The traditional war-cry for Eurovision viewers when the UK fails to do well is "the voting is so political these days" – which is partly true, but it also helps if the UK doesn't send a creaky old group of camp flight attendants to Eurovision to sing a bad song about oral sex.
After Scooch's dismal Flying The Flag did, well, dismally at Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest, all sorts of questions are now being asked by people who oddly have nothing better to do than to fret about a singing competition that asks us to sincerely take Latvia seriously. Thanks to Scooch buggering up the UK's Eurovision hopes – and the obvious prevalence of Eastern European nations in the voting, like Serbian winner Marija – Eurovision fans are now seeking reform involving separate east and west European semi-finals and an independently-judged final. Also, if Eurovision organisers could somehow incapacitate any country that tries to enter a big-faced pilot and his pointless mates again, we'd sort of appreciate that too.
We'll admit that – despite coming second from bottom at the Eurovision Song Contest and turning an entire nation into a laughing stock yet again – Scooch do possess a rare talent. After all, it takes a very special act to make people nostalgic for the days of Daz Sampson. But – as we liveblogged on Saturday – that's exactly what happened this year. Somehow the sight of the big-faced man who does the 3am telephone quiz on minority digital channel FTN dancing around a suitcase singing a Gina G b-side in front of a giant picture of the Union Jack accompanied by two generic women and a creepy man hell-bent on getting you to give him a blowjob didn't go down too well in mainland Europe, with a scattering of sympathy votes from Ireland and Malta being the only thing that spared us from nil points.
It shouldn't have been like this, obviously. Morrissey wanted to do Eurovision this year. Jarvis Cocker wanted to do Eurovision this year. That twonk from The Darkness actually wrote and performed a song for Eurovision, only to storm off the stage on live TV when he didn't win. But no – the British public wanted Scooch to go to Eurovision. That's Scooch – a failed pop group who split up years ago because they couldn't even make a dent in the British singles charts with their witless sub-Steps pop claptrap. Hindsight's a bastard, don't you think?
And on Saturday night, choosing Scooch to represent us at Eurovision seemed like the dumbest thing we could have done. How could Scooch stand up to the might of three dirty-looking Russian girls singing about their arses? Or a scary Finnish goth woman screaming "leave me alone" over and over again? Or a couple of Bulgarians banging drums and going "eee" with their mouths?
But, despite Flying The Flag by Scooch being such a dire embarrassment that even Charlotte Church didn't like it, another reason that the UK did so awfully at Eurovision is because of all the tactical voting by eastern European countries. And this has caused Eurovision fans to call for a reform. The Telegraph reinforces this notion with one of the most tenuous interviews we've ever read – with the spokesman for Bobby G, a member of former Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz:
"We would hope that they would but it's very difficult to imagine," he said. "Now that countries vote politically for each other, it would be hard for a western European country to win Eurovision." He proposed splitting the competition in two, with the western and eastern winners meeting in an independently-judged final. "It seems very difficult to see an alternative because there is so much inter-voting by the Balkan and Russian states," he said.
There are good reasons why this Eurovision reform might and might not happen – on the one hand, the Eurovision Song Contest is bankrolled by the increasingly unpopular western European countries who'll chase a reform if it means they'll do better; but also an independent panel of judges would strip Eurovision of millions of pounds worth of revenue from text voting, which won't be very attractive to organisers.
Still, it doesn't matter what happens, since doing dismally at Eurovision is as traditional a British pursuit as complaining about the weather and happy-slapping old ladies for their pension money.
And at least we didn't do as badly as Ireland. Boy, did they ever suck.
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King Jimbo says
It seems to me that as soon as we start moaning about the unfair voting and actually worrying about where we come in the biased results, then aren’t we admitting that we
actually take this risible show seriously?? Who cares if the Eastern bloc idiots all vote for each other. We should rise above it and just enjoy all the ridicoulous performances?
And for the record I liked Scooch. They summed up Eurovision neatly. Plus there is lots of room in my heart for slutty women with tight skirts and bra’s on show. But I don’t think
they should have won. They deserved second place, after Russia, which had three slutty women.
Gilbert Wham says
There are Latvians who you should take VERY seriously. Would you like to meet some? As far as voting goes, if we made both Scotland and Wales separate nations, then there would be a bigger voting bloc. Not for us, obviously, they fucking hate us; but it would bugger things up for the Former Yugoslavs. More slutty women would help as well.
Internet Pedant says
Critically dissecting Eurovision is about as useful as getting Brian Sewell to assess your 6-year-old’s finger painting. We can’t send Scooch, Daz Sampson and Jemini, then moan the next day when they crash and burn.
It only comes round once a year, and everyone has some fun, including the critics. What do you mean, you don’t like it? Well turn it off then (that’s what Channel 4 keeps telling me to do.)
Now imagine if it happened every week, on several channels, like some hideous, interminable karaoke/dance/talent contest starring f-list celebrities and/or ordinary plebs who think the judgement of expert opinion on their capabilities comes second to that of their mum. Now that would be a world ASKING for the four horsemen to drop by.
Besides, I can think of no better way of improving international relations than by exploring our differing cultural traditions through the medium of cute women. I see a general consensus developing here.
Carina O'Reilly says
Someone pointed out on another thread that the strange Serbian woman did a tour of Europe with her song including translating it (poorly, apparently, but still) into several other languages including Russian and Finnish. She is also one of Serbia’s major artists. We send four washed up big faced losers to chant sub 1990s pop nonsense chosen by an audience of fourteen year old girls and laughed at by the entire country – then we’re in high dudgeon when we lose, appallingly? If we took it seriously, then perhaps we’d get some serious votes. Personally that would rather ruin my experience of the glory of Eurovision, but it would spare us the annual week of conspiracy theories when all we get is pity votes from Ireland and Malta.
Carmela says
meh half those countries aren’t even europe anyway are they? and most of them were the same country till a few years ago. also i thought the ukraines entry was pure eurovision gold!!!
Tenzil says
Surely Britain’s music industry is like a thousand times better than in any other country in Europe.
Why on earth don’t they actually win this every year?