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May. 8th, 2010 02:57 pm
Set off for darkest Essex yesterday afternoon later than intended, thanks to the Diggiloo website playing up, constantly presenting me with a white screen reading 'This database is currently overloaded. Please try later.' Thus I was forced to seek out the lyrics (and English translation where needed) of each entry individually via Google, meaning the whole wretched task took three hours. So to avoid being late arriving at Rob and Sue's, I rushed straight through Waterloo without stopping for grub. The Harold Wood Co-op had Tuborg on special offer so I bought a dozen bottles before hopping in a taxi.
Rob arrived home from work just as I was waiting at the front door - he'd been working late - so we were both Hank Marvin, but Sue had to pick Amy up from Scouts at nine so we had to wait till then to order the Chinese. Meanwhile, at first Rob and Sue were both wanting to chat about the general election. Rob's a Labour supporter, while Sue, like me, is some way left of New Labour (she generally votes Lib Dem). Both of them were decidedly deflated about the prospect of a Con-Lib coalition government; Rob in particular was concerned that the Lib Dems would be prepared to swallow an awful lot of swingeing Tory measures in return for a referendum on PR. We were all broadly agreed that the most likely outcome would be that the coalition wouldn't last much beyond Christmas, Miliband would replace Brown as Labour leader, and there'd be another general election around February.
In need of light relief, we fortunately had the Eurovision previews DVD to mark. Noticing clunking phrases like "When I'm first time in love" (Russia) and "What for do people live until they die?/What for are we living?" (Latvia), we observed that they were singing in 'Eurovision English'. I loved the two Finnish girls with their beautifully sung folk rock number. Rob reckoned the Serbian group were 'the Balkan New Seekers'. Rob, observing that the Polish singer had written both the words and the music of his whimsical offbeat song, said "So he's only got himself to blame".
We took a break for Sue to go and pick Amy up; the Chinese arrived soon after she returned. Rob and I both wolfed ours pretty quick. We smiled at the Lithuanians' use of kazoos, though Sue thought they were unlikely to pull in many votes from Western Europe or Russia with their lyrics - she wondered how this song had got in when other would-be Eurovision entries have been barred from the Contest for political lyrics.
Rob said he was determined to pick the winner in advance so he could finally "make the Eurovision financially profitable" - for the last few years the song he's bet on has always been knocked out in the semi. By now we'd seen the Swedish entry, which I'd privately settled on as my own predicted winner; with several other songs to come, I didn't reveal it but settled for saying "I think I've seen my predicted winner; the trouble is, at the moment it's my own favourite!"
"Oh no," Rob laughed, "that's usually the kiss of death, isn't it?" It's well known among all my Eurovision-enthusiast friends that my favourite never wins (Katrina and the Waves being the sole exception).
Before long, though, top spot on my leaderboard was taken by lovely Niamh Kavanagh. We all agreed that the UK entry was mediocre; when I said "We're not going to pull up any trees in Oslo," Rob chuckled "That's putting it politely." He said it sounded like a Rick Astley number. I reminded him that Stock and Waterman wrote it. Sue said "That explains a lot, it's a relic of the 80s". Even though I love 80s pop I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for Josh's effort.
When we'd all cast our votes, with Sweden coming out on top thanks to 12 points from Sue and 10 each from Rob and me, I revealed that the Swedish entry was my predicted winner; Rob agreed that it had a chance. We rounded out the evening with a game of ten pin bowling on the Wii.
Rob arrived home from work just as I was waiting at the front door - he'd been working late - so we were both Hank Marvin, but Sue had to pick Amy up from Scouts at nine so we had to wait till then to order the Chinese. Meanwhile, at first Rob and Sue were both wanting to chat about the general election. Rob's a Labour supporter, while Sue, like me, is some way left of New Labour (she generally votes Lib Dem). Both of them were decidedly deflated about the prospect of a Con-Lib coalition government; Rob in particular was concerned that the Lib Dems would be prepared to swallow an awful lot of swingeing Tory measures in return for a referendum on PR. We were all broadly agreed that the most likely outcome would be that the coalition wouldn't last much beyond Christmas, Miliband would replace Brown as Labour leader, and there'd be another general election around February.
In need of light relief, we fortunately had the Eurovision previews DVD to mark. Noticing clunking phrases like "When I'm first time in love" (Russia) and "What for do people live until they die?/What for are we living?" (Latvia), we observed that they were singing in 'Eurovision English'. I loved the two Finnish girls with their beautifully sung folk rock number. Rob reckoned the Serbian group were 'the Balkan New Seekers'. Rob, observing that the Polish singer had written both the words and the music of his whimsical offbeat song, said "So he's only got himself to blame".
We took a break for Sue to go and pick Amy up; the Chinese arrived soon after she returned. Rob and I both wolfed ours pretty quick. We smiled at the Lithuanians' use of kazoos, though Sue thought they were unlikely to pull in many votes from Western Europe or Russia with their lyrics - she wondered how this song had got in when other would-be Eurovision entries have been barred from the Contest for political lyrics.
Rob said he was determined to pick the winner in advance so he could finally "make the Eurovision financially profitable" - for the last few years the song he's bet on has always been knocked out in the semi. By now we'd seen the Swedish entry, which I'd privately settled on as my own predicted winner; with several other songs to come, I didn't reveal it but settled for saying "I think I've seen my predicted winner; the trouble is, at the moment it's my own favourite!"
"Oh no," Rob laughed, "that's usually the kiss of death, isn't it?" It's well known among all my Eurovision-enthusiast friends that my favourite never wins (Katrina and the Waves being the sole exception).
Before long, though, top spot on my leaderboard was taken by lovely Niamh Kavanagh. We all agreed that the UK entry was mediocre; when I said "We're not going to pull up any trees in Oslo," Rob chuckled "That's putting it politely." He said it sounded like a Rick Astley number. I reminded him that Stock and Waterman wrote it. Sue said "That explains a lot, it's a relic of the 80s". Even though I love 80s pop I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for Josh's effort.
When we'd all cast our votes, with Sweden coming out on top thanks to 12 points from Sue and 10 each from Rob and me, I revealed that the Swedish entry was my predicted winner; Rob agreed that it had a chance. We rounded out the evening with a game of ten pin bowling on the Wii.
