The English as she is mangled

[hnpcc]

Or, the Eurovision song contest.


Bitter, bitter disappointment (I was barracking for Belgium - personally I thought the idea of a song in a language no one speaks was marketing brilliance for that competition!) but an orright song won for a change...

Missed Terry Wogan, but didn't mind the SBS guy too much - next time guys, give him some background so he can put in the narky comments about regional voting preferences. We had to do it ourselves, which never works as well.

And my personal awards for tonight's competition:

Best Hissy Fit: the French woman giving her votes after the comperes cut her off.

Best Backhanded Compliment: The Swedish woman to the comperes "You're doing a great job. Really."

Funniest but also daggiest joke: the Slovenian guy pretending to leave. I found it funny anyway.

Best stuff up: the woman who mixed up her votes and had to start again. Hee.

Second best stuff up: "9 points goes to.." "we don't have a 9 points" "Oh sorry, 10 points goes to..."

Best S&M dress: the Greek singer. As voted by Dean.

Best "revealing" dress: the Spanish correspondent. Again, Dean: "Buenos Noches Spain. Or, as we say, norgs."

Most excruciating moment: pretty much any time the comperes opened their mouths. OK, my Latvian sucks worse than their English, but I think my French is pretty much on a par with theirs *giggle*.

And finally,

Best Porno Mo: the Latvian correspondent. And how long did it take him to grow that?!?

Please, feel free to add categories. I laughed lots.

And was the UK going out deliberately to lose, or does it just need to set up some regional voting "preferences" deals or what? Maybe they should sing in a language other than English next year... Cornish, or Welsh or Gaelic or something - obviously English is no longer trendy. ;-)

And I so think if Israel can get in under "Europe" then we should be able to. After all, we were the only non-competing country to send a journalist along to do commentary this year. :-)

Comments

Maybe they should sing in a language other than English next year

[sand-l.livejournal.com]

..or maybe we could just sing in tune. Oh the embarassment...chortle. Austria was robbed. Luckily Ang remembered about the subtitles before he'd finished. Oh what joy. "rabbits have soft noses and cats have small paws" or somet equally enchanting ;) terry got steadily more slurred and disjointed as the evening progressed. i was heartily in favour of Turkey till belgium sang and i was moved to vote in admiration. Ang was happy travelling back to the 80's and our relatives wondered what all the noise from the other room was about. Perfect.
And yes, australia oughtta be there next year.

obviously artificial breasts were well represented weren't they?

Re: Maybe they should sing in a language other than English next year

[hnpcc]

Austria was... something, I'm really not sure how to describe it. We needed the subtitles, although did have fun providing our own.

I'm beginning to think Turkey won because they were the only group utilising the whole stage (yes I know this is overanalysis when it was just the bellydancing that did it).

We get to see Terry next weekend, which will be interesting. Apparently he's allowed to drink as much as he likes while commentating Eurovision, which may explain a lot. ;-)

And breasts. What would Eurovision be without obvious enhancement. For Dean at least, nothing. Especially not seeing as he spent most of it reading "Bang Your Head: A history of metal in the 1980s" and perving when I went "what the?!?!" every so often... ;-)

Re: Maybe they should sing in a language other than English next year

[sand-l.livejournal.com]

overanalysis?? No such thing. My own theory as to why Turkey and belgium did so well [aside from the fact that they were my favourites and i'm omnipotent...ahem ;-) is that they both had a flavour of their country's culture. Now where can i get a copy of 'em?? [The scary thing is, i don't think I'm joking.]

Terry is about to start a morning show on the TV here with Gabby Roslin. Humph, wonder if there's any way I could argue it was part of the curriculum?

Re: Maybe they should sing in a language other than English next year

[hnpcc]

Actually I think the two songs were the only two that stood out from the ballad/boppy ballad lot in the 2' summary at the end! (Especially for those voters playing drinking games... ;-))

[dsn.livejournal.com]

Ahh, But Israel doesn't actually have to be part of Europe to compete. Eurovision is the name of a TV distribution network that supplies news n sports and is run by the European Broadcasting Union. Since Israel is a member of the Union, it can compete regardless of its continent. You just needs Oz to join the EBU and it too can partake of the most pointless bit of TV.

Dave

[hnpcc]

You realise that since reading this my mind's been going into overdrive coming up with acts to seduce the various nationalities, right? ;-)

And all we have to do is get more dodgy cable.. we are so there... ;-)