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Post by bjd on May 7, 2014 18:04:45 GMT
You're right -- they won't win. Not enough sparkles.
Not sure about the drag queen. Is he actually Austrian?
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Post by bjd on May 8, 2014 9:20:23 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2014 10:32:38 GMT
For some reason, Armenia is leading at the British bookmakers.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2014 22:12:07 GMT
24 hours before the show, the betting odds now have Sweden on top. Frankly, I don't think so.
And Netherlands is at #2. I don't think so either.
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Post by bjd on May 10, 2014 7:25:24 GMT
Today's International NY Times has an article about Eurovision, with the weird title "Soft power meets soft porn in a wide-open Eurovision". Soft porn, really?
Anyway, they go on to say "Like cricket outside the Commonwealth or bidets outside the Continent, Eurovision doesn't always translated to those outside Europe, but here it's serious business." Seems to me they could have included "like American football outside the USA" in those things incomprehensible to outsiders.
They too mention that Sweden is a top favourite this year.
Also that Turkey is not participating since a change in the voting rules in 2013 dilute the power of the Turkish diaspora, and that Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Cyprus are not participating because they can't afford it.
This is all much more complicated than I had ever realized.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 10:22:54 GMT
It is amazingly complicated, and the cutthroat semi-finals are very scary to watch. I have only watched the semi-finals once, since France is one of the automatically qualified countries. (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are automatically qualified because they finance most of the show.) This year both Ukraine and Russia are in the finals, so the geopolitical voting should be quite interesting.
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Post by tod2 on May 10, 2014 12:27:03 GMT
Alas, we didn't get any big notifications of the contest here......
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Post by bjd on May 10, 2014 13:13:07 GMT
Cheer up, Tod, I didn't know about it either until Kerouac started posting about it again. Then I saw information about it on the BBC news website.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 15:36:08 GMT
Tonight is the night. 20:00 GMT.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 21:13:39 GMT
Having watched the performances and knowing that I absolutely never come anywhere close to picking the winner, I will list my three worst instead:
1. Netherlands 2. Romania 3. San Marino
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 22:30:52 GMT
And so Conchita won for Austria. France came in last of 26 countries.
This is the second time that a transgender singer has won. Dana International won for Israel in 1998.
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Post by patricklondon on May 12, 2014 6:51:20 GMT
Udo Jürgens*, eat your heart out, eh? Of course performance tends to have more effect (I rather think that was why in the very first contest, something relatively unmemorable beat "Volare", which went on to become a big hit), but the thing about the Austrian winner was that it was recognisably a song, with a tune and a more or less comprehensible "story" in both music and words (albeit a not-quite-there number for Shirley Bassey to sing over the credits of a Bond film). Most of the rest noodle around half an idea for a song. *Austria's other big Eurovision success (how times change - note also the use of French at a time when the contest was thought to be unduly influenced by Francophones and the French record companies): My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam"
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2014 12:14:02 GMT
Ha ha, a lot of those years France played three times in the same competition as France, Monaco and Luxembourg. Since it controlled Télé Luxembourg and Télé Monte Carlo which were both members of the EBU, it was impossible not to accept them (particularly Luxembourg which is at least a real country unlike the silly little pebble down south).
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2014 16:37:25 GMT
Since most of the people here obviously never see the actual programme, I think it is appropriate to show the live performance that won her the prize. It is really pretty impressive, in my opinion.
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Post by patricklondon on May 13, 2014 6:42:33 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2014 10:32:57 GMT
Not being a spring chicken myself anymore, what I find amazing is that there is still a generation of the not-dead-yet who believe that that is what "real music" should sound like.
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Post by bjd on May 13, 2014 11:29:54 GMT
The audience has changed too.
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Post by patricklondon on May 14, 2014 16:00:07 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2014 16:02:25 GMT
Hehehe.
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Post by bjd on May 14, 2014 18:46:25 GMT
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Post by waterhazardjack on May 18, 2014 23:01:12 GMT
Ha ha, a lot of those years France played three times in the same competition as France, Monaco and Luxembourg. Since it controlled Télé Luxembourg and Télé Monte Carlo which were both members of the EBU, it was impossible not to accept them (particularly Luxembourg which is at least a real country unlike the silly little pebble down south). That's interesting, Kerouac. Does that explain why Serge Gainsbourg won for Luxembourg instead of France, with chanteuse France Gall?
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Post by waterhazardjack on May 18, 2014 23:01:50 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2015 17:16:01 GMT
The moment is creeping up on us again, so I must tell you that I had absolutely nothing to do with this year's selection for France. If people must go before a firing squad (and I'm quite sure they should), I am not involved.
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Post by bjd on Apr 21, 2015 19:41:38 GMT
Obviously they're aiming for last place again. Haven't they realized that to win Eurovision it has to be flashy and lively?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2015 20:00:06 GMT
Unfortunately, the French selection has been democratic for the past several years: the public decides.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2015 4:52:40 GMT
I see that Australia is trying to qualify for the competition this year.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2015 5:58:46 GMT
This year Poland becomes the first country to present a contestant in a wheelchair.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2015 6:01:34 GMT
To ensure nightmares, here are excerpts of ALL of the songs.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 17:51:55 GMT
Georgia has qualified for the finals.
But so has Serbia, which is creating a real buzz. ("I'm different and it's okay" -- oh, most definitely.)
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Post by patricklondon on May 22, 2015 6:51:02 GMT
Obviously they're aiming for last place again. Haven't they realized that to win Eurovision it has to be flashy and lively? Maybe they don't want to win and face the cost of staging next year's finals. It was a running joke in Ireland after they won a couple of years on the trot that they'd have to make sure they lost so that RTE wouldn't go bust, so much so that a whole episode of Father Ted concerned their attempt to write a winner, not realising they were being picked to lose: Every year there has to be what Terry Wogan (veteran BBC presenter, whose commentary was often more fun than the show) used to call a "fine big woman" belting it out. It's in the rules, somewhere. My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam"
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