Eurovision 2019

ICBM

goldtop said:

I saw that the Icelandic band whipped out "Palestine" flags in the green room when the camera was on them.

That was good. I'm no fan of the Israeli government, but I was willing to overlook that it was being held in Israel - I think Eurovision is really something that emphasises peace and friendship - after all, the Yugoslav republics, and Russia and Ukraine, have managed to take part even when they've been fighting actual wars with each other. I'm still pleased someone did make a small gesture though, just to make the point that it isn't totally forgotten.

boogieman said:

So is Madonna’s career now. 

I think it must have been on life support even beforehand, if she was willing to do it at all...

goldtop

For data geeks, the Eurovision site is brilliant. You can see which countries voted which way, and how the public telephone vote was awarded. All interactively, too.

Two that show thehuge mismatch of jury and public votes:

Outer ring of numbers shows that almost all public votes except near neighbours was poor, whereas almost all juries

 gave pretty good points.

Contrast with:

Where the song was almost completely ignored by the juries but hugely popular with the public.

And now, for comparison, the votes for the UK:

(Looks like his Irish grannie was busy on her mobile phone.)

JezWynd

boogieman said:

prowla said:

JerkMoans said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

Madonna... if she’d just turned up in her jeans, t-shirt and a band it’d have been, ‘you had a bad night luv, don’t worry, it happens but when you dress as Robocop and surround yourself with the Death Star chanting monks you’d better have a voice that can live up to the occasion. 

She reminded me of Kurt Russell as Snake Pliskin in Escape From New York.

I thought he was dead...

So is Madonna’s career now. 

Giant sticks of chalk!

AlexC

Britain has been scoring cataclysmically low in this thing for decades... Can’t help feeling that social politics come into play with countries voting. Not surprising. And not that I’m saying the UK song was a musical masterpiece and deserved to win.
Having lived in other countries through the years I know they are all well aware that we  - the British - take this thing with a pinch of salt and tend to send it up. 
So should the U.K. entrants reasonably be expected to be treated with anything but a mild ‘piss off’.?

Bridgehouse

AlexC said:

Britain has been scoring cataclysmically low in this thing for decades... Can’t help feeling that social politics come into play with countries voting. Not surprising. And not that I’m saying the UK song was a musical masterpiece and deserved to win.
Having lived in other countries through the years I know they are all well aware that we  - the British - take this thing with a pinch of salt and tend to send it up. 
So should the U.K. entrants reasonably be expected to be treated with anything but a mild ‘piss off’.?

It has nothing to do with politics at all - the split voting technique means there can’t be a political outcome.

It’s simple - some countries like Sweden take it very seriously and plow a lot into it - we don’t. 

Emp_Fab

Hang on a minute....  since when has Israel been in Europe ?

boogieman

Emp_Fab said:

Hang on a minute....  since when has Israel been in Europe ?

Errr, you didn’t notice Australia then? 

ICBM

AlexC said:

Britain has been scoring cataclysmically low in this thing for decades... Can’t help feeling that social politics come into play with countries voting. Not surprising. And not that I’m saying the UK song was a musical masterpiece and deserved to win.
Having lived in other countries through the years I know they are all well aware that we  - the British - take this thing with a pinch of salt and tend to send it up. 
So should the U.K. entrants reasonably be expected to be treated with anything but a mild ‘piss off’.?

I thought we were trying to take it seriously this year - the problem was that we entered a song and a performer which would have been appropriate for Britain's Got Simon Cowell's Pension Plan, not Eurovision.

We seem to want to treat it as a throwaway joke for home consumption, but at the same time want the others to take us seriously at the competition, and then get pissed off when they don't think we deserve it.

Emp_Fab said:

Hang on a minute....  since when has Israel been in Europe ?

Not this again. I'm not even going to bother explaining .

prowla

ICBM said:

AlexC said:

Britain has been scoring cataclysmically low in this thing for decades... Can’t help feeling that social politics come into play with countries voting. Not surprising. And not that I’m saying the UK song was a musical masterpiece and deserved to win.
Having lived in other countries through the years I know they are all well aware that we  - the British - take this thing with a pinch of salt and tend to send it up. 
So should the U.K. entrants reasonably be expected to be treated with anything but a mild ‘piss off’.?

I thought we were trying to take it seriously this year - the problem was that we entered a song and a performer which would have been appropriate for Britain's Got Simon Cowell's Pension Plan, not Eurovision.

We seem to want to treat it as a throwaway joke for home consumption, but at the same time want the others to take us seriously at the competition, and then get pissed off when they don't think we deserve it.

Emp_Fab said:

Hang on a minute....  since when has Israel been in Europe ?

Not this again. I'm not even going to bother explaining .

I watched one of the shows of the competition for the UK entry and nothing was particularly good.

The last good UK entry was the one with the camp air steward asking if you'd like something to suck on for take-off!

Emp_Fab

ICBM said:

Emp_Fab said:

Hang on a minute....  since when has Israel been in Europe ?

Not this again. I'm not even going to bother explaining .

Hahaha...  I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, and I assume the answer's in there somewhere.

It's a completely pointless exercise....  'song for Europe'....    FFS....  it would never get commissioned these days.

EricTheWeary

I normally watch it but couldn’t last night. Had a look at a couple of scratchy versions of Madonna’s performance on YouTube today ( doesn’t seem to be on the official Eurovision channel). It’s quite odd, lots of political symbolism that I don’t quite understand I think. Or just odd, verging on the unpleasant. 

JerkMoans

Did anyone have subtitles on?

AlexC

EricTheWeary said:

I normally watch it but couldn’t last night. Had a look at a couple of scratchy versions of Madonna’s performance on YouTube today ( doesn’t seem to be on the official Eurovision channel). It’s quite odd, lots of political symbolism that I don’t quite understand I think. Or just odd, verging on the unpleasant. 

Madonna’s eye patch represented the single vision of those that are blind to freedom and flags.*



*Possibly.

ICBM

Emp_Fab said:

Hahaha...  I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, and I assume the answer's in there somewhere.

Nope.

It's just a classic stupid question that's been answered thousands of times.

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

Emp_Fab said:

Hahaha...  I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, and I assume the answer's in there somewhere.

Nope.

It's just a classic stupid question that's been answered thousands of times.

I’m pretty sure by Emp every year for starters...

olafgarten

There are basically no rules to entry for the Euro vision artists, I don't see why we can't convince ab already popular musician to represent us, we could actually have a chance. 

Emp_Fab

EricTheWeary said:

ICBM said:

Emp_Fab said:

Hahaha...  I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, and I assume the answer's in there somewhere.

Nope.

It's just a classic stupid question that's been answered thousands of times.

I’m pretty sure by Emp every year for starters...

Cheeky bugger!  No actually!  I’ve nev.....   hang on...  AUSTRALIA is in it too ???

p90fool

olafgarten said:

There are basically no rules to entry for the Euro vision artists, I don't see why we can't convince ab already popular musician to represent us, we could actually have a chance. 

That would be even more of a poisoned chalice than being Prime Minister at the moment.

Why would any established musical artist want to be known forever more as "Nil Point", because our government had pissed off the EU or bombed the shit out of somewhere in the Middle East?

BeardyAndy

p90fool said:

olafgarten said:

There are basically no rules to entry for the Euro vision artists, I don't see why we can't convince ab already popular musician to represent us, we could actually have a chance. 

That would be even more of a poisoned chalice than being Prime Minister at the moment.

Why would any established musical artist want to be known forever more as "Nil Point", because our government had pissed off the EU or bombed the shit out of somewhere in the Middle East?

Blue entered a few years back, I know they are not exactly the Beatles but they were big in the pop world at the time. Didn’t make top 10, and that was before half the English population gave the rest of Europe the middle finger!

EricTheWeary

BeardyAndy said:

p90fool said:

olafgarten said:

There are basically no rules to entry for the Euro vision artists, I don't see why we can't convince ab already popular musician to represent us, we could actually have a chance. 

That would be even more of a poisoned chalice than being Prime Minister at the moment.

Why would any established musical artist want to be known forever more as "Nil Point", because our government had pissed off the EU or bombed the shit out of somewhere in the Middle East?

Blue entered a few years back, I know they are not exactly the Beatles but they were big in the pop world at the time. Didn’t make top 10, and that was before half the English population gave the rest of Europe the middle finger!

Popular U.K. singers entering Eurovision was the norm at one point - Cliff Richard ( twice), Lulu, Olivia Newton John,etc. Looking at the list of U.K. entries we didn’t really send unknowns until Co-Co in 1978. 
Now you’d  have to find someone already popular across Europe into Eastern Europe, Middle East and Australia to do well. Can’t be many people in that list.