EUROVISION 2008

mariana44 · Post by **mariana44** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:44 am

I think that the result last night was very predictable--I think however good our singer/song was , the result would have been very similar.

Terry Wogan did not sound his normal self last night--I guess he has seen the same thing happening year after year--what more is there to say?

But nevertheless, I was surprised to hear him say last night, that he may not be there next year--moreover, he suggested that Western Europe does not enter in the future. I think he has a point--how disheartening for the contestants, knowing that no matter what, they just do not have a chance.

Our song certainly deserved more votes, but was never likely to do really well. The winning song was better than some of the winners in recent years.

Lena & Harry Smith · Post by **Lena & Harry Smith** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:01 am

Mike, at the beginning of the programme I made a note of those countries that I thought in my humble opinion had a chance of winning points, and Russia wasn't amongst my choice and neither was Greece, although the Ukraine was, along with Latvia, Norway,Denmark, Croatia and yes, joint bottom with the UK Poland.

Our's wasn't the best choice, but would it have made much difference who and what song entered. ?? Regardless and for whatever reasons the contest should be about the song.
I'm not convinced that Terry will pull out though.

michduncg · Post by **michduncg** » Sun May 25, 2008 11:44 pm

Hello - me again. I've been reflecting on last nights show a lot all day, despite being at work as well! You all know that I'm very passionate about Eurovision, although as I've said before I am also a Europhile as well and so tend to just enjoy the whole spectacle rather than worry about whether or not we win

I do get frustrated when Sir Terry paints this picture of 'political' voting - if there were still juries in place then this would be a more understandable complaint. But its all down to the phone voting now, and as we can see from this weeks 'I'll do anything', they public don't always vote the way we'd like them to

The way I see it is that many countries take part without ever expecting to win eg Finland, Denmark, Netherlands and Germany to name a few. These countries have had nothing like the 1st or 2nd record of the UK but still take part.

I'm not sure if you noticed that we gave 10 points to Latvia and 12 points to Greece, along with 1 point to Spain. Russia got nothing from us but they did get points from just about every other country. Even taking out all the Eastern European votes, Russia would still have come 3rd with Greece 1st. So the Eastern European vote didn't really swing the result that much.

I suppose the question is - can we ever win? I'd say we could with the right song, and possibly a less arrogant attitude. The guy who won for Russia is already one of the top pop singers in Russia and Eastern Europe. He's already got a fan base from when he entered Eurovision 2 years ago (remember the ballet dancer climbing out of the grand piano? what do you mean no!

). Andy Abrahams did sing well and gave a great performance but it just wasn't right if you want to win Eurovision.

What to do now? Well I really think Sir Terry will retire, and maybe that will help us - his commentary has got us a bad name around Europe and it puts people off voting for the UK. He said that he'd quit when stopped liking it and he clearly has. Also send some serious singers - we have to appeal to all of Europe, and as a country that has a more of a hate than a loving relationship with Europe, we sometimes think that we know better. But we are one country out of 43, and if we want to win we have to target that broad market.

Finally, I think it would be sad if we withdrew - I really like the idea of Europe getting together 1 night a year, and the whole voting thing as we take a tour around the capitals of Europe. Just don't expect to win

Lena & Harry Smith · Post by **Lena & Harry Smith** » Mon May 26, 2008 1:01 am

Mike, we take in what you say, and I suppose yes, what the hell whether we win or not.

I was listening to Eric Hall's programme today, it was all about the Eurovision. Bobby Gee of Bucks Fizz and and Martin Lee of Brotherhood Of Man, were guests. One of them watched the entire show. While they thought it was now a farce... though not politically, they also commented on the artist and the song that we enter, and while they gave Andy Abraham genuine praise for his effort they said it takes or needs someone like .. The Spice Girls for instance to make impact, and wondered why they weren't thought of or considered, after their shortened tour.
One caller thought that we should never withdraw from this contest.
From the response that we've read and heard today this guy's on his own

Marian · Post by **Marian** » Mon May 26, 2008 7:54 am

We should perhaps enter someone like Connie Talbot, and see Europe's reaction to her

Marian

jon · Post by **jon** » Wed May 28, 2008 8:41 am

I stopped watching Eurovision some years ago and this year was no exception. Clearly I did the right thing.

ROBERT M. · Post by **ROBERT M.** » Thu May 29, 2008 12:06 am

Snap jon. It just isn't the same contest anymore is it

paul jh · Post by **paul jh** » Thu May 29, 2008 12:39 am

Does anyone know the final ranking of the French entry "Divine" by Sebastien Tellier? It is on the UK iTunes chart, so people are downloading it.

Dermot O'Leary did a nice tribute to Eurovision and played snippets of some of the past songs on his Saturday afternoon programme. Elbow played live as well. So this is a great "listen again".

I will "listen again" to Eric Hall, as I always like the Brotherhood of Man. Thanks for pointing that out, Lena and Harry.

michduncg · Post by **michduncg** » Thu May 29, 2008 10:41 pm

Hi Paul, the French didn't fair very well - it scored 54 points and came 19 out of 24.

Rumour has it that the Greek entry, Kalomira, will score reasonably well in the UK download chart this week. It will be interesting to see how well it does in comparison to Andy Abrahams. Certainly his song has been available to download for a while, and it doesn't seem to have set the world on fire. Even Scooch managed to break into the UK charts with their cartoon song last year. Thats what does annoy me about Terry Wogan's comments - how can we blame the rest of Europe for not voting for our song when we don't even buy it ourselves!

I have to agree with the comments about Eurovision not being the same - and thank goodness for that! Europe has changed radically over the last 20 years, and Eurovision has changed to reflect that. There is a much greater diversity than there was in the past, while retaining much of its unique character. Even Sir Terry admits that as a spectacle he loves Eurovision more than ever - it's just the finishing last he doesn't like. Still, if we adopted that attitude, we'd never play football again

Gray · Post by **Gray** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:51 am

Did anyone hear Brian Matthews play 'I Love The Little Things' on Saturday morning's Sound of The 60's?
He followed it with the Italian winning entry from '64.
But it was great to her ILTLT on the radio

ROBERT M. · Post by **ROBERT M.** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:34 am

I didn't hear it Gray, but you will probably know Matt finished 2nd in the 64 contest behind the Italian lady that I'm sure you remember

Gigliola Cinquetti............. with the song Non ho l'eta. She was very pretty

Gray · Post by **Gray** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:58 am

Robert, I had no idea who beat Matt in '64!
I hadn't heard the song before Saturday morning either!

However, did you know Gigliola Cinquetti also competed in '74 (the year of Abba)?

michduncg · Post by **michduncg** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:40 am

Hi all. I missed Sounds of the Sixties this week unfortunately. What a shame, as its always wonderful to hear Matt on the radio. 'ILTLT' was a great song written by Tony Hatch.

I have seen a very interesting article from the official Eurovision Fan Club magazine, which in fact says that the UK viewing public largely agreed with the choice of Italy as the winner. The same UK viewing panel also thought that most of the 1964 songs were of 'poor quality', and that David Jacobs was too biased in favour of Britain.

Some things never change!

ROBERT M. · Post by **ROBERT M.** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:10 pm

I have now listened to Sounds of the Sixties

and yes Gray, I did know Gigliola Cinquetti competed in the 1974 contest singing the song "Si"