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Ding Dinge Dong
May. 27th, 2012 10:51 amWatched the FA Women's Cup Final on Sky yesterday afternoon, cheering for my old pal Jodie Taylor, now of Birmingham City Ladies. She turned in a magnificent performance and was voted Player of the Match as the Blues won on penalties. Sweet.
To Ann's in the evening for the Eurovision. Steve was at the chippy when I arrived. Ann told me they had tickets for the Olympic opening ceremony, as Steve will be spending Olympic and Paralympic month working on the rowing events at Eton.
Steve turned up with the grub minutes before the Contest began. We all applauded Engelbert and reckoned he'd given a good performance but wondered whether he'd be lost in the crowd. Ann, like me, said that among her friends all the talk had been about the Russian grannies. After they'd performed, Ann said "The other 20 might as well not bother going on stage." We were all sure the babushkas were nailed on to win.
Cyprus and Denmark remained my favourites. Ann's verdict on Cyprus was that it was a good pop song but perhaps not a Eurovision song. Steve said Denmark was Alanis Morissette meets KT Tunstall.
I liked Italy (their singer had a real Amy Winehouse vibe going on), and we all liked Romania. Ann's a fan of traditional cheesy Eurovision fare, so I'd predicted she'd like the Greek entry, but when it came on she reckoned she was annoyed with them for sending the same song every year.
I didn't think the Swedish entry was anything special; Ann liked it but again didn't think it was Eurovision fare - "I can see myself dancing to it in a club." We all thought Jedward were completely nuts but good fun, though Ann said she preferred their song from last year.
When we rang Rob during the interval he said he'd missed the first four entries because of a family day out at an anime and manga exhibition in the West End, so he'd just watched them on catch-up. The FYR Macedonia entry was his favourite while Sue plumped for the Russian grannies - whom Rob and Sue, like us, were sure would win. Ann also gave Russia her 12. I gave my 12 to lovely Ivi while Steve's 12 went to Romania. Jedward got 5 from Steve, 2 from Ann and 2 from me.
One thing nobody picked up on was that none of us gave Engelbert any points.
Ann slumped on the sofa exhausted through the voting - that's what having a nine-month-old baby and having had to go back to working full time has done to her. The voting was pretty much a non-event anyway with Sweden shooting into an early lead and pulling further ahead vote by vote. Estonia giving Engelbert five, after he'd been stuck on his single point from Belgium for ages, got a ragged cheer from us. The 4 points from the Irish that put Engelbert into double figures drew a bigger cheer, though we remained on the edges of our seats hoping Ireland wouldn't give 8, 10 or 12 to Norway and leave Engelbert bottom. Thankfully it didn't happen.
As Graham Norton repeatedly said "we're off to Stockholm next year", I pointed out that Stockholm hosted the Contest last time it was in Sweden, so now it'll be Gothenburg's turn. These things are taken very seriously in Sweden.
As we said our goodbyes I stated my long-standing argument that if we want to pull in the points we need to wheel out our big guns, and send Girls Aloud or Take That. Then when a trailer for The Voice came on, it occurred to me that that is a BBC programme, so an ideal formula would be to send the winner of next year's The Voice to the Contest.
To Ann's in the evening for the Eurovision. Steve was at the chippy when I arrived. Ann told me they had tickets for the Olympic opening ceremony, as Steve will be spending Olympic and Paralympic month working on the rowing events at Eton.
Steve turned up with the grub minutes before the Contest began. We all applauded Engelbert and reckoned he'd given a good performance but wondered whether he'd be lost in the crowd. Ann, like me, said that among her friends all the talk had been about the Russian grannies. After they'd performed, Ann said "The other 20 might as well not bother going on stage." We were all sure the babushkas were nailed on to win.
Cyprus and Denmark remained my favourites. Ann's verdict on Cyprus was that it was a good pop song but perhaps not a Eurovision song. Steve said Denmark was Alanis Morissette meets KT Tunstall.
I liked Italy (their singer had a real Amy Winehouse vibe going on), and we all liked Romania. Ann's a fan of traditional cheesy Eurovision fare, so I'd predicted she'd like the Greek entry, but when it came on she reckoned she was annoyed with them for sending the same song every year.
I didn't think the Swedish entry was anything special; Ann liked it but again didn't think it was Eurovision fare - "I can see myself dancing to it in a club." We all thought Jedward were completely nuts but good fun, though Ann said she preferred their song from last year.
When we rang Rob during the interval he said he'd missed the first four entries because of a family day out at an anime and manga exhibition in the West End, so he'd just watched them on catch-up. The FYR Macedonia entry was his favourite while Sue plumped for the Russian grannies - whom Rob and Sue, like us, were sure would win. Ann also gave Russia her 12. I gave my 12 to lovely Ivi while Steve's 12 went to Romania. Jedward got 5 from Steve, 2 from Ann and 2 from me.
One thing nobody picked up on was that none of us gave Engelbert any points.
Ann slumped on the sofa exhausted through the voting - that's what having a nine-month-old baby and having had to go back to working full time has done to her. The voting was pretty much a non-event anyway with Sweden shooting into an early lead and pulling further ahead vote by vote. Estonia giving Engelbert five, after he'd been stuck on his single point from Belgium for ages, got a ragged cheer from us. The 4 points from the Irish that put Engelbert into double figures drew a bigger cheer, though we remained on the edges of our seats hoping Ireland wouldn't give 8, 10 or 12 to Norway and leave Engelbert bottom. Thankfully it didn't happen.
As Graham Norton repeatedly said "we're off to Stockholm next year", I pointed out that Stockholm hosted the Contest last time it was in Sweden, so now it'll be Gothenburg's turn. These things are taken very seriously in Sweden.
As we said our goodbyes I stated my long-standing argument that if we want to pull in the points we need to wheel out our big guns, and send Girls Aloud or Take That. Then when a trailer for The Voice came on, it occurred to me that that is a BBC programme, so an ideal formula would be to send the winner of next year's The Voice to the Contest.
