Eurovision - day 2

Mollywatch

It's not looking good. Molly's Eurovision song has only managed to end Tuesday sixteen places higher than it was 24 hours earlier in the iTunes listings. It's now at #116. The album version has completely disappeared from the top 200.

It looks like the single will struggle to make the Official Chart Top 100 this Sunday. There's still a chance it'll get there in its second week, or even its third, after her Eurovision performance.

Eurovision - day 1 in Copenhagen

No, I'm not in Copenhagen, but dozens of my friends are. Rehearsals started today at the converted shipyard on Eurovision island in Copenhagen, so it seems like a good time to kick this intermittent excuse for a blog back into life again and summarise a few of the things we have learnt today.

In addition, I have a couple of personal Eurovision announcements to make. One today and one later in the week. So let's get started with that:

Announcement #1:

I AM HOSTING EUROVISION.* (**)

* In a pub.
** In Birmingham.

Yes, it's true. Our usual hosts at The Wellington Hotel are deserting us this year - something about a Eurovision cruise (which is what I'm generally doing every year I'm there) - so I have been asked to step into the breach. My friend Said and I will be hosting what is probably Birmingham's biggest Eurovision party, at the Wellington pub on the corner of Bromsgrove Street and Bristol Street on the night of the final, Saturday 10 May. We'll be showing the final on the big screen from 8pm, but you'll need to turn up from 7pm in order to get a seat. (The room was absolutely stuffed full last year, and some latecomers ended up going away, so don't say I didn't warn you.) There will also be a sweepstake, VOTING, balloons, bunting and a bit of a Eurovision disco afterwards. Most importantly, VOTING. Said and I will be performing Birmingham hosting duties, very much following in the footsteps of Wogan and Ulrika, who did the same seventeen years ago. Whether or not we'll be looking like them is a matter of debate, but it has resulted in this frightening photo of us being created.

Who could resist that? If you're interested in joining us in Brum for the final, either leave a comment here or sign up on our facebook event page here.

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Apart from rehearsals starting, the other Eurovision 'event' today was the release of the digital package of the UK entry. (No sign of a CD yet, apart from some promo copies which definitely exist.) Although Molly's 'Children Of The Universe' has been available for two weeks already, it was only as a track which people could pluck from the official Eurovision compilation album. Not many people have bought the album in the UK. It entered at #18 in the Compilation Albums Charts eight days ago and disappeared completely from the chart (which is only a top 40) yesterday.  Not enough people have cherry-picked Molly's track from the album for it to make the UK top 100, so today's the day for the track to soar! Let's see how she was doing at 10 o'clock tonight:

Oh dear.

That's the single version at #132 on the iTunes realtime sales listing, and the Eurovision album version at #173.

Molly's upcoming performance on this Friday's Graham Norton TV show certainly has some work to do.

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I've only had time for a brief skim through the reviews and video clips from Eurovision's first rehearsals today, but my main impression is that, despite what we might have expected from a year that's chock full of ballads, there is a lot of - and I'm going to use a technical term here - 'stuff' going on. A Ukrainian muscle hunk running in a hamster wheel! Russian horror twins on a seesaw! It's like I threw those words up in the air to form random sentences, but no, these ludicrous things exist. These are the reasons that people have Eurovision parties. And that's just the first ten of 37 acts. Bring on day two!

Two Eurovision entries in UK midweek top 40.

And a whole load more in the top 200:

Two Eurovision new entries in today's UK singles chart

Eurovision makes just two tiny dents in the UK Top 100 singles chart today, at #93 and #99. Bonnie Tyler makes the top 200 for the first time at last. (It's been out for weeks!) She will probably disappear next week, but Emmelie's winner has been selling well since last night and may make the Top 40 next week.

Eurovision - tonight's final

It's all about the music, remember, so try not to think of the above photos when you are watching Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ireland tonight. (They're songs 20, 25 and 26 respectively, in the order they appear here.)

By all accounts (and pictures) from rehearsals yesterday, tonight's Eurovision final is going to be pretty special. Even for those who watch it to take the piss and think all the songs are rubbish, there are things happening tonight which will delight many a Eurovision party across Europe, and I think especially the UK audience. I'm not going to say too much, but there's an Olympic-style opening, a new song from ABBA's Benny and Björn, more Lynda Woodruff and something special from her alter ego, Sarah Dawn Finer, which has had people in tears already. 

I was really hoping that Bonnie Tyler might get as high as the top fifteen tonight. I thought that would be the best we could hope for, given that the song is a grower, not a shower. But then, last night, the tweets started flying in during the jury final. "Awful start for Bonnie", "Bonnie lost it at the start but picked up" and, even worse, "A possibly drunk Bonnie Tyler gives her worst performance of the week in the jury final". My heart sank. It's Eurovision 2011 all over again, when Blue did a vocally dodgy jury final performance and hardly picked up any jury votes, meaning that their highly respectable 5th place from Europe's televoters from a much better Saturday performance could only pick them up to 11th place overall. So, it looks like a lot of our points have gone AWOL already, unless the juries were very forgiving and really like the song. We shall see.

I've only placed three bets for tonight, as Paddy Power have restricted their each way payout this year to top three, rather than their usual top four. (I wish I knew why.)

It seems too obvious to go for Denmark, and there's little money to be gained, but I think it will be there or thereabouts, so I've done it anyway. There'll be a resigned sense of anti-climax if the favourite all year ends up winning again, just as Loreen and Alexander Rybak did. The Danish final was my first exposure to any of this year's songs, way back in the snowbound depths of Winter. (I hadn't paid any attention to the Swiss and Albanian songs that had already been picked.) As soon as I saw Emmelie's performance, before it had even won in Denmark, I said, "This could win Eurovision." Then it won that night and I was pleased. But I always hoped something better would come along and replace it as favourite or 'more obvious winner', but nothing has, and that's a shame, but hardly Denmark's fault. It's an immediate song, very well performed. It will be fine if it wins, but is it just a bit too much like an Irish entry from the '90s, or is that WHY it will win?

Azerbaijan is definitely one of the performances of the night, as well as best shirt-wearer, best muscle, best eyebrows, best YouTube fitness videos, best shirtless photos in the gym etc. If you believe the much-touted idea that Azerbaijan won in 2011 because Turkey failed to progress from their semi-final, allowing Azerbaijan to suck up all the votes that would automatically have gone Turkey's way, then you'll be justified in thinking they're going to do it again. With a better song tonight, and a man in a box, they could do it again, and fans will be horrified.

Ireland is the performance that stuck in my head most from the semi-finals. It had everything. Leather, nipples, muscles, drums, camp dancing and, above all, a solid vocal on a modern track from the lovely Ryan. I'd be overjoyed if this being in the final slot sees it win. And remember, the only other time Eurovision was held in Malmo:, Ireland won!

Ideally, I'd like a first time country to win tonight, so if Iceland, Malta or Georgia manage it, I will be planning my holidays next year. The latter two will have to up their game from Thursday though, where both were a bit disappointing.

If not a first time country, then the Netherlands would be my choice. They have my favourite song this year, by a mile, but it is not suited to an arena.

I feel sure that the UK's televote will put Greece top again. (It's Greece. It's a drinking song. Two reasons for the UK to love it.) The UK jury will probably peg it back though, so Greece may not get our douze points, but they'll be close.

I'll be in a pub in Birmingham. The same one where we watched Alexander Rybak win. I'm in charge of scoring. Lordi help us! Enjoy the show!

The UK's favourite UK Eurovision entries - Top 10

Ken Bruce revealed the top ten from the Radio 2 website vote yesterday, in his excellent programme from Malmö. I recommend listening to the whole show on the iPlayer in the next six days, as he had some interesting guests (Loreen, Michael Ball, Kate Robbins, Mike Nolan, Jay Aston) and a novel version of Eurovision Popmaster as well. The programme is here.

The winner was as I suspected, but not all the results were entirely predictable. (Scooch!) No sign of Nicki French or Jessica Garlick in the top 20 though, which is a shame and a shocker, respectively.


01 Making Your Mind Up - Buck's Fizz (1981, 1st/20)

02 Puppet On A String - Sandie Shaw (1967, 1st/17)

03 Love Shine A Light - Katrina & The Waves (1997, 1st/25)

04 Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit - Gina G (1996, 8th/23)

05 Save Your Kisses For Me - The Brotherhood Of Man (1976, 1st/18)

06 One Step Out Of Time - Michael Ball (1992, 2nd/23)

07 Beg, Steal Or Borrow - The New Seekers (1972, 2nd/18)

08 Congratulations - Cliff Richard (1968, 2nd/17)

09 Flying The Flag (For You) - Scooch (2007, 22nd/24)

10 I Can - Blue (2011, 11th/25)
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11 One Step Further - Bardo (1982, 7th/18)

12 Boom Bang-A-Bang - Lulu (1969, =1st/16)

13 Are You Sure? - The Allisons (1961, 2nd/16)

14 It's My Time - Jade Ewen (2009, 5th/25)

15 Let Me Be The One - The Shadows (1975, 2nd/19)

16 Better The Devil You Know - Sonia (1993, 2nd/25)

17 Teenage Life - Daz Sampson (2006, 19th/24)

18 Knock, knock, who's there? - Mary Hopkin (1970, 2nd/12)

19 Where Are You? - Imaani (1998, 2nd/25)

20 Love Will Set You Free - Engelbert Humperdinck (2012, 25th/26)

I've been on the radio!

I was, somewhat unexpectedly, broadcasting to the nation earlier this evening, when I was invited onto the Mark Forrest programme on the BBC's national local radio network. I know that 'national local radio' seems a contradiction in terms, but it is a programme that rounds up "the best of the day's local radio" on all 39 BBC local radio stations at the same time, except those which are broadcasting sport (which unfortunately included my own local station, BBC WM). They have 1.6 million listeners, apparently. (Except for those who are listening to sport.)

The question was this: 'Do you still BELIEVE IN Eurovision?'

Do you see what they did there? I'll leave it a moment for the hilarious topicality of this to sink in.

Okay? Good.

Some silly man has started a petition (already rejected by our wise and never-erring government) to persuade the UK to pull out of Eurovision (or 'Eurovison', as he calls it on the petition).

The petition is here. It has one signatory. (The man who started it, I assume.) So, not exactly a mass movement, but enough 'controversy' on which to hang a radio debate between me and the man who started the petition.

Anyway, that's all you really need to know. You can just hear the 'debate', such as it is. Here it is.

The Eurovision bit starts at 1:13:00, but if you can't bear to hear some 'comedy' songs for Eurovision from local radio, and the angry xenophobes who seem to be dragging their knuckles around the streets of Bedfordshire (shudder), skip to the beginning of my bit at 1:22:20 (after the Jamie Cullum single). It's all over by 1:27:10, apart from listeners' reactions.  (And yes, the host really does use the phrase, "Chris camp".  Almost as if he knew.)

I had so much more to say, but this is the way that trivial radio debate goes. (Goodness knows, I listen to enough of them on 5 Live.) My slight dissatisfaction with hardly saying anything that I'd prepped, including not mentioning languages, exposure to cultural diversity and the family entertainment factor, is outweighed by the fact that petition man's 'argument' (if he really had one) crumbled. I always find that 'facts' can get in the way of 'unsubstantiated flimsy opinion' and so it proved. Armed with some actual facts from a couple of friends, I was able to give factual answers, to which my adversary didn't really seem to have any reply. I was gagging for a fight after this, I can tell you! Bring on the proper debate! Feed me facts and watch me roar! (Albeit in my sinusitis-affected nasal drone.)

Anyway, I believe the final score was:

Eurovision 1-0 Naysayers.

Result! I've saved Eurovision for you, the UK. Be grateful! Buy me a drink or something! (I couldn't resist tweeting BBC Eurovision to point out that I have effectively been doing their PR for them, but I am actually happy to do that and knock back the BBC-knockers.)

Some Eurovision fans on twitter seemed grateful. I can't really ask for anything more than that. But my ex-boyfriend (of sorts) from 1986 heard the interview going out live from his home in the States, which meant he was hearing my voice for the first time since, ooh, about 1986. THAT was weird. But brilliant. And my friends in Brussels were listening to it live as well, which was also brilliant.

If you keep on listening to 2:15:30, some very astute person called Jonathan from Bury St. Edmunds says that *I* am right, so there you go. Case closed.

What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment.