In which Eurovision injustices, a really odd club and a comic shed light on a general malaise

[alexsarll]

Well, I know I'm hardly the first to say this but Eurovision 2007 - what an utter debacle. Even after the Eastern bloc vote nobbled Israel and Switzerland in the semifinal, there was still some great stuff on show last night. It was a scandal that The Ark were placed so lowly, obviously, and while Ireland's affair was dismal the line "archipelagic icicles" alone meant it shouldn't have been bottom. France, also, ended up far lower than their sheer camp pop fun-ness merited. But still, y'know - Ukraine and Russia, placed second or third, would both have been legitimate victors. Instead - Serbia. A lumpen woman singing a leaden song. Ghastly. And voted for by all Serbia's former victims! Surely this isn't how the whole local backscratching thing is supposed to work? And in any case, how come the political votes still manifest themselves if everywhere's now deciding it on a 'phone vote by the populace? I don't know anyone who votes for neighbouring countries out of a sense of regional loyalty - do you? Everyone I know just votes for whichever song or performance they like most. Which leaves us two options - either the rest of Europe is significantly more caught up in old tribalisms than us (and in a really confused way, at that) - or the 'phone votes are a sham. I did have my doubts after the year Tatu competed - when in spite of being the only act with a pre-existing British fanbase, we apparently had not enough people voting for them to award them any points, this being announced by the witch Lorraine Kelly who had previously expressed her disapproval of them - but I had taken that for an isolated atrocity. Now, I think we need investigations, tribunals, justice.
Also under the heading 'pop/WTF?' - Bubble Pop Electric. Not so much the music (mostly really good, if rather lacking in flow) as the venue, Studio 88. It could be a nice space if someone gave it a wipe down (Sticky! Also, dead giant bug swimming in the loo) but the staff...not serving any draught even though they had the pumps, in a spot of blatant profiteering. A bouncer who first did nothing and then actually wandered off as a big lairy bloke got confrontational with the guy on the door. Some of the most blatantly underage drinkers I think I've ever seen in London. I'd decided earlier that I was more in the mood for Pop! than goth, hence choosing this over B Movie that night, but the whole experience was far more existentially troubling than any of the men in black ever were.
Which itself reminds me, the final issue of Britpop 'music is magic' comic Phonogram didn't resonate for me quite as much as the earlier issues had. Not through any artistic fault by Gillen or McKelvie, I hasten to add, but because it was about letting go, moving on, coming to terms with one's past...and increasingly I'm not sure about such things. I think we were right as teenagers when we saw growing up as intrinsically a process of surrender and compromise. I think the best we ever manage is to extract some small concessions as we make a peace on the world's terms rather than our own. We all end up giving our 12 points to our own Serbias, and I don't know if it's worse when we do it through gritted teeth or with a Stockholm Syndrome smile.

Am off to Devon for a few days. That's got nothing to do with any of the above, though. Or at least I don't think so.

Comments

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

Well quite - I'm not even convinced that Moldova has a telephone exchange.

And also - how can Moldova and Andorra and bloody Malta have the same representation as the UK, Germany and France?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I don't so much mind that bit - as with the US senate having two senators from each state, it seems like a nice way of avoiding the tyranny of the majority. Or would, if we could trust them all...

[exmoor-cat.livejournal.com]

We should leave Eurovision and concentrate our efforts on Pop Idol USA

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

Off topic rather, but I assume you were at R&E's? If so did you see the rather dead W3 blocking SGR on your way home. It was leaning at an angle. Buses aren't supposed to do that.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No, I was at ruudboy & offensive_mango's, in the opposite direction, so missed that. It does sound rather alarming, but I know double deckers can lean at quite crazy angles before toppling. Though why they should be doing so on SGR, I shudder to think.

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

It had just exited the station and died, at a list, by the looks of it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

This makes me so glad that I always walk. And along the back route at that, so it can't even tilt at me.

[fleuriee.livejournal.com]

eurovision was so blatantly corrupted that my mother rang me to complain, i don't know why she thought i could do anything about it though!
enjoy lovely devon, i wish i were going to devon.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Though this is perhaps not the best weather for it, I do hope it picks up a little...

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

tatu did perform awfully on the night though, much as i love the track...

i think the thing about the balkans voting for wach other is partly due to the dispersal of communities across the different "nations", ie a lot of people across the region will self-identify as Serbian and vote accordingly (see also germany and turkey, of course). also i'm not sure how the telephony works round there. maybe it's as cheap to call a croatian number as a serbian one...

there's possibly an argument that if eastern europe are so excited about the competition that they should bludy well pay for it, rather than the big 4 footing the bill...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it wasn't even a particularly strong Tatu track. But still, Tatu had fans here. And Hell, our hostess alone voted for them about 20 times. As such, I find it hard to believe that they didn't even register highly enough to get one point from Britain.

Point taken about the dispersal (similarly, one could certainly see the gastarbeiter vote working in favour of Turkey's scary date rapist-lookalike man), and you might well have something regarding the telephone networks. But still...I wouldn't bypass the rules to vote for Britain. I wouldn't vote for 'the old country' if I was overseas during the contest, at least not unless they had a half-decent song. Are there really enough people who would that it explains the votes legitimately?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think there are. Especially for the gastarbeiters: no one is more patriotic than an economic expat.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i think in terms of turkey/germany that there are, the scary chap they had on last night has had like 20 number ones or summat and performed reasonably.

the only sensible thing is to bring tito back from the dead, that'll sort it out...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

ZOMBIES VERSUS EUROVISION! Certainly after DJ Bobo didn't make the final, the Undead have a legitimate grievance.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

As I've said elsewhere, there are still rather a lot of self-identifying Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia, which goes at least some way to explaining the high scores that both countries gave to Serbia. There's also a common language and hence a lot of shared cultural background: a phone voter from one FYR is more likely to genuinely like a song from another FYR than a random other country.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I also think we-as-North-Atlantic-islanders are just as caught up in tribalisms, it's simply that we've not yet broken down into enough individual states to make a difference. Scotland would totally get a huge number of votes from England, and quite probably vice-versa.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

YES! the best reason for independance for scotland and wales!!!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You're not going far enough - Wight and Man need freedom, for starters. judge_death has further suggested "I also think we should take a cue from the continental Western Europeans, as there's some room for a few vote-enhancing microstates on the borders: the Principality of Wirral, the Sovereign Military Order of Berwick, the Most Serene Republic of Penrith."

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, last night Rhoda and myself realised that Eurovision was clearly the reason behind the splitting of Yugoslavia and also we now know what the Scots are really after with this drive for independance...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I fear you might be right but if so, I find it deeply depressing that I'm representing some kind of centuries-ahead-of-the-curve internationalism by just, y'know, voting for the song I like most.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Re: FYR - I understand why Macedonia have it in the name but it still makes me feel very sorry for them. As to the rest - see response to Carsmile, above.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Serbia: Tough on Islamic Fundamentalists, Tough on the Causes of Islamic Fundamentalist.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I liked the way they were on next to Germany, in a kind of ethnic cleansing megamix.

Anyway, bearing in mind that I am prepared to admit that a victory for bloody Russia would have been legitimate, because I quite liked their vaguely Sugababes-y number, my problem here is more that the song was dire than their moral record.