Eurovision
Okay, first of all, I confess, I did not particularly like the UK entry. I liked the Finnish, Ukrainian, Norwegian, Israeli, Armenian and even the Spanish entry but there's no way I thought Russia deserved to win.
So, the question becomes, "does it matter"? Myself, I think it's a sign that the Eurovision song contest is no longer a competition to choose the best song, but a political backscratching. Now to me, this represents an opportunity.
There are two ways forward. The first is "Cymrw am byth", "Gora Euzkadi", "Visca Catalunya" and even "Freedom for Tooting" if necessary, just to make sure we can outvote the Eastern Europeans. Failing that, perhaps the time has come to treat the Eurovision song contest as it was meant to be... instead of the bland lowest common denominators we were often stuck with. So... since we can't win, and we still love the programme, why don't we start entering songs that we think are wonderful.
Morrissey offered to be the entrant last year, so did I for that matter and neither of us got anywhere near the battle of the bland (I mean A Song for Europe). Wouldn't it be great though if our entries had been Led Zeppelin instead of the New Seekers, Queen instead of Cliff Richard, Fat Boy Slim instead of Gemini, or even Leona Lewis instead of Andy Abraham?
If we can't win, then let's start insisting that every single UK entry from now on will be one we'll be proud of 20 years later.
So, the question becomes, "does it matter"? Myself, I think it's a sign that the Eurovision song contest is no longer a competition to choose the best song, but a political backscratching. Now to me, this represents an opportunity.
There are two ways forward. The first is "Cymrw am byth", "Gora Euzkadi", "Visca Catalunya" and even "Freedom for Tooting" if necessary, just to make sure we can outvote the Eastern Europeans. Failing that, perhaps the time has come to treat the Eurovision song contest as it was meant to be... instead of the bland lowest common denominators we were often stuck with. So... since we can't win, and we still love the programme, why don't we start entering songs that we think are wonderful.
Morrissey offered to be the entrant last year, so did I for that matter and neither of us got anywhere near the battle of the bland (I mean A Song for Europe). Wouldn't it be great though if our entries had been Led Zeppelin instead of the New Seekers, Queen instead of Cliff Richard, Fat Boy Slim instead of Gemini, or even Leona Lewis instead of Andy Abraham?
If we can't win, then let's start insisting that every single UK entry from now on will be one we'll be proud of 20 years later.