And here we are at the
most glittering, star-avoided awards bash of the year, the Douzepoints
Eurovision Song Contest prize-giving ceremony. An arse numbing 18 categories
of varying quality are below (truly appropriate for the event itself),
and whether you agree or not, just accept that they celebrate the very
essence of the Eurosong. |
Gerli Padar of Estonia - demure one moment,
Tank Girl the next, Pink lookalike Gerli is mostly quite manly. |
Marija Serifovic - talking about manly,
the Serbian representative to World's Strongest Man can also hit a high
note. |
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Slovenia's Alenka Gotar's high pitch proves she's grown up under the shadow of constricting corsets, and now wastes no opportunity to shimmy out of them |
Hanna Pakarinen of Finland - too good
looking by half, an image ruined when either sucking on a straw or singing. |
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And the
winner is...well it has to be Ms Serifovic, who certainly looks the best
of these 4 ladies in a power suit and flats. |
Belarus 07 has gone down the same route
of Romania 06 with fire breathing acrobats, along with gibbering page
girls & the huge bitch queen Agurbash. Top pretension. |
Magdi Ruzsa goes back in time, not only
with the type of song but also the video, as she replays catching her
man in a tryst with a girl not sounding like Ted Lowe. |
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No surprises here, with complete unfathomable
arse from the French, a cheap effort of a moped and a cheesy Parisian
pink helmet. Pink helmet indeed. |
A horn player who also barbeques, violinists
who also play voilleyball...and all this happening on a manky boat. The
Balkans come up with the goods again. |
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And the
winner is...it has to be Dmitry of Belarus, utterly nonsensical visuals
which are completely unrelated in every way to the music (I can only presume) |
Spain are always a strong contender in
this category, and the four boys will gyrate their way into obscurity
like none before them. |
Why have one teenage exploited popstrel,
when you can have three! After all, there's no shortage in Russia. |
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A Polish bird and an English bloke only
really make a good combination behind a bar. |
Todomondo/Locomondo/Motleycollection
ofnationalities...whatever they're called, they clearly have teamwork
and communication issues. |
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And the
winner is...Serebro, three young Russian girls who want out, but didn't
make it at tennis, so they 're having a go at singing instead. |
Teapacks, the usual Israeli attempt of
giving Europe a pacifist message, whilst simultaneously almost starting
WW3 and not really caring. |
Kid rock, which I would call punk, if
it wasn't for the fact to be punk you need to be old enough to have an
attitude befitting of anarchy. Still, good effort from Andorra. |
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Verka, the more terrifying of the two
2007 cocks in a frock, an aging Ukrainian Auntie with Hepburn sunglasses. |
6 Latvian blokes in jeans & chinos
doing lite opera. Painful in the extreme, but different enough to appeal
to the deluded. |
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And the
winner is...every year this category gets stronger and stronger. We'll
reach saturation point soon enough. Anyway the gong goes to Teapacks,
who unsuccesfully throw in Hebrew drum n bass at one point, which is more
likely to get under the skin of the Iranians than anything lyrical the
japesters can come up with. |
Twee, transparent, turgid, total toss.
Just what you want from the French. And they are still confident. I'm
here to put a stop to that right now. |
Evridiki is coming back for another try,
imbued with confidence. A lite repetitive dance effort will not justify
her return. |
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German Lounge music may appeal to Mitteleuropa
but I defy the Med to consider this for more time than it takes to tip
a trilby. Doomed to failure. |
Aah plucky Olivia. After 10 attempts,
she will be the most frantic European candidate since Jean Marie le Pen.
She thankfully will have the same fate. |
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And the
winner is...putting my big-collared neck on the line, Roger Cicero will
be storming out of the hall in May, taking his German wannabe rat pack
with him. |
"Some salted nuts, sir?" and
"Would you like something to suck on for landing, sir?"...putting
the popshot back into Eurovision, I give you Scooch. |
"Lasha Tumbai" means churned
butter in Mongolian according to Verka. But it sounds like "Russia
Goodbye" which has pissed their ex-motherland off quite a bit. |
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"...He's gonna blow us up to biddy
biddy kingdom come" is in no way related to Mr Ahmadinejad. Or Bush
for that matter. Or anyone else. At all. |
The Ark's lead singer is "...just
a mortal with potential of a superman". Amusing, even with their
lack of confidence in the emergency services. |
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And the
winner is...well it has to be the horrifying UK entry, and I'll say no
more. Apart from it's not big and it's not clever. |
Kenan Dogulu - Turkey - less Turkish Delight, more Creme Egg. |
Dervish - Ireland. It's Irish. From Ireland. A real pub act. | ||
Sarbel - Greece - Cyprus missed a trick this year, so it's up to Greece to hire Sarbel instead. Med groin gyrating cheese. | Scooch - UK - the failure of the British public never ceases to amaze me. This year had the potential success of Big Brovaz but the peoples arsed it up again | ||
And the
winner is...Ireland, as per the last 15 years, probably. Yawn. |
UK - a predictable shambles of a show,
building to a nadir of announcing the wrong winner, even though Mr Wogan
knew who the winner should've been. |
Sweden - ever brilliant, and although
not as wide-open nor as schlager-tastic as in previous years, still a
6 week long orgy of pop-tat. Andreas was robbed. |
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Norway - attempting & achieving parity
with their easterly neighbours in 2007, the MGP was a diverse experience
of bad penmanship and cheesy presentation. |
France - 10 songs, 9 of which were awful
(1 of these won), but the presenting values were comedic, professional
& fun. A damn fine concise show. |
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And the
winner is...France who by involving the whole national broadcasting network
in the process catered for all nationals, be it sheep burners, metal ball
chuckers, or suburban rioters. |
Mesa's Bad Salad Ballad didn't make it
to the Lithuanian final. And with lyrics like "The cow eats grass,
And grows big breasts. That needs ten bras. The beef is the best!".
Robbed. |
Infinity-Hooked on you.The other qualifiers
had nothing like this Norwegian Eurodance floor mega party hit, hands
in the air to the middle aged housewife. Box box box. |
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Medhi-T The 1 decent song in France this
year, & gets a mention along with Big Brovaz as a brave attempt to
bring weak urban music influences into Eurosong. |
Andreas Johnson - The necessary MF nomination
goes to Andreas "the nearly man" of Swedish pop, who had a corking
track this year. Unlucky. Just a little bit. |
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And the
winner is...very much a personal choice here, but in a year of Lithuanians,
the big comedy monsters of Mesa came up with the finest song of 2007.
I can only hope their cow, Katie Lee, remains well and doesn't succumb
to their passion for quality beef. |
In what is a blood chilling year for
warblers, you get 6 for the price of 1 with Latvia this year with the
middle aged porkers Bonaparti.lv. Unlistenable dirge |
Saucy mare Alenka Gotar has the USP of
a basque to go with her glass shattering finale, which will have dogs
running for the wardrobe from Minsk to Margate. |
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Massive drums can't disguise the squawking
of big-eyed Elitsa from Bulgaria. Many call it "mouth music".
I call it "trouser music". |
Earnest national pride allied with a
Bjork/Bush type of effort, not quite opera-lite, but then again not quite
music either, at least not as most of us know it. |
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And the
winner is...the Pavarotti award plus free wheelbarrow to transport it
goes to Slovenian Ms Gotar who may be better resourced in employing her
vocal chords to cancel her ticket. |
4 returnees this year, and first up Karolina
of FYROM, who has dumped her gold breastplate, but kept the ethno influences
to ensure a mid-table finish. |
Aged Icelandic rocker Eirikur Hauksson
won a plaintively awful Icelandic final. Frankly I expect more from the
frozen north. |
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Lovely to see Edsilia Rombley back for
the Dutch, so there's no chance she'll win this, cos I won't vote for
her. |
53 years on Evridiki returns for Cyprus.
As a 78 year old with barely a wrinkle on her, expect her to go to bed
on Friday as an olive, and wake up Saturday as a prune. |
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And the
winner is...I should give the award to Cyprus, but as they are more limited
in their supply of pub acts than other Euronations, I'm giving it to Hauksson
who never should have been dusted down after 1986. |
The Jet Set of Poland
have been living up to their name, collecting zlotys of air miles over
the last 8 weeks, churning out "Time to Party" with decreasing
vigour. As the national broadcasters they've not rubbed up against run
thin, her skirt becomes shorter. Keep it up. |
Marija Serifovic, who has charmed
and repulsed fans in equal measure. We all know the healthy rivalry between
homosexuals sexes, and Ms Serifovic seems to have become the innocent
target of many a gay man's ire, whilst also raising a smile on most fan's
faces. |
Scooch again. No contest. It ticks
every box in the mail order catalogue of gay performance longing, and
has forced young confused males around Europe into donning a powder blue
polyester suit and inserting small phials of liquid into their upright
seat positions. |
Verka has gone on
record as saying that the lyric "Lasha Tumbai" means churned
butter in Mongolian. Experts in Mongolian (for which there are many) say
that the flowered aunt is talking bollocks, and that "Goodbye Russia"
is the only realistic interpretation. Top marks for insulting the Great
Red Bear. |
Following
Germany last year, it's the turn of another of the Big Four. The dog soiled
laurel crown has been handed over to the United Kingdom. This piss stained
hat of nettles is not only for the public broadcaster who constantly fail
in spreading their message abroad, but also for the Great British public
who year in year out lick the bottom of the barrel rather than skimming
the cream off the top. Fools gold for the UK. Bravo. |
Annually awarded to the country/participant
which have put in a concerted effort to impress other nations over the
months and weeks before the contest. I'm going to give this to a daytime
TV presenter, and serial flasher of knee. Gurning Skank she ain't. She's
Guri Schanke of Norway and one of the funniest moments of the year has
to be her performance of the Latino glazed effort in front of an audience
of bemused Spaniards on TVE. And she still kept her cheesy cool. Sparkling
stuff. |
And finally the biggy....I shocked myself out
of my roll-neck sweater this year. The quality of one song stands head
and shoulders above the rest, and that is the 4fun from Lithuania. Not
only is it an understated jazz-lite effort, which I normally back away
from, but also it's Lithuanian, a historically awful Euronation. A new
flag purchase is in the post. And I will wave it well in Helsinki. |
Thank you all for coming, and I'll see you next year when I'll be giving out more goody bags of Euro hits to undeserving pub acts enjoying a freebie holiday. |