Moldova almost single-handedly carried the flag of tradition at last night’s Eurovision Song Contest. Watching Zdob, Zdub and Co with that familiar Eurovision induced demeanour of wide-eyed, slack-jawed disbelief; was like an acid-fuelled trip to Noddy goes to the Circus. Zdob in a conical hat Lady Gaga would blanch at sang words of love, well words anyway, possibly English, to Zdub similarly garbed and who, as one would expect, was riding a mono-cycle at the time. Moldovan readers I know will forgive me if I’ve missed up my dobs and my dubs.

Secretly on-line to Google maps I astonished my loved ones with my new-found geographical expertise: Azerbaijan? Easy-peasy, think Turkey and oil. Mind you, Israel voting but not singing in a European song contest needs more than a map to explain. Given the inviolable ESC rule of geographical neighbours voting for each other maybe we should invite Palestine to join in.

Quirky Moldovans apart there was an air of sleek conformity in the air: impossibly thin, impossibly beautiful women, in impossibly expensive frocks, minced gingerly atop impossibly high-heeled shoes. A very high eye-candy count on the night: both MECs (Mens) and LECs (Ladies). Poor old Graham Norton did his best to feign a bit of lust at the ladies but one could hear his heart just wasn’t it. He did pick up a bit when Sweden’s Zach Ephron look-alike Eric Saade (Saade I get – but Eric?) came on….er sung; but then so did most of the women in Dusseldorf’s converted football stadium. Is that what they mean by cross-over appeal? Graham is more into the outrageous than Woganite wit and irony. I reckon Julian Clary would be a shoe-in but they’d probably throw him off the air after about 30 minutes.

Proceedings started well enough with a sweet-faced, sweet-voiced Finn, sweetly-named Paradise Oskar, looking like a Benny Hill love-child, who promulgated saving the planet by all chanting Da-Da Dam. Verdict: sweet….Jesus.

In the beauty parade that followed the women were not so much dressed as decanted into fabric tubes about the diameter of drinking straws. With shiny sheer hairpin legs and what Gwyneth Paltrow’s mum apparently calls two-fried-egg chests, these undeniably beautiful young women vamped and camped their way through a series of less than memorable ditties. (Don’t worry I never rhyme my prose).

Not to be outdone, the LECs among the men also with hairpin legs encased in real or fetching eco-leather similarly vamped and camped through songs of variable interest. One technical observation on the Swedish swashbuckler Eric Saade: you know that thing that Raffa Nadal does with his shorts? That pinch and pull before each serve which is presumably designed to prevent his thong causing a bad case of birfucated glutei maximi? Well Eric does this from the front presumably stimulating even more feminine and Nortonesque speculation.

If Saade was the head LEC, Russsia’s Alexai something ‘ov’ clearly thought he was. Though if your ambition is to be a lust icon I’m not sure how much looking and sounding like Chesney Hawkes furthers that desire. UK’s Blue were professional but rather dull achieving an averagely good 100 points in the end.

Representing Ireland the Leaping Leprechauns that are Jedward did well: helped by the best production and high quality graphics of the night. I’m not sure how they got into their antique Garry Glitter shoulder pads but they leapt and jumped about a lot to the acclaim of the audience. I can’t get the image out of my head of these two being hung up in the toy cupboard overnight, motionless until set-off again in the morning.

Now that English has pretty much taken over the show; naturellement les grenouilles ont refusé de parler ou de chanter n'importe quoi mais le français : well Corsican apparently making it even more easily accessible. With the voice of a Pavarotti, the face of a choirboy and the hair of an Ozzie Osbourne Amauri Vassili performed a Gallicly defiant straight song which just didn’t cut the moutarde.

Recent pan-European advert : Irritating idiots required to give the voting scores of the various countries in the Eurovision Song Contest. Response was fantastic and every country managed to make an appointment fitting the bill perfectly. With all the professional aplomb of passers-by waving to Granny behind a BBC News outside broadcast reporter; virtually every score-giver hogged their few seconds in the limelight with mugs and grimaces, coy pauses, weird dances and OTT gush about the show. Et le gars français a été tout aussi mauvais. Guys and Gals – it’s 2 sentences and 3 numbers - how hard can it be?

So Ell and Nikki aka Nigar and Eldar took the day with Running Scared: a pleasant enough little song with a melody line alarmingly like a very famous song I can’t yet bring to mind.

Onwards to Azerbaijan, now we’ve all googled where it is. They just need to allocate a couple of oil wells to pay for the sets; and another 3 to power the lights. The Eurovision Song Contest must have a carbon footprint the size of Africa.

I can’t get the image out of my head of these two being hung up in the toy cupboard overnight, motionless until set-off again in the morning.

They just need to allocate a couple of oil wells to pay for the sets; and another 3 to power the lights. The Eurovision Song Contest must have a carbon footprint the size of Africa.

So true... I do love Eurovision though!

Brilliant.
I wonder if it might be possible to amalgamate Eurovision with The Apprentice?
Susiex

I thought production and singing wise, it was one of the best Eurovision shows i've ever watched.

I loved Moldova's entry! Also liked Serbia and actually voted for Italy.

hey Petal

I don't disagree. Prouction was certainly very slick though I thought presentation links got a bit out of synch plus the little diaries of people living in Germany from the competitor states got a bit dull in the end.

As for individual songs etc - always a matter of taste but I certainly relished the Moldovans even if it would have been a eccentric for them to have won I think. I enjoyed their contribution more than ours which I thought was a bit dull and pedestrian.

It was GREAT to see the Italian performance do so well. With its blend of jazz and pop I thought it was probably the most musically satisfying of the night.

Best

z

Yeah, Zettel, i think the Germans did a fantastic job. Particularly liked the Green Room and the heart beat. Plus nice to see presenters with a sense of humour (albeit a bit wacky at times).

I agree, our entry was nothing new. I'm not keen on the ballads either, probably why i was disappointed with the winning entry, it lacked a bit of oomph for me.

I was worried when marks first came in, that Italy wouldn't fare well at all. A really innovative entry for the Eurovision. Felt sorry for the French chap who was supposed to win.

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I don't understand why Graham Norton was so critical of the Italian entry, either. Bet he felt smug, mind - when the winning entry came on for the first time, he said out of the lot he thought it was one of the best...

I haven't seen Eurovision since, oh, I think it was when Cliff was congratulating himself on not having any ovulations or something. But I did my back in over the weekend and could do little but lie slumped in front of the TV, full of pain-killers (which came in useful for more than one purpose as it happens). A lot of football passed my eyes, until the point came when I not only didn't know who was playing who, I didn't even know what country they were in. So, I tried a bit of Dr Who but fell asleep during it, wondering why these days it seems to be full of nothing but self-congratulatory running around in the woods, or in this case some over-designed scrap yard set. I woke up to Eurovision . . .

Now, look, I'm a science fiction writer and sometimes I write about the horrors of a society that's become drenched in superficial sensory input; but nothing I've ever produced tops what I saw on Saturday night. I cannot imagine a better torture of the soul than to be forced to watch an endless stream of exploding lights, crashing chords, anthemic bawling, highlighted flesh - all constantly teasing you with the vapid promise of a real tune or lyric, only to whip it away at the last second with yet another spray of fireworks and volley of air-punching fists. Blue was the final straw: a bunch of preening knob-heads, or should that be head-knobs, so in love with themselves they actually danced with life-size videos of, um, themselves.

But I should be grateful to Blue because at least they forced me to hoist myself up, yelling in agony all the while (oddly matching Blue's 'chorus' then hobble round the corner to my local pub. There, a group of six old blokes with white beards, large bellies and about as much fashion sense as Patrick Moore's poodle, were playing fiddles and whistles - Irish, Scottish and English folk music. I bought a pint, sat in the corner, listened with a big smile on my face and got half way through writing a new science fiction story.

Terry

Don't be such a misery guts, Terry

I've watched several Eurovisions over the years, and this was by far the slickest. Normally there is a very amateurish feeling to the whole night, but i thought most of the singing and choreography and camera work was good.

I also think you have to watch the programme in the spirit of expecting to see and hear things totally different to anything you've enjoyed before in your own culture. It's a bit of fun. A laugh.

I agree about Blue, the large screens and ballad did nothing whatsoever for me. On EV night i want to see something a bit wacky and innovative.

Hope the back is better, btw

Thanks, Petal. I'm sure my back is penance for my miserable old gittiness, but I refuse to give in. Eurovision 'a laugh'? Look, if I want to laugh, I'll watch Two and a Half Men. And 'a bit of fun' - who wants just a bit? Go the whole hog; watch 'The Big Bang Theory'. And if you want music, why not watch Jools Holland? Okay, he can show some rather boring stuff at times, and does have the habit of letting new, young and usually temporary acts have 3 songs while only giving one to the world music act. But last Friday's show was quite excellent, including Alison Krauss who is the right kind of slick for me, i.e. great songs with a superb band. And dear old Brian Wilson, who would probably be tied down and sprayed with safety foam if he appeared at Eurovision, given he looks kind of mad and rumpled; but really, the question is, just how far away are Blue from producing something as magnificent as 'Good Vibrations' which he closed the show with - now that made me smile.

And please, don't talk about that stuff as if it's part of another country's culture. I love world music, but come on, Eurovison's about as world as Coca Cola.

Terry

Terry

I DO understand. But I have the perfect solution. Pick up through one of the 'catch-up' systems last night's Perspectives (I think on one of the SKY channels- but you can check it out). A wonderful hour of the surprisingly good, totally committed Hugh Laurie playing with some of his idols and tracing the history of the Blues while based in New Orleans. Laid-back, chilled-out and oh so cool. In contrast to Saturday night's 'musical' mayhem, everything here is effortless, soul-felt and just plain brilliant. No purist either Laurie plays an amazingly good homage to Jerry Lee Lewis.

It may not cure your back - but you will forget it for a while.

(And if you want somethinge else special the previous Perspectives had Robson Greene, son of a miner himself, tracing the story of the miner's group who learned their art in their spare time though the WEA and became internationally repected).

best

z

Terry, i think Jools Holland would have loved Italy's jazz entry (watch it on Youtube if you missed it).
I wouldn't say there was anything Coca-colaish about Moldova's extraordinary entry either.
Clearly you didn't watch enough of the programme (the first few songs weren't as good as the rest).
As for Brian Wilson, i reckon he and the Good Vibrations crew would pretty much appreciate a group wearing gnome hats and unicycles. Fun, fun, fun

*hands on hips* I stand my ground

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqglqluqkw4

there you go, Terry

Z, that's not a bad solution. I do actually watch quite a lot of Sky Arts One, since they often broadcast some great music. Just last night, for instance, it was The Moody Blues in concert at the Isle of Wight in 1970. I was actually there but couldn't hear much of the Moody Blues since they were on during the day, and that was when the wind blew towards the stage; around midnight, it reversed, so bands like The Who and The Doors came across brilliantly. Still, I suppose I at least got to hear what The Moody Blues actually sounded like, a mere 41 years on. I caught a bit of Laurie (see what I did there) on Jools Holland, I think; yes, good stuff.

I'll try to track down the miners' programme. Sounds interesting. I'm fascinated by what makes the difference between an amateur approach and a fully committed one (not saying this applies to them; just ruminating). The other night, we went to a pub locally where there was a writers' group discussing each other's novels. I could tell within a few minutes that, well-educated though they were, they were never going to produce anything special: it was all too nice, non technical and supportive in the wrong way.

Petal, I did actually see the Moldova entry but thought it was the pain killers affecting my vision. Yes, they were entertaining but not sure I'd want to listen to the song more than once. And if you want eccentric, check out Brian Wilson's sand box; not to mention him burning the tapes of his 'Fire' piece, after he was convinced the orchestra he'd made wear fireman's helmets during the recording of it had been responsible for a spate of local fires.

Terry