When you say it's gonna happen "now", Well when exactly do you mean?
You see I've already waited too long
...and all my hope is gone.
Now is today. D-day for the UK. Finally. Almost all my hope is gone but in spite of all the signs, I am still frantically clinging to the dream that there will be some decency in the UK selection for Eurovision. The unveiling of what lays in store is set to take place at a secret glamorous West End location later today. ‘Best Kebab’ on Charing Cross road then. I thought I should write now while a sliver of hope still exists and there is still a tiny window for speculation; (even though it looks like our collective fate is sealed). The big announcement has been a long time coming. I don’t think I could have coped with much more of a wait. The weeks of silence have driven me to crazy conspiracy and nightmares. At one point I thought that withdrawal might even be on the cards. Who could it be? The brilliant eurosite 'Whoops Dragovic' revealed Feb 28th as the date of the Big Beeb announcement and stated that “Su Pollard and Hambel from Play School are contractually obliged to keep shtumm until then”. One morning I woke up in a cold sweat after a terrible nightmare that Morrissey would not be involved at all and the ‘names’ taking part would be Michelle Heaton (of the X that is Liberty) and Ben (of the Factor that is X). If the rumour mill is to be believed, the truth is beyond what my warped subconscious could come up with. Reality is worse than nightmares. Vampires are alive...
Vera Drake first introduced herself to the embryo of hope with the announcement that the ‘Making Your Mind Up’ format would remain. “Cup of tea dear?”: It was then revealed that Morrissey would not be taking part. Cue Vera with another cup of tea: the first big name leak happened. Liz McClarnon of Atomic Pussy and ‘Love Island’ fame and Brian Harvey formerly of East 17 and briefly of ‘I’m No Longer a Celebrity Get Me In There’. “Take your knickers off dear”. It's not a completely lost cause. Su Pollard could still conceivably be in the final line up.
One of the last things I remember hearing about Brian Harvey was that he tried to run himself over with his own car. Surely he must be on suicide watch and they will stop him before he gets to the MYMU stage? I don’t have anything against has-beens. I’m not a has-beenist, honestly big bruffah, I’m not. Better a has-been than a never-was.
When the Morrissey frenzy broke, we were told by BBC sources that they were in talks with some high profile artists and that this year it would be a closed competition. The whole idea of going for ‘names’ is all well and good if that is what you manage to get. The mention of Morrissey and Scissor Sisters got us all excited and maybe led us to miss the point. It doesn’t matter how well known you are as long as you are not shite. I do not have a problem with Has-beens per se. The brilliant Katrina and her Waves could have been classed as such in 1997. Similarly, we don’t need names*. Some of the UK’s best and most successful entries have come from acts that were unknown before the contest, for example Gina G, Imaani, Jemini.
*potential song title?
The problem is that these days, if your main strategy is to go for names and you don’t get them, you run the risk of making the UK Eurovision final just another stop on the Whore Train Express of Celebrity Reality tv.
“Welcome aboard the 2:15 express service. We’d like to welcome aboard all not-enough-letters-in-the-alphabet list celebrities who will do anything to get their bakes on th’ telly. Even if this means, locking yourselves up in a mental asylum with a bunch of racists, eating crocodile scrotum or….eeeekk: competing to represent the UK at Eurovision.”
Just eaten kangaroo arse in the Australian out back? Next stop the UK Eurovision selection! The only thing that could possibly be more humiliating for a UK celebrity. See Jordan. What annoys me is that they would rather eat Kangaroo arse first. It is unfair that MYMU seems to be the final stop on the whore-train express, the last spasm in the corpse of a career. As excruciating as those three minutes can be, at least you know that it definitely won’t last any longer than that. Unless of course, you have the misfortune of winning. Masticating about with bugs and testicles can take a lot longer than 180 seconds. Surely this is more demeaning? I suppose I have missed the point again: it doesn’t matter how horrid what they are doing is as long as there is a camera there and they are exposed for as long as possible. It reminds me of ‘The Hopefuls’ segment on 90s TV show ‘The Word’. Let’s Limbo!
I can’t say that I blame Morrissey for not wanting to line up for the whore train.
Please someone think of the music. Think of the children. For the love of God, someone think of the Children.
Come on BBC! The French have managed to come up with a National Final with good quality songs with varied styles and entertaining performers. France is a country where the Contest undoubtedly has a lower profile and where it would be seen as vulgar to make any effort to do well at something so frivolous.
Jonathan King did some good work with the UK selection and managed entertaining diverse finals before he became a paedophile, notably in 1995, so it can be been done.
One of my main conspiracy theories on why it has taken so long for a UK announcement was that they were holding out for Lisa Scott Lee to get put out of ‘Dancing on Ice’. As long as it wasn’t with a Ice Skate in the head, they would wheel her out for MYMU. My sources tell me that she went out on Saturday. Oh dear.
Let’s try and be optimistic about what is going to be revealed later on today. They turned down last year’s representative Daz Sampson, with a song he had written for Carol Dekker from T’pau. This is a good sign. If I was in charge, and was scrabbling around in the dust after having put all my eggs in Morrissey, I would have bitten his hand off. There must be more than one basket.
Reason for optimism number two: We are safe from Pat Butcher mini-me, Jo O’Meara. I think she is ‘recovering’ from nervous exhaustion somewhere. Unless of course the reason for the UK delay is that at this very moment they are putting the finishing touches to some rip off of ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist Sometimes’. Or, perhaps a more contrite original offering in the style of ‘Let’s all join hands in Essex, India and Japan…’
Wait a minute. That is actually is not that implausible. If she turns up at Best Kebab I will be raging.
Reason to be optimistic number three: With Jessica Fletcher style cunning, I checked Mr Harvey’s diary to see if there was any mention of Euro. May the jury please look at exhibit A, copy and pasted from his official website:
5th February 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
12th February 2005 Hull University No Information Available
25th February 2005 The Casbah, Swindon No Information Available
26th February 2005 M20, Ashford No Information Available
19th March 2005 Brighton Racecourse No Information Available
15th April 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
8th May 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
Surely with such a gruelling tour schedule he wouldn’t be able to fit in MYMU, never mind a stop in Hellsinki? Could it all be a Tissue of Lies? Wait just another cock-a-doody minute, I have just realised that those tour dates were from TWO YEARS AGO! Unless Brian doesn’t know what year it is, we’re in a lot of trouble. Not only is he free, but he’s been free since May 2005.
In spite of the fact that the anticipation for the Uk as been gradually turning into doom, elsewhere things are looking up:
The Swedes have done it again with the mind-boggling Melodifestivalen national final epic that contains not just one but about a half a dozen songs that could win the entire Eurovision. Even some (see for example Magnus Carlsson) that have already fallen to the wayside would be a relief as the British entry. Perhaps we could come up with some sort trade agreement with Sweden whereby they send us their National Final rejects and they get…well…What do we have that the Swedes would want? Ummm… Maybe we could just have it so that if you get knocked out of Melodifestivalen as a booby prize you automatically represent the UK.
Iceland is sending an aging rocker who represented Norway in 1991 as part of the group ‘Just 4 Fun’ singing about my missus. Quite a dated song and look (at The Eurovision Song Contest??!! Surely not!!), but there is something about it that appeals to me. Perhaps it is the return of a familiar face, or that the whole thing doesn’t seem pretentious, contrived or over staged. Let’s face it, achieving this level of dignity at our favourite event is rare but not so difficult. You just have to not strip, not wear a mask and not have a trapeze artist. You would think that would be easy but most competitors slip up on at least one of these.
As mentioned, after last year's poor result, France Télévisions have really gone to town and put in a lot of effort. I recently stumbled across the blog of Elizabeth Vincentilli. You know, Elizabeth. She appears to be an American, working as the Arts and Entertainment Editor for Time Out New York. Incredibly,in between musing on the duty of theatre-goers to "battle preconceptions when watching a performance" (as a Eurovision observer, I think I know what she is getting at), trips to MOMA and dealing with such questions as "Does Understatement befit Macbeth?" (sesly) she gives a very insightful account of the French selection process in her blog 'The Determined Dilettante'. Wot?! In the word of her countrywoman the Menounos: *Amazing*. God only knows. Anyway, the most important decision France faces this year is here. Slide on Ségolène. Presidential Race Smezidential Race.
Georgia are debuting with a very talented chicky. One of her potential songs 'My Story' is probably (warning: look away now if you don’t want to witness blasphemy) too good for Eurovision. Silly debut countries, thinking this is a song contest. They will learn soon enough to send cack with costume changes and pyrotechnics.
Carola did Madrid. Went down a storm. Diego’s whereabouts are unknown.
What we feared would be (at best) another edition of the bland leading the bland as Kenny Dead took Dervish through the motions and to the bottom of the scoreboard, turned out much better than we had ever hoped. Eurosong 2007 produced a song that has the potential to be the best Irish entry for 10 years.
STOP THE PRESS!!!
I know I am going on a bit. I must apologise to the three people who read this (that includes a big apology to myself). Sorry. I have written more than intended as I have done it in a few sittings. Since being away from my post, just a little more seepage has come our way from the haunted doughnut. Rumours that do not have me heading for the nearest oven. Talk is of The Puppini Sisters and Big Bruvas. These groups are ‘Reality Clean’ as far as I am aware, the urine samples also seem to corroborate this. It also seems that the reason for waiting so long, to practically the last possible moment has a credible and logical explanation. It was not to drive us to distraction. They were not scrabbling round in the dirt after the dearly departed Morrissey either. But rather trying to wrong foot ITV in the scheduling. If all had been revealed you can bet your bottom dollar those Commercial, Capitalist Television Bastards would have rustled up a special edition of ‘Paedo Stars in their Eyes’ or moved the final of ‘Dancing on Ice’ to crush Euro.
In more positive breaking news I heard a Brian Harvey song on his MySpace page, and it did not make my ears bleed. His voice sounded… well actually very good. I won’t eat my hat (or delete this entire entry) just yet, but it seems that things may not be as bad as we had feared.
So what have I learned about jumping the gun and going off on a rant of various several paragraphs all over the place? Not to judge before I have the full facts? Maybe I should have waited to see what the BBC have come up with before spewing out such judgemental vitriol. Nah. BURN THE WITCH!
I will leave you with a eurotube of what is (alongside the aforementioned Georgian song) my favourite to come out of this year’s selections so far. It is a funnier, more eloquent explanation than I could give for my silly obsession and panic over UK Eurovision selection. Bloody Scandos, with their superior grasp of the English language.
Swedish MF Finalists 'The Ark' with 'The Worrying Kind'.
...and all my hope is gone.
Now is today. D-day for the UK. Finally. Almost all my hope is gone but in spite of all the signs, I am still frantically clinging to the dream that there will be some decency in the UK selection for Eurovision. The unveiling of what lays in store is set to take place at a secret glamorous West End location later today. ‘Best Kebab’ on Charing Cross road then. I thought I should write now while a sliver of hope still exists and there is still a tiny window for speculation; (even though it looks like our collective fate is sealed). The big announcement has been a long time coming. I don’t think I could have coped with much more of a wait. The weeks of silence have driven me to crazy conspiracy and nightmares. At one point I thought that withdrawal might even be on the cards. Who could it be? The brilliant eurosite 'Whoops Dragovic' revealed Feb 28th as the date of the Big Beeb announcement and stated that “Su Pollard and Hambel from Play School are contractually obliged to keep shtumm until then”. One morning I woke up in a cold sweat after a terrible nightmare that Morrissey would not be involved at all and the ‘names’ taking part would be Michelle Heaton (of the X that is Liberty) and Ben (of the Factor that is X). If the rumour mill is to be believed, the truth is beyond what my warped subconscious could come up with. Reality is worse than nightmares. Vampires are alive...
Vera Drake first introduced herself to the embryo of hope with the announcement that the ‘Making Your Mind Up’ format would remain. “Cup of tea dear?”: It was then revealed that Morrissey would not be taking part. Cue Vera with another cup of tea: the first big name leak happened. Liz McClarnon of Atomic Pussy and ‘Love Island’ fame and Brian Harvey formerly of East 17 and briefly of ‘I’m No Longer a Celebrity Get Me In There’. “Take your knickers off dear”. It's not a completely lost cause. Su Pollard could still conceivably be in the final line up.
One of the last things I remember hearing about Brian Harvey was that he tried to run himself over with his own car. Surely he must be on suicide watch and they will stop him before he gets to the MYMU stage? I don’t have anything against has-beens. I’m not a has-beenist, honestly big bruffah, I’m not. Better a has-been than a never-was.
When the Morrissey frenzy broke, we were told by BBC sources that they were in talks with some high profile artists and that this year it would be a closed competition. The whole idea of going for ‘names’ is all well and good if that is what you manage to get. The mention of Morrissey and Scissor Sisters got us all excited and maybe led us to miss the point. It doesn’t matter how well known you are as long as you are not shite. I do not have a problem with Has-beens per se. The brilliant Katrina and her Waves could have been classed as such in 1997. Similarly, we don’t need names*. Some of the UK’s best and most successful entries have come from acts that were unknown before the contest, for example Gina G, Imaani, Jemini.
*potential song title?
The problem is that these days, if your main strategy is to go for names and you don’t get them, you run the risk of making the UK Eurovision final just another stop on the Whore Train Express of Celebrity Reality tv.
“Welcome aboard the 2:15 express service. We’d like to welcome aboard all not-enough-letters-in-the-alphabet list celebrities who will do anything to get their bakes on th’ telly. Even if this means, locking yourselves up in a mental asylum with a bunch of racists, eating crocodile scrotum or….eeeekk: competing to represent the UK at Eurovision.”
Just eaten kangaroo arse in the Australian out back? Next stop the UK Eurovision selection! The only thing that could possibly be more humiliating for a UK celebrity. See Jordan. What annoys me is that they would rather eat Kangaroo arse first. It is unfair that MYMU seems to be the final stop on the whore-train express, the last spasm in the corpse of a career. As excruciating as those three minutes can be, at least you know that it definitely won’t last any longer than that. Unless of course, you have the misfortune of winning. Masticating about with bugs and testicles can take a lot longer than 180 seconds. Surely this is more demeaning? I suppose I have missed the point again: it doesn’t matter how horrid what they are doing is as long as there is a camera there and they are exposed for as long as possible. It reminds me of ‘The Hopefuls’ segment on 90s TV show ‘The Word’. Let’s Limbo!
I can’t say that I blame Morrissey for not wanting to line up for the whore train.
Please someone think of the music. Think of the children. For the love of God, someone think of the Children.
Come on BBC! The French have managed to come up with a National Final with good quality songs with varied styles and entertaining performers. France is a country where the Contest undoubtedly has a lower profile and where it would be seen as vulgar to make any effort to do well at something so frivolous.
Jonathan King did some good work with the UK selection and managed entertaining diverse finals before he became a paedophile, notably in 1995, so it can be been done.
One of my main conspiracy theories on why it has taken so long for a UK announcement was that they were holding out for Lisa Scott Lee to get put out of ‘Dancing on Ice’. As long as it wasn’t with a Ice Skate in the head, they would wheel her out for MYMU. My sources tell me that she went out on Saturday. Oh dear.
Let’s try and be optimistic about what is going to be revealed later on today. They turned down last year’s representative Daz Sampson, with a song he had written for Carol Dekker from T’pau. This is a good sign. If I was in charge, and was scrabbling around in the dust after having put all my eggs in Morrissey, I would have bitten his hand off. There must be more than one basket.
Reason for optimism number two: We are safe from Pat Butcher mini-me, Jo O’Meara. I think she is ‘recovering’ from nervous exhaustion somewhere. Unless of course the reason for the UK delay is that at this very moment they are putting the finishing touches to some rip off of ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist Sometimes’. Or, perhaps a more contrite original offering in the style of ‘Let’s all join hands in Essex, India and Japan…’
Wait a minute. That is actually is not that implausible. If she turns up at Best Kebab I will be raging.
Reason to be optimistic number three: With Jessica Fletcher style cunning, I checked Mr Harvey’s diary to see if there was any mention of Euro. May the jury please look at exhibit A, copy and pasted from his official website:
5th February 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
12th February 2005 Hull University No Information Available
25th February 2005 The Casbah, Swindon No Information Available
26th February 2005 M20, Ashford No Information Available
19th March 2005 Brighton Racecourse No Information Available
15th April 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
8th May 2005 Butlins, Bognor Regis No Information Available
Surely with such a gruelling tour schedule he wouldn’t be able to fit in MYMU, never mind a stop in Hellsinki? Could it all be a Tissue of Lies? Wait just another cock-a-doody minute, I have just realised that those tour dates were from TWO YEARS AGO! Unless Brian doesn’t know what year it is, we’re in a lot of trouble. Not only is he free, but he’s been free since May 2005.
In spite of the fact that the anticipation for the Uk as been gradually turning into doom, elsewhere things are looking up:
The Swedes have done it again with the mind-boggling Melodifestivalen national final epic that contains not just one but about a half a dozen songs that could win the entire Eurovision. Even some (see for example Magnus Carlsson) that have already fallen to the wayside would be a relief as the British entry. Perhaps we could come up with some sort trade agreement with Sweden whereby they send us their National Final rejects and they get…well…What do we have that the Swedes would want? Ummm… Maybe we could just have it so that if you get knocked out of Melodifestivalen as a booby prize you automatically represent the UK.
Iceland is sending an aging rocker who represented Norway in 1991 as part of the group ‘Just 4 Fun’ singing about my missus. Quite a dated song and look (at The Eurovision Song Contest??!! Surely not!!), but there is something about it that appeals to me. Perhaps it is the return of a familiar face, or that the whole thing doesn’t seem pretentious, contrived or over staged. Let’s face it, achieving this level of dignity at our favourite event is rare but not so difficult. You just have to not strip, not wear a mask and not have a trapeze artist. You would think that would be easy but most competitors slip up on at least one of these.
As mentioned, after last year's poor result, France Télévisions have really gone to town and put in a lot of effort. I recently stumbled across the blog of Elizabeth Vincentilli. You know, Elizabeth. She appears to be an American, working as the Arts and Entertainment Editor for Time Out New York. Incredibly,in between musing on the duty of theatre-goers to "battle preconceptions when watching a performance" (as a Eurovision observer, I think I know what she is getting at), trips to MOMA and dealing with such questions as "Does Understatement befit Macbeth?" (sesly) she gives a very insightful account of the French selection process in her blog 'The Determined Dilettante'. Wot?! In the word of her countrywoman the Menounos: *Amazing*. God only knows. Anyway, the most important decision France faces this year is here. Slide on Ségolène. Presidential Race Smezidential Race.
Georgia are debuting with a very talented chicky. One of her potential songs 'My Story' is probably (warning: look away now if you don’t want to witness blasphemy) too good for Eurovision. Silly debut countries, thinking this is a song contest. They will learn soon enough to send cack with costume changes and pyrotechnics.
Carola did Madrid. Went down a storm. Diego’s whereabouts are unknown.
What we feared would be (at best) another edition of the bland leading the bland as Kenny Dead took Dervish through the motions and to the bottom of the scoreboard, turned out much better than we had ever hoped. Eurosong 2007 produced a song that has the potential to be the best Irish entry for 10 years.
STOP THE PRESS!!!
I know I am going on a bit. I must apologise to the three people who read this (that includes a big apology to myself). Sorry. I have written more than intended as I have done it in a few sittings. Since being away from my post, just a little more seepage has come our way from the haunted doughnut. Rumours that do not have me heading for the nearest oven. Talk is of The Puppini Sisters and Big Bruvas. These groups are ‘Reality Clean’ as far as I am aware, the urine samples also seem to corroborate this. It also seems that the reason for waiting so long, to practically the last possible moment has a credible and logical explanation. It was not to drive us to distraction. They were not scrabbling round in the dirt after the dearly departed Morrissey either. But rather trying to wrong foot ITV in the scheduling. If all had been revealed you can bet your bottom dollar those Commercial, Capitalist Television Bastards would have rustled up a special edition of ‘Paedo Stars in their Eyes’ or moved the final of ‘Dancing on Ice’ to crush Euro.
In more positive breaking news I heard a Brian Harvey song on his MySpace page, and it did not make my ears bleed. His voice sounded… well actually very good. I won’t eat my hat (or delete this entire entry) just yet, but it seems that things may not be as bad as we had feared.
So what have I learned about jumping the gun and going off on a rant of various several paragraphs all over the place? Not to judge before I have the full facts? Maybe I should have waited to see what the BBC have come up with before spewing out such judgemental vitriol. Nah. BURN THE WITCH!
I will leave you with a eurotube of what is (alongside the aforementioned Georgian song) my favourite to come out of this year’s selections so far. It is a funnier, more eloquent explanation than I could give for my silly obsession and panic over UK Eurovision selection. Bloody Scandos, with their superior grasp of the English language.
Swedish MF Finalists 'The Ark' with 'The Worrying Kind'.
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