Eurovision - day 4

The Eurovision organisers actually managed to schedule in a May Day break from rehearsals today, which is unusual and impressive, given that these rehearsals started no earlier than in recent years. I guess it's easier that we're down to 37 songs this year. We're a whole six songs down on just three years ago, which immediately means twelve fewer initial rehearsals, so the load is a little lighter for the technical crew than it was in Düsseldorf, Baku and Stockholm.

The main news from the EBU today was the release of ALL the names of the jurors, from all 37 countries. They announced earlier this year that they would be doing this, in an anti-corruption measure that should make jurors more accountable. In theory, that's a good idea, but I do worry that it will also lead to an increase in conservatism and 'safe' votes from jurors in some countries. Given that the homophobes in Russia are actively calling for Russia to pull out because they're afraid that the nation might be corrupted by seeing a drag artiste (even though they seemed to survive when Slovenia, Denmark and Ukraine all did the same in recent years), this is a concern. Can you imagine the reaction that a Russian juror might get at home if they actually give points to Austria's Conchita Wurst? Based on the quality of the song, and Conchita's stunning vocal ability, it really should be picking up jury points all over the place. It will be interesting to see where the gaps are, after the contest, and this will be possible, because the individual jurors' votes will eventually be revealed, not just the juries' combined votes, so there will be no hiding behind the rest of the team.

Whether or note these changes will put an end to some of the (ahem) 'anomalies' in recent Eurovision scoring, such as Malta giving 12 points to Azerbaijan on five of their last six opportunities (and 10 points the other time), remains to be seen.

There are some famous names amongst the 185 people on the juries, including lots of previous performers. The chair (or should that be 'stool'?) of the UK jury is vocal coach and TV regular Carrie Grant (age 48), who was in Sweet Dreams for the UK in 1983.

The other UK jurors are:
Stephen Allen (age 48); music producer, keyboard player, musical director, arranger.
Candice McKenzie (age 31); DJ and event producer.
Gus Gowland (age 32); writer, actor and composer.
Laura Wright (age 23); Mezzo soprano singer, signed to Decca/Universal.

Kudos to the BBC for choosing two people who know a thing or two about singing ability, for choosing a 23 year-old and for having a majority of women on the jury. At least we've done our bit, because the overall representation of women across the juries (which are supposed to be 'representative', according to the tightened rules) is pretty poor, with only 42.7 % female jurors and 57.3 % male.  The population of Europe is 51.8% female, so this is hardly representative.


Mollywatch

Adopting a 'glass half full' mentality, there are grounds for optimism today, as Molly's rate of climb on iTunes has increased. But she still hasn't cracked the top 100, ending the day at #103 on the real time sales listings; nine places higher than yesterday. She is getting a lot of airplay on Radio2, but it doesn't seem to be translating into sales. I've heard the song played by Ken Bruce, Paddy Kielty and Simon Mayo this week. Molly is on the Graham Norton TV show tomorrow (Friday), with a performance that was recorded at the start of April. Let's hope it sees a boost in sales.