Friday, May 16 2008, 10:29

Ups and downs

Thumbs up to:

• Iceland's Eurovision entry (and also Germany's and Andorra's). See them yourself.
• Dating thirty-year-old men (Happy birthday, John!)
• Subway's new chicken tandoori sandwich.
• Thighs being too big to fit in my jeans!
• Autumn in Sydney. Dry, sunny, cool.
• My new job at Amnesia Group (part of Avenue A | Razorfish).
• Nick's latest blog. Witty and incisive as ever.
• Finally submitting John's monstrous permanent residency plus one (that's me) application to the Department of Immigration.
• Being able to buy a new camera from eBay to replace my wedding-wrecked snapper for only $50 more than the cost of repair.

Thumbs down to:

• Wedding-wrecked camera repair costing $300! Daylight robbery!
• Not being able to watch Eurovision live.
• The UK's anodyne Eurovision entry (see them yourself).
• Not receiving my postal vote for London mayoral elections.
• Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London :(
• No Country for Old Men - "Nobody goes to the movies for the irony. They go for the satisfaction" (Well said, Washington Post).
• Natural disasters :(

Thursday, May 29 2008, 0:00

Eurofission

It's a tragic thing that we down under are condemned to watch the Eurovision Song Contest after it's happened, and despite best efforts to avoid an untimely revelation, it was not enough. Nick told me today that an SBS reporter told listeners to cover their ears if they didn't want to hear a spoiler, but throughout this warning, fans could be heard screaming, "Russia!" in the background. Oops.

So to make the most of our evening of Eurovision, four of us (Chris, Luke, John, and yours truly) pulled 25 countries out of a hat in the hopes that one of our selections would come second. No drinking games this time - there were far too few of us, so 25 countries' drinking penalties would have seen us all in hospital having our stomachs pumped.

Some highlights for you if you weren't tuned in (links go to YouTube - pics on the right have captions if you mouse over them):

• The UK's soul-pop entry, Even If performed by unheard-of Andy Abraham (dubbed by Popbitch "the dustman cometh") failed to impress us and the rest of Europe, and came a shameful joint last with Germany. In fairness to Andy, his song and performance were leagues ahead of some of the more outlandish (ok, I mean shit) entries from Spain and Finland. More about them soon.
• Germany's four babes were winners of some X-Factor style contest back home, and were among my favourites. Apart from the lady with the red afro. Unnecessary.
• To call Bosnia & Herzegovina's entry 'experimental' would be kind. I call them Wurzel Gummidge & Aunt Sally with a chorus of fat brides, with laundry as props. Without the visuals the song wasn't too bad, but it's hard to ignore such a performance.
• Finland tried it on again with their ear-bleeding thrash metal, but they didn't enjoy the same success as monstrous 2006 winners, Lordi. They came a deserved 22nd.
• I kind of liked Croatia's folksy tune, replete with septuagenarian rapper doddering about the stage and strangely flexible lady in red, flinging her limbs around like Miss High Leg Kick.
• Iceland's entry was deleriously good - we can't wait to hear it out in a club somewhere! It's classic Eurodance stuff. Easily one of my top five, so destined to fail, boohoo. Sure enough, it came in at 14th, even with all that help from their Nordic friends.
• Latvia's pirates took the piss. It was like something you'd get from a school band. Unbelievably, the Wolves of the Sea came in 6th with lyrics like, "With a hii hii hoo and a hii hii hey! We're hoisting the flag to be free. We will steal the show, Jolly Rogers go, We are wolves of the sea." Toilet break.
• Despite looking like a scary cat-faced tranny, Sweden's entry was rockin! Their slinky silver feline star bopped around in front of some fab background lighting (did we say how much we loved the stage and backdrop? Fabulous!). Watching her belt out her Eurotastic choon with her hot ladies (and oddly bland chaps), we all screamed "OO LASERS!" as the beams came on for her inevitable key change finale. I'm breathless just thinking about it. But there's no justice, and Ms Perelli came a dismal 18th.
• Who would have thought there was so much Eurovision talent in Ukraine? Well - I suppose it is huge. This year's entry, Shady Lady, was quite a toe-tapper of a tune, and the performance was violently entertaining. Athletic, fierce, and suspiciously orangely tanned, Ani began her song by grinding against backlit boxes containing her writhing dancers, went on to pose for some cheeky silhouettes in front of aforementioned boxes, before moving onto them on all fours for some seductive lounging. What showmanship!
• France's beyond bizarre entry drove onto the stage in a golf caddy, clutching a helium-filled globe (from which he sucked repeatedly?), and burst into a less-than-special song in English (much to the chagrin of many Frenchies), backed by singers touting fake beards.
• Greece - Britney in pink pants playing a bouzouki.
• Spain's entry defies explanation really; I'd suggest watching the video, but you'll never get those three minutes back. Ironic maybe? Toilet break definitely.

So Russia's heart-throb, Dima, eventually won the show, without even having to rip his shirt off as he did in the semi-finals. It was all quite boy-bandesque, although we were dumbfounded by the sub-attractive ice-skater (yes, ice-skater) trying to steal the show with whirls and pirouettes and shamelessly theatrical arm wavings. All quite strange. In the event, the race for second place turned out to be much more of a nailbiter than the race for first, and I was ecstatic to be very rarely on the winning side of Eurovision as Shady Lady kicked Balkan Britney's butt.

Now, Terry Wogan of the biting wit never holds back from giving everyone on screen a thorough and well-deserved tongue-lashing, or a lavishing of praise if deserved, but he was rather sour during the awarding of points. The usual farce of mutual backscratching between Greece and Cyprus and the reliable solidarity of the nordic countries was much in evidence, but the orgy of self-congratulation among the countries of Eastern Europe was simply jaw-dropping - the Balkans and the former Soviet countries gave almost all of their points to each other. A detailed look at the final scoreboard shows that the only Western European country not languishing in the bottom half of the table was Norway, leading the redoubtable Terry to wonder if any Western country has a chance of ever winning again.

All sorts of accusations of political voting have been slung already, but instead of decrying conspiracies and looking for Soviet sympathisers under the bed, remember that there are large numbers of expats and large ethnic minorities split across the Eastern countries - there are thousands of ethnic Albanians, Romanians, Serbs, Russians, Poles, Macedonians, etc. outside their "home" countries. Added to that, the countries of this region no doubt have similar musical tastes, and are exposed to the same songs and artists on TV and radio. And while new Eurovision countries frequently enter successful stars in the competition, in the UK Eurovision is widely seen as a Russian (haha) roulette at best or the kiss of death at worst for an up-and-coming popstar's career. Russia's answer to Enrique is already a big star - an MTV Russia award-winner for three years in a row and frequent chart-topper; so it's not surprising that when Lithuania delivered their votes, they gave 12 points to Dima, not Russia.

So all that rubbish from Terry about Latvia and Estonia knowing where their bread's buttered or Ukraine knowing how to avoid a gas shortage is a bit melodramatic. Nevertheless, Brits and Germans and the like are wondering whether to pull out of what's becoming Eurasiavision - if half of the 'Big Four' (the ESC's largest financial backers) pull out like Luxembourg and Italy, will it be the end of the Contest?

But do we really care about winning Eurovision? We don't need some crystal trophy to prove that the UK is full of musical talent - it's written all over the world's music charts. But if we're seriously in it to win it, it's time we entered someone with more universal European appeal... Any suggestions?