iceland’s volcano and then some more disappointing ballads.
21:24 Romania are on, and they’ve got a cheap-looking perspex two-person grand piano. Their chorus rhymes the word “fire” with the word “desire”. Was it written by a ten-year-old? That should be punishable by a hefty fine and a one-year suspension from the competition, if you ask us. Uh-oh - it also throws the word “higher” in there, too. We’d up the ban to five years for that.
21:18 There have been more bands on. Albania’s entry was really good, Iceland’s entry was instantly catchy and pretty damn ace, the others were mostly rubbish. BUT! Here comes France, and a jumpy Europop song that is also the nation’s official World Cup song. It’s quite good, and seems to necessitate a load of jumping around, which makes it hard to get a decent screen capture of them.
OUR TOP FOUR SO FAR: 1. Iceland. 2. Albania. 3. Moldova. 4. France.
21:03 Turkey’s turn, and a manufactured nu-metal band so very unexciting they make Limp Bizkit look edgy. This is probably as close as we’re getting to ‘interesting’ this year, apart from Moldova’s entry, which is the best song so far. Instead of watching Turkey’s song – which tries to amp up the excitement by having someone pretending to be a robot on stage – we’re looking at more pictures on Wikipedia from Eurovision 2008. It was brilliant. Where’s Rodollfo Chikilicuatre when you need him?
And just look at Slovenia’s entry from 2008:
That’s proper ‘interesting’, Turkey.
20:58 One of the hosts has just given us a (pre-recorded) glimpse at Graham Norton’s commentary booth, and a nice chat with him. This was quite excellently talked all over by Graham Norton himself, dismissing it all for the lightweight pan-continental faff it is. At one point, Norton pointed out that he had nothing to do with the interior design of his booth, and that it was all the producer’s fault. And no wonder, it looks like it’s been vandalised by the BNP.
20:46 Summary of last few acts. Belarus, dull, though we did get to make a rubbish joke about them being called Three Up Two Down, just so we could name check the late Michael Elphick. Ireland’s entry is nicely scaled back, and Quite Good If You Like That Sort Of Thing. We suspect our mum likes this one the best so far. As we type, Greece are up, with a song we’ve now heard twice in one week. First time around, it was tolerable. Second time: annoying.
Why can’t it all be like Eurovision 2008, which was the first one we ever watched in full, with loads of brilliantly demented acts like Laka…
Kreisraadio…
Ireland’s magnificent Dustin The Turkey, which made mention of Terry Wogan’s wig. Sadly, it got knocked out in the semi final, meaning the UK was robbed of the chance to hear Sir Tel explode with mock outrage in the final…
All that, PLUS Seb Tellier, singing the best Eurovision song of recent years. BRING BACK THAT TYPE OF EUROVISION, not the useless frigging rejected Big Fun album filler that the UK is represented by this year. It’s just the kind of song an EastEnders actor in their early 20s would use to launch a pop career, crawl to number 37 in the charts, and subsequently disappear from the music industry completely.
20:39 Yikes. It’s like a The Fly-type teleportation had been tried out by Kenneth The Page from 30 Rock, and somehow Casey Tatum from the Uncle Muscles sketches in Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job and Photoshop’s ‘Gaussian Blur’ tool had both crawled into the booth at the same time. A horrible mutation takes place, resulting in…
20:34 Belgium. A man and a guitar. Boring. We did get a nice arty screencap of it though. Why couldn’t Vive La Fete be the choice for Belgium? Because they’ve got artistic integrity? Ah, right.
20:29: An earnest entry from Wales, there. Not very good, but we still want it to win. Over on Twitter, the reliably great @lauriepink is doing live sketches of all the entrants. Well worth a look. Better than the uninspired chod we’re coming out with on here. Everyone just uses Twitter now. No-one is even going to be reading until tomorrow, at which point it’ll be out of date. Tsk. We can’t post rambling self-defeatism like this on Twitter! Oh, and Bosnia-Herzegovina's entry is quite good. Not ‘Moldova’ good, but ‘better than the Welsh song’ good.
20:24: Moldova’s turn, as despite being represented by an annoyingly ‘wacky’ berk with a neon violin (he’s just stuck his tongue out at the camera. Have some decorum, man!), and an Aqua tribute act, it’s bloody catchy. Proper late 90s catchy pop. Our current favourite to win.
Ooh, Wales are up. For some reason, the montage seems to be set in Cyprus. We’re still saying it’s Wales, though. It was close as we’re getting to a World Cup finals any time soon.
20:16. What vision of hell is this? Spain’s entry is quite bad, but at least livened up by being performed by a strange amalgam of Jedward and former Bolton Wanderers lynchpin Ivan Campo, backed with disturbing people dressed up as toys. Spain, of course, are one of the countries who didn’t have to pre-qualify for the final, much like the UK. One reason ‘we’ always do so badly is that the UK’s entry is up against a load of songs that were already good enough to survive one phone vote. The main reason the UK always does so badly is that the songs are always unmitigated shite, of course.
Norway are up now. Not a song we’re really going for, but the sort of thing that could well win. It’s not terrible, but the sort of thing that could be the closing music for a slightly annoying Richard Curtis romantic comedy, and as such a song we could never really like.
20:10. IT BEGINS. Eurovision 2010 is GO, and after a fashion, so does our live blog (we had a pop-up to update Windows Live Writer, we downloaded it, then couldn’t install it strai… you don’t care? Okay!). Throughout, we’ll also be tweeting, because we’re a multiplatform service. Not much going on yet, though. Azerbaijan are first up, and it’s a bit bland. Expect us to use the world ‘bland’ quite often, going by most of the songs that won through from the semis. We might not even bother watching it, but we want to see how well Wales do. Admittedly, Wales aren’t really there, but a Welsh chap is singing for Cyprus, and not in a bad version of World In Motion sense (“We’re singin’ for Cyprus! Cy! Per! Us!)”).
PREDICTION: The UK’s entry to finish second from last.
Just two days to go until our LIVE EUROVISION BLOG special. Will there be any songs as good as Luxembourg’s winning entry from 1965?
Well, no. But tune in anyway. If we’re lucky, t.A.T.u, performing with the Red Army Choir might be on it again, like they were on Tuesday’s semi-final. Whether the BBC will bother showing more than ten seconds of it is another matter. In case they’re not, here’s a video of that as well:
Yeah, semi-live, as we’re not really that enamoured about it so far. We’ll still be liveblogging the final itself on Saturday night, so tune in for that. For tonight, it’d be hard to come up with much. “This Swiss rock band make Razorlight look like fucking Sepultura”, for instance, who’d really need to read that? Instead, we’re going to stat up some data on last year’s acts and see who made it big. Mmm, look excited – all the fun of Eurovision, and the promise of a big chart at the end.
How it works:
We do a YouTube search for each song. We note down the number of views for the most popular search result. That’s about it. We reckon Sébastien Tellier is going to do well here, so here it is:
Here’s the rundown from last year:
Dima Bilan - Believe (Russia, 272 pts) Ani Lorak - Shady Lady (Ukraine, 230 pts) Kalomira - Secret Combination (Greece, 218 pts) Sirusho - Qélé, Qélé (Armenia, 199 pts) Maria Haukaas Storeng - Hold On Be Strong (Norway, 182 pts) Jelena Tomaševic - Oro (Serbia, 160 pts) Mor ve Ötesi - Deli (Turkey, 138 pts) Elnur and Samir - Day After Day (Azerbaijan, 132 pts) Boaz Ma'uda - The Fire in Your Eyes (Israel, 124 pts) Laka - Pokušaj (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 110 pts) Pirates of the Sea - Wolves of the Sea (Latvia, 83 pts) Diana Gurtskaya - Peace Will Come (Georgia, 83 pts) Vânia Fernandes - Senhora do mar (Negras águas) (Portugal, 69 pts) Euroband - This is My Life (Iceland, 64 pts) Simon Mathew - All Night Long (Denmark, 60 pts) Olta Boka - Zemrën e lamë peng (Albania, 55 pts) Rodolfo Chikilicuatre - Baila el Chiki-chiki (Spain, 55 pts) Charlotte Perrelli - Hero (Sweden, 47 pts) Sébastien Tellier - Divine (France, 47 pts) Nico and Vlad - Pe-o margine de lume (Romania, 45 pts) Kraljevi Ulice and 75 cents - Romanca (Croatia, 44 pts) Teräsbetoni - Missä miehet ratsastaa (Finland, 35 pts) No Angels - Disappear (Germany, 14 pts) Isis Gee - For Life (Poland, 14 pts) Andy Abraham - Even If (United Kingdom, 14 pts)
And here is a table of our two-thousand-and-ninely adjusted scores.
Song
Nation, Score
YouTube Views
Dima Bilan - Believe
(Russia, 272 pts)
4,606,622
Ani Lorak - Shady Lady
(Ukraine, 230 pts)
3,924,121
Kalomira - Secret Combination
(Greece, 218 pts)
3,227,716
Sirusho - Qélé, Qélé
(Armenia, 199 pts)
1,332,180
Maria Haukaas Storeng - Hold On Be Strong
(Norway, 182 pts)
778,108
Jelena Tomaševic - Oro
(Serbia, 160 pts)
528,896
Mor ve Ötesi - Deli
(Turkey, 138 pts)
412,169
Elnur and Samir - Day After Day
(Azerbaijan, 132 pts)
881,863
Boaz Ma'uda - The Fire in Your Eyes
(Israel, 124 pts)
1,327,393
Laka - Pokušaj
(Bosnia and Herzegovina, 110 pts)
823,111
Pirates of the Sea - Wolves of the Sea
(Latvia, 83 pts)
424,139
Diana Gurtskaya - Peace Will Come
(Georgia, 83 pts)
190,967
Vânia Fernandes - Senhora do mar (Negras águas)
(Portugal, 69 pts)
96,703
Euroband - This is My Life
(Iceland, 64 pts)
216,917
Simon Mathew - All Night Long
(Denmark, 60 pts)
167,553
Olta Boka - Zemrën e lamë peng
(Albania, 55 pts)
141,852
Rodolfo Chikilicuatre - Baila el Chiki-chiki
(Spain, 55 pts)
6,896,963
Charlotte Perrelli - Hero
(Sweden, 47 pts)
1,391,624
Sébastien Tellier - Divine
(France, 47 pts)
1,514,851
Nico and Vlad - Pe-o margine de lume
(Romania, 45 pts)
515,531
Kraljevi Ulice and 75 cents - Romanca
(Croatia, 44 pts)
92,947
Teräsbetoni - Missä miehet ratsastaa
(Finland, 35 pts)
623,008
No Angels - Disappear
(Germany, 14 pts)
325,092
Isis Gee - For Life
(Poland, 14 pts)
506,378
Andy Abraham - Even If
(United Kingdom, 14 pts)
439,150
And so, sorting them by YouTube views, and shoving them into a chart, here’s the result.
Woo, yeah! We were wrong about Seb Tellier, but this does give us a perfect excuse to post a video of Spain’s premier Rolf Harris impersonator. Everybody do El Robocop!
See you on Saturday! (Or, more accurately in a bit, because we’ve got another, non-Eurovision, non-charty update to put up.
[8pm] We're off to a good start, with the BBC making an on-air apology about last year's Making Your Mind Up, and the lack of money given to charity at the time. It looks superb in HDTV.
Confluence of Sound is this year's title, it seems. The show kicks off with a woman singing a capella that Tel likens to a grumpy Jimmy Krankie. We reckon she looks more like Joe Pesquale. She proceeds to rip several layers of clothing off a woman standing next to her, leaving her wearing a half-dress, half-suit combo. And still, the singing continues, still without instrumental backing. If it's like this all the way through, we can't see us making it to half past eight, let alone all the way through.
[8.05] A bit of music has piped up in the background, then faded away again, suggesting this is an audio cock-up rather than by design. It certainly looked stupid having backing dancers when there's no actual music.
[8.07] Tel's eye has caught the attractive host. "Hello yourself," he replies to her greeting. You sly old dog, Toggers.
[8.09] First up, it's Romania with Nico and Vlad with Pe-o Margine de Lume. One minute in, and we can just make out some music over the singing. It's disappointingly bland and generic. Plus, it's in Romanian. Tsk. We've already swung it so the host's announcements are all in English despite the UK taking up a tiny proportion of the European population, why can't we force them all to sing in English?
[8.13] Speaking of singing in English, here come Our Brave Boys, more specifically Andy Abraham performing Even If. And we've just made the startling discovery that the backing music is almost totally inaudible on BBC HD only. Switching to BBC One just to check almost saw us propelled backwards by sheer force of volume. Like that bloke in the 1980s Maxell adverts. Once we drag the volume to a more polite level, it's not too bad, considering it's a British Eurovision entry.
[8.17] Seventeen minutes in, and we've got our first belly button of the evening (thanks for pointing that out, Terry), courtesy of Albania's Olta Boka. She's singing Zemrën E Lamë Peng. which is probably going down a storm on the Albanian equivalent of Radio Two. And here's a picture of her we've culled from Wikipedia, to try and distract everyone from the fact that this live blogging isn't very interesting yet. It's not our fault there aren't any bald blokes in tight suits chanting about how they're going to win Euro 2008 or something.
[8.20] Germany now. No Angels performing a song called Disappear. More standard Eurovision fare. Given the fact that each country really wants to win this thing, and that you're allowed to bring in overseas 'talent', why on earth hasn't anyone snapped up Girls Aloud?
[8.24] Armenia, whose flag is represented by a crap clown. Sirusho are about to perform their Qele Qelere, so they're cavorting around like they're the opening ceremony for the Olympics, if the Olympics were being held in Shetland. The music still isn't coming through properly on BBC HD. Wonder how many people have been watching it all this time, wondering what the ruddy hell is going on. It'll probably prove a boon for amateur 'mash up' deejays, looking to meld Zemrën E Lamë Peng with The Strokes.
[8.28] Yay! Here's Bosnia's Laka doing Pokušaj, essentially some berks dressed up in funny costumes. The bloke has a drawn-on moustache we think, and a bottle green school blazer. The woman is hanging up some washing whilst wearing a funny dress. So idea what they're on about, but at least it's fun. We Brits like to think we're the de facto masters of irony - why can't we pull something like this?
Again: yay!
[8.31] Off to Belgrade City Hall. It's turned into Children in Need, it seems.
[8.33] Israel's turn, with a song written by Dana International. Sadly, Boaz isn't dressed up outrageously, so we've kind of lost interest already. Why not do something more interesting on stage, Boaz? Rip off that OK Go video with the treadmills, or something. Like that yoghurt advert has done.
[8.37] Finland. Teräsbetoni doing Missä miehet ratsastaa. It's 1980s-style heavy metal! In Finnish! And while the singer looks a little bit like the bloke from Nickelback, they're not shit! The winner, we're saying. Everyone else might as well go home. And we don't actually like heavy metal music. It's so ball-kickingly loud that you can even hear the music on BBC HD. Hell, it's so loud you could probably even hear it on QVC. Look everyone, we've done a joke!
"There's men!" announces Tel. Ace.
[8.41] Croatia now. Kraljevi Ulice and 75 cents performing Romanca. They've got the best flag in Europe, but will they have the best song? It's an old bloke in a white suit. And another slightly younger man in a black suit. They both have hats. There's a dancer in a frock. A gramophone on a table. And the old man has started shouting things. Eurovision is up and running now! We don't know which one is 75 Cents, but if it's the old shouting man, he literally is twenty-five cents better than 50 Cent.
Now he's scratching the gramophone record like a septuagenarian Mixmaster Mike! Marvellous! Another potential winner.
[8.45] Poland are up, Isis Gee, For Life. We're with Doug Stanhope when it comes to Polish women, although as feminists, we don't quite agree with his dick-sucking employment policy for them. We suspect lots of tedious racists in pubs right now are making jocular remarks about her coming over here to work in a chip shop on Monday.
Oh, and cheers to an anonymous commentgoer for letting us know the HD sound is working now. It's like we're the Guardian football website or something!
[8.49] Reverting to type now, with Iceland's euroband, erm, Euroband. If Steps were Icelandic, they'd be Euroband. This Is My Life is precisely the sort of song we used to fast forward through when listening to the imported German dance compilations we'd bought from Wrexham's mighty Phase One Records in the early-to-mid 1990s.
[8.53] Turkey have also gone for the rock option, but sadly Mor ve Ötesi's 'Deli' doesn't hit the same heights as Finland's entry. Still, it gives us time to put the kettle on, so it's not all bad. 'Deli' means 'crazy' in English, by the way. I'm sure most Turkish-speaking visitors to New York allow themselves a wry grin each time they see a delicatessen.
[8.56] We're off to the green room. And more shouty Serbian hosts squabbling with each other. They're quite annoying, to be honest, and they don't actually do anything.
[8.58] Back to the main hosts. The male host has the tiniest beard ever worn by a man, taking the world record away from Tony Almeida in the first series of 24.
[9.03] Christ's soupy beard. Latvia's entry is a hi-NRG sea shanty, with a bunch of people in camp pirate outfits waxing lyrical on what it's like to be a pirate. The band are called Pirates of the Sea and the sing is Wolves of the Sea. It's surprisingly ace. Another possible winner, which would lead to inevitably po-faced reporting of the fact in the news.
"Ya ha ha!" shouts Sir Tel as the song closes.
[9.07] Sweden have chosen a monochrome woman to do their song.
[9.08] Oh, she's in colour now. How did they do that. It did distract from the blandness of the song, at least. Charlotte Perrelli, Hero. Now some backing singers have appeared. They should have just forced Whale to reform. Whale were brilliant.
[9.10] Denmark, whose flag is represented by two blokes chucking a woman into a box and then sealing it. Whuh? Ooh, Christ. All Night Long, performed by the not-particularly Danish sounding Simon Mathew is quite dull. And it doesn't help that Simon Mathew seems to be a bit of a Chico character. If that box is soundproof, we can see just what that woman in the flag sequence was thinking of. We've made our second joke of the night!
[9.14] Georgia's Diana Gurtskaya hopes that Peace Will Come. Meh. Meanwhile, over on Betfair Ukraine are the big favourites, with Russia not far behind. Latvia are 47/1! We're sorely tempted to put a fiver on it, just in case. With Finland on 37/1, that's another reasonable bet. Are these people backing Russia and Ukraine based purely on national preconceptions here, or have they all heard the songs?
[9.18] Here's our chance to find out. It's the woman herself, Ani Lorak (pictured) doing Shady Lady. What a rubbish title. The song itself isn't anything too special, if you ask us, but they've certainly prepared their dance moves well in advance. We can't see why this is the favourite, aside from the accusations of international everyone-pick-on-Britain collusion that we've been bombarded with over the last week.
[9.21] Tel is warning us again not to phone in, or he'll get in trouble. That'd certainly make for an interesting new incentive by the BBC Trust. If we phone up trying to vote someone out from The Apprentice, will they set about Alan Sugar with big sticks?
[9.23] France's Sébastien Tellier singing 'Divine'. Women in beards. The singer on a Hank Kingsley-issue golf cart. And a very catchy song that we've heard on 6Music before now. Sung in English, much to the chagrin of the French. It's easily the best actual song of the night, so much so that we might even buy it. It's got that special kind of pop hook that wriggles underneath your skin and doesn't go away until you buy it. Criminally, it's 94/1 on Betfair to win.
[9.27] Azerbaijan win the award for the first country of the night that we've had to check the spelling of. Elnur and his gang are dressed as angels, while Samir and his minions have come as the devil. Together they perform Day After Day, They both look quite silly.
[9.30] Greece's turn, with the glamorous Kalomira. She reminds us a bit of Dannii Minogue, and her song Secret Combination is nice enough. We're going to go out on a limb here, and predict this will get the maximum twelve points from a small island beginning with 'C'.
[9.34] Ooh, now we're talking. Spain's turn, and they've elected to be represented by a Rolf Harris impersonator playing a child's toy guitar-cum-keyboard, with a troupe of foxy bouffanted babes. Rodolfo Chikilicuatre is his name, and the magnificently titled Baila el Chiki Chiki is his song. He might just be the greatest Spaniard ever to don a beard since Rafa Benitez. 69/1 on Betfair, but that's not stopping us putting his picture atop this post.
[9.38] Host nation Serbia's turn, and quite brilliantly it's a dwarf with a banjo singing My Lovely Horse from off of Father Ted. Oh, alright then. Jelena Tomašević and Bora Dugić performing Oro. The crowd go mad, but we'd rather have used Live Rewind to hear Baila el Chiki Chiki again.
[9.42] Russia, represented by a bloke who's forgotten to put his shoes on, the chump. Dima Bilan and Believe. We're going to prepare a graph instead of listen to this.
[9.46] Norway. Last up, it's Maria singing Hold On Be Strong. Hang on, Maria? You're only meant to be able to get away with using one name in the world of pop when it's an unusual one. Kylie. Sting. Madonna. Not 'Maria'. Bah. We tore ourselves away from an Excel pivot table for this?
[9.51] A huge Serbian basketball star (in both senses of the word) takes to the stage. Both senses of the word 'huge', not the word 'star'. That would just be silly, as the entire venue would be destroyed if a massive, luminous ball of plasma was brought up to declare the phone lines open. Tsk. Oh, and the phone lines are now open.
[9.56] Pre-empting the inevitable kicking we're going to get in the phone votes (mainly because we've got one of the more forgettable songs), here's something we've just knocked up during the recap of the songs. Taking the information on Wikipedia for the languages the songs were performed in, here's a pie chart for you.
So, we've won Eurovision. In a way.
[10.00] We're still working our way through a recap of all songs. This is a good way to determine a winner, seeing each song distilled into a six-second soundbite outlines just how catchy each song is. The UK's track comes over as pretty forgettable, as do many others, while the songs from Latvia and France grab your attention quite instantly. Ukraine are even bigger favourites on Betfair now, at just 2.8, although we don't think they'll win.
[10.06] A spurious countdown marks the closing of the phone lines, along with a pleading caption from the Beeb imploring us not to call any more. We know you don't want another bollocking, but all this is coming over as quite pathetic. You're like Dwayne in Grand Theft Auto IV, BBC. Stop being like Dwayne.
[10.09] Sir Tel has just admitted he can't wait to get drunk afterwards. We're not being sarcastic when we say Terry Wogan is a national blimmin' treasure. Why can't all television presenters be anywhere near as good?
Meanwhile, we've busied ourselves by checking out Rodolfo Chikilicuatre's official website. Will it live up to our hopes?
Hell, yeah. Everyone do 'El Robocop'.
[10.15] Well, there's still an oom-pah band up on stage, as they have been for the last ten minutes. Meanwhile, Tel has just been given some lovely chocolates by his Belarussian counterpart.
[10.17] The votes are about to start flooding in. Tel's getting a name check on stage, which is nice.
[10.18] The realisation that we're about to spend the next hour of our one and only life listening to various Europeans reading out lists of countries and numbers dawns. We could probably get to Bargain Booze and back in fifteen minutes. Hmm. If only it wasn't closed.
[10.20] Phew. They're only reading out the top three scores from each nation, the lower scores just pop up on screen. That's much better than the previous method, while lasted about three weeks. Albania get twelve points from the Macedonian presenter, who appears to be some sort of Timmy Mallett looky-likey.
[10.25] We really can't be bothered commenting on the people reading out numbers, so here's a look at the website for Pirates Of The Sea.
They've got a forum!
Meanwhile, we've got our first points. Thanks for the pity voting, people of San Marino.
[10.30] Ukraine are slipping down the betting now, to third place. Told you they won't win. Turkey - third place in the voting - are still 19/1. Fill your boots.
[10.33] Bosnia-Herzegovina's entry gets twelve points from someone, much to the annoyance of Tel. Lighten up, sir! The UK are now second to last in the table. Will Cyprus give us some points?
[10.34] No. Greece got their twelve points, though.
[10.36] The scruffily attired Moldovan presenter is trying to eke every last second from his appearance. Come on, man. You're like the least famous celebrity presenting an award at an awards show, frantically and quite pathetically trying to make a name for yourself.
[10.38] No wonder no-one votes for us. This is three hours of live primetime television, and about 90% of the total television audience has to sit through the majority of it listening to a language they don't understand. If all the commentary on the BBC and ITV coverage of Euro 2008 was in German, there'd be an armed uprising.
Here's a question for any Eurovision buffs reading this: does the coverage in other Eurovision nations include commercial breaks? There's no gap left for any, but if it's as popular as it's made out to be, surely it'd be a goldmine for the commercial stations.
[10.46] The award for Best Fake Tan And Whitened Teeth of the night goes to the Slovenian presenter. It's as if he was fathered by Dale Winton, although that's statistically unlikely on several levels. The Armenian presenter runs him quite close, but as she's absolutely gorgeous we can forgive her.
[10.48] First cock up of the night - the Czech presenter messes up their results, leaving her perilously close to erupting into a fit of giggles. We're still second from bottom of the table. Not even Malta have given us some points! Expect a furious reaction from the Daily Mail on this matter.
[10.54] Some consolation points from Ireland. The presenter lady almost seemed embarrassed by this. As Poland have also picked up some points, we're now last in the table.
[10.57] We're getting bored of the numbers now. Russia are going to win, we're going to finish last. Happily, we've just discovered Sébastien Tellier's MySpace page. And we've also just discovered that Swedish people have trouble pronouncing Bosnia-Herzegovina. Every day's a school day.
[11.01] Sébastien Tellier fact! Divine was produced by 50% of Daft Punk. Which is why it's so great. We've just bought it. It downloading now. Whee. The results are nearly over, so soon we'll all be able to get on with our lives.
[11.04] Sébastien Tellier fact two! The cover of his album has a bare lady on it.
[11.06] The presenters reading out the results have taken to singing bits of the songs. That isn't really helping anyone. Oh, and Russia have won.
[11.08] And that's pretty much it. The evening ends with the winning song, a shitload of fireworks, and Tel grumbling about how it's all a big fix, and how all the west European countries might as well just stop entering it. Never mind the fact this is the first time Russia have ever won it. Mind you, it's not as if the winning song was anything to write home about, so maybe he's on the money. We don't know. We do like the fact that as next year's contest is going to be in Moscow, there's an outside chance Tatu will make an appearance. We're now definitely going to be watching it again next year.
And with that in mind, what better way to sign off?
Here's a confession for you. In much the same way we've never watched any of the Star Wars trilogy all of the way through (and you'd be surprised how many people get genuinely annoyed when we tell them that), we've never watched an annual Eurovision from start to finish. Well, later on today (i.e. Saturday, as that's what it technically is), we plan to lose our Eurovision virginity, because we care about you, our loyal listeners, we're going to be blogging the whole grisly experience live. Yes, between the hours in which it is broadcast, on a Saturday night, we literally have nothing better to do. Plus. we spent all of our gin money on Friday night. Hey, you've got to set yourself limits.
But that's for later. This preview is here to set the scene for the main event, and what better way to do that than a round up of the TOP THREE EUROVISION APPEARANCES (THAT WE KNOW ABOUT, GIVEN OUR LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF THE EVENT).
THREE.
LT United - We Are The Winners (Luthuania 2006)
"But... it's shit!" you might be saying if you haven't clicked on the 'play video' icon yet, and you'd only ever heard about five seconds of it on Radio One Newsbeat two years ago, while they were bemoaning why the rest of Europe have to pick on Britain once again, and how the only way we don't win every year is because of our government's support for the War in Iraq. And you'd be quite spectacularly incorrect to do so. Go click that link. We'll wait.
Ready to yum up those words yet? One of the reasons 'we' like to somehow feel all superior over never winning Eurovision is that we like to assume everyone else treats it the same way 'we' treat the World Cup. The be-all and end-all of everything. But not us merry Britishers, oh no. We treat it as a bit of a laugh, and nothing more. That's why it really sticks in our collective craw when someone else - Lithuania of all people! - treats it with precisely as much disdain as we like to think we do. Only, when we're sneering at those funny European sorts after selecting yet another bland sub-daytime Radio Two travesty to represent all sixty million of us, those swarthy Lituanians go and pull some shit like this.
Odd thing is: it's not actually that bad a song. In fact, it's pretty damn good. No, really. It falls in with BrokenTV's Fifth Rule Of Music in that if a band contains more than two members (one of whom must be lead vocalist) who could pass for managers of your firm's IT department, then they're really good at music. Think about it. Apples In Stereo, Guided By Voices, The Hold Steady - they all fall into this theory.And so do LT United, although admittedly, to a lesser extent.
Odd thing is, parading around whilst dressed sharply, smugly proclaiming you're the best thing since sliced sex is perfectly acceptable when you're Robbie Williams (erm, and it's still 2002). When you have the sheer barefaced audacity to be... foreign - ugh. Especially when you're from one of those frightful ex-Soviet nations that only otherwise seem to pop up to callously steal a couple of qualification points from England when they really need them. Bad show, LT United. In a way, it's your fault Brave John Terry won't be slipping over for penalties in Vienna this summer.
TWO.
France Gall - Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son (Luxembourg 1965)
And we didn't even have to look up the year, that's all from memory. Cripes, eh? It's quite clearly a metric mile more impressive and catchy than any of Sir Clifford's efforts, and it roundly kicks anything by Abba up the arse. And for some reason, it has two grown men in romper suits wandering into an oversized mock-up of a nursery. Christ knows why. They don't even do anything when they get there.
More super background info that we don't even have to look up - there was a bit of an uproar in France at the time this scooped the Eurovision. France Gall wasn't from Luxembourg, and nor was the writer of the song, the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. But that doesn't stop it being the second best Eurovision song ever. Heck no. So, in leiu of us knowing much more about Eurovision 1965, here are some other things we know (or at least, think we know) about France Gall.
FRANCE GALL FACT ONE: Serge "The Surge" Gainsbourg continued to write songs for France Gall after Eurovision 1965, but after the people of France discovered that the song "Les Sucettes" was probably about blowjobs (and not, as had been assumed, lollipops), the 18-year-old Gall had to put up with all sorts of palaver, and saw her career take a bit of a nosedive. With that in mind, she ironically never worked with the generously-conked Gainsbourg again, and reportedly still refuses to perform the songs written by him.
FRANCE GALL FACT TWO: The Arcade Fire have an absolutely brilliant cover version of "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" available as a split 7" with LCD Soundsystem, which was available at their concerts for a short while. And, because we're splendid, here it is.
FRANCE GALL FACT THREE: We don't know more than two facts about France Gall. Unless you count the fact that even though she's now sixty, we'd probably still consider it.
ONE.
Tatu - Ne Ver', Ne Boisia (Russia 2003)
Well, clearly. It's Tatu. The greatest band ever to appear on Eurovision. We even own an actual physical copy of this song. That's how good it is. But, we'll spare you the same spittle-flecked diatribe about how Tatu are actually one of the best bands in the history of the word (if you want to hear that in full, be in the same pub as us any time All About Us pops up on the jukebox - we didn't put it on, we don't even like that song very much - and make any sort of 'tutting' noise about it. We dares ya).
No, instead we're going to simply point to an NSFW uncut copy of the video for Beliy Plaschik, their latest single. It's stunningly excellent. And, with an observation that will in all probability see our penises revoked by the Bloke Police, we're more excited about the fact that it's a brilliant remix of the track than the fact you get to see two of Tatu's nipples (one each, if you're keeping score). But for whichever reason you're considering checking it out, here you go. While stocks last (i.e. us being told to remove it). And see you later for that Live Eurovision Extravaganza.
