Chig is saddened to hear that a link with the past has finally been broken today with the sad death of Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic. She was rescued from the sinking ship as a baby, and reached the grand old age of 97. I feel an appropriately sombre tribute is due.

But no, there's always a Eurovision connection. Let's have this instead.

'Titanic' by Frederik



You might think that a jolly pop song about 1,517 people dying when a boat sank, by Finland's answer to Engelbert Humperdinck (meets David Hasselhoff) could be inappropriate. But no, for Frederik, songs about sinking boats are his speciality. Here's another one he made, about the tragic sinking of the MS Estonia ferry in 1994, which killed 852 people. Frederik's capacity for songs about seafaring disasters is truly astonishing. How was he overlooked when Ferry Aid was put together?

'Estonia' by Frederik

Labels: Eurovision, Finland, Frederik, Titanic

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Today, 17th May, is Norway's National Day. Could it possibly have started any better for Norway? It was about fifteen minutes into the National Day, Norwegian time, when they won Eurovision for the third time last night/this morning. Congratulations to Norway and congratulations to Alexander Rybak who celebrated his 23rd birthday this week. Not only did he perform 'Fairytale', but he wrote it too. With his record score and record winning margin, with points from every single one of the other 41 countries, it was a phenomenal victory, although he didn't quite beat the 'percentage of available points' record which the UK still holds through Brotherhood Of Man in 1976, so he's not quite the biggest winner ever.

Congratulations too to Jade Ewen and the BBC team. Achieving the UK's first ever fifth place was just fantastic (and I don't just mean because it filled in a gap in our record of the last 52 years!) It made for such an enjoyable evening for us, as points rolled in for the UK from a fantastic 31 of the 41 countries. All that touring by Jade paid off, as did her flawless performance. (Although someone told me that Jade was hit in the face by one of her violinists during the song. Did you see that?)

Jade has entered the official singles chart at #50 (up from #103 last week, which must have been cherry-picking from the Eurovision album, as Jade's single package wasn't released until this week). The CD is out tomorrow, but #50 is already nearly twenty places higher than Andy Abraham managed last year with his Eurovision single. Jade is now also in the iTunes top twenty at last, after a steady climb all week.

I had a fantastic Eurovision night, with the party at the Wellington, then seeing Jessica Garlick and Scooch perform at the Nightingale and chatting with all of them, before I made it home for 5:30am, but the late night and the alcohol have enabled the cold which had been stalking me for the last few days to well and truly take hold today. It has bunged up my nose and ears and nearly knocked me out, so I'm having an early night as I can hardly breathe.

More facts, figures, observations and photos later this week.

In the meantime, Alexander Rybak has jumped from #204 on the UK iTunes chart yesterday to #4 today. Sixteen of the 25 Eurovision finalists figure in the UK iTunes chart today, as listed below. Funny how we gave Turkey our 12 points and yet they're so low down the iTunes chart, isn't it?

Norway #4
UK #15 and #254
Iceland #33
Germany #75
Estonia #86
Sweden #88
Azerbaijan #91
Turkey #94
Finland #107
Portugal #121
Ukraine #124
Armenia #125
Denmark #147
Greece #168
Moldova #207
Russia #216

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Norway

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You have to feel for those who are attending the Eurovision final in Moscow tonight, especially the performers, as the show starts at 23:00 local time, scheduled to finish at 02:15. That means the winner's media conference will probably start at around 03:00 and finish about 04:00. Then there's a party... Good luck, all of you!

My each way bets for tonight, placed before the semi-finals, are on these five countries to finish in the top four. Obviously at least one of them will fail, but it won't matter, especially if Armenia make it again. (They were fourth last year.)

Song 08 Greece
Song 09 Armenia

Song 11 Azerbaijan
Song 12 Bosnia-Herzegovina

Song 20 Norway

If Bosnia don't make the top 4, I will be surprised and a lot poorer. My ten bets for Thursday's semi-final produced a return of £37.04, after betting £38, so despite getting eighto ut of ten right, Ilost 96p overall. I did better on Tuesday, withonly seven right but a profit of nearly £16. At least I'm in profit overall, so far.

I'm worried that there are now nine countries which I think could win and the more I think about France, the more I think it could be them. I hadn't realised until this week that Patricia Kaas is famous in the East as well as Western Europe. She received a gold disc for album sales in Russia in her Eurovision media conference this week. Her performance seems to stop everyone in their tracks, being described as "stunning" and "mesmeric". A second win for France, with Paris next year, would be wonderful. It just won't win me any money.

But I've only narrowed down the potential winners to eleven countries. Ha, ha. I don't think the fourteen not listed here have a chance, but won't it be funny if I'm wrong?

The potential winners are, I believe:

03 France
08 Greece
09 Armenia
11 Azerbaijan
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
15 Estonia
18 Turkey
19 Albania
20 Norway
21 Ukraine
23 United Kingdom

The UK votes 20th tonight, out of the 42. We're after Lithuania. Will we reduce our usual recent points for Greece and Turkey in favour of Alexander Rybak for Norway? Will we also give middle points to the Swedish popera? Possibly yes in both cases.

The last five countries to vote are all from Eastern Europe, so if it's neck and neck between, say Norway and Bosnia, the Eastern country will win. A Western country will need to have a commanding lead after Denmark votes 37th in order to win.

Something you should know about Jade Ewen. The UK entry was given away last week as a free CD with Russian OK magazine, so lots of Russians have it. This was arranged by Universal, her record company. I've also read that it has SOLD another 100,000 copies in Russia. I'm expecting big points from Russia later, if not some of her former satellite countries too. Putin promised it to Andrew Lloyd Webber, after all.

Another thing you should know is that MTV Russia had a poll three or four weeks ago and viewers voted the UK winner of all the 42 songs. The winner! Is it any wonder we're slightly excited?

Here in the UK, Jade has at last sneeked into the midweeks at #69 in the official UK chart, taking sales up to Thursday night into account. She's up to #43 on iTunes, where Alexander Rybak's 'Fairytale' has also sneeked in at #204, being cherry-picked from the Eurovision compilation album.

Whatever you're doing tonight, have fun and enjoy what promises to be a spectacular show, with better presenters, Cirque du Soleil and a flying Dima Bilan, plus some close voting, I hope, made more unpredictable with the input of music business juries deciding 50% of the vote from each country, with televoting accounting for the other half.

If you want a pointless prediction, I'll go with this:

1st Bosnia-Herzegovina
2nd Norway
3rd Greece
4th France
5th Azerbaijan
6th United Kingdom

23rd Spain
24th Romania
25th Germany

I'll be watching at the Wellington in Brum with about 20-30 people crammed into the pub's small back room, before popping out later to see Jessica Garlick and Scooch at the Nightingale. It should be quite a night!

Labels: Eurovision 2009, final

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The banned Slavic Pride parade (as it had been renamed) in Moscow 'sort of' took place earlier today. I awoke to the news (on Five Live) that Peter Tatchell had been arrested there. It's nothing less than I expected, but given that the mayor of Moscow had banned the Pride parade but approved counter-demonstrations by right wing groups with a history of attacking these gay events, I salute the bravery of Tatchell and the Russian people who took part. Around 20 of them have been arrested.

The Toppers, from the Netherlands, had vowed to boycott tonight's Eurovision final if the Pride parade was attacked today, but they didn't make the final anyway. Kudos to Malena Ernman though, representing Sweden tonight, who has spoken out in favour of the parade and said she would be proud to call herself gay for the day. We love Sweden.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Moscow Pride, Slavic Pride, Sweden

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Jade Ewen at last night's second dress rehearsal for the Eurovision final tonight. Big in the hall, apparently, although the stage crew is having difficulty bringing her staircase on stage in time, so they had to cut to the green room in the rehearsal. Barring a croaky voice or Jade falling over in her high heels, I really think we're heading for the UK's best result since 2002, when Jessica Garlick came third. Anything worse than top ten will now be seen as a failure, but I think we could really be top six and, with the wind in the right direction, yes, I think there's a possibility of winning. Brace yourselves, Cardiff! Fingers are very firmly crossed.

Photo (c) All Kinds Of Everything 2009.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Jade Ewen, UK

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...is Mike's article in today's Guardian. The online version is here. Very good it is too, as he previews ten of the songs in tomorrow's final.

It's perfect reading while we sit and wait for streaming (or YouTube) of the UK's media conference in Moscow today (13:30 BST, 16:30 Moscow time). Jade Ewen, Graham Norton, Diane Warren and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber all at once! It should be good.

UPDATE: ESC Today's report on the UK conference is here.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, UK

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Scandal in Spain.

Spanish TV (TVE) has broken the Eurovision rules. They showed last night's semi-final, in which the Spanish public was due to vote, with an hour's delay, preferring to continue with a tennis match from the Madrid Masters instead. Consequently, it was impossible to have a televote, so Spain's points (still a secret until early Sunday morning) were determined by the five music biz people who made up the Spanish jury.

No one bats an eyelid when a country like Andorra has a televote that's too small and the back-up jury vote is used instead, but for one of Eurovision's Big 4 to do this intentionally, with a population of forty million people represented by five, because of a tennis match, this is scandalous. Spanish Eurovision fans are furious!

It's even worse than it sounds, because Spain had originally been due to vote in Tuesday's semi-final, with Germany and the UK. Only two weeks ago, they asked for permission to vote in the second semi-final instead, so that Spanish TV could show a political debate. This raised a few eyebrows, as it was the first case of a country choosing which show to vote on when the competing songs were already known. It also left Portugal and Andorra in despair, stranded without their usual points from Spain. (Portugal survived and made the final. Andorra didn't.) Nevertheless, the EBU consented to TVE's request but now it has been a complete waste of time as they didn't bother to show last night's semi-final in real time.

Spain has broken the rules, which oblige any voting country to show the programme live, but will anything happen? Will the EBU dare to punish one of the Big 4? It would be unfair to punish Soraya, who closes the Eurovision final on Saturday, with one of Spain's best songs for years. Maybe they should be forced into the semi-finals next year? Or maybe Spain should be replaced in the Big 4 by Russia (or Sweden!) Maybe that's what Spanish TV is trying to achieve anyway?

Labels: Eurovision 2009, scandal, Spain

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(Blogged live, while watching the draw on eurovision.tv)

The countries in bold are tonight's qualifiers, in the slots they've just drawn in the conference hall in Moscow. Rather charmingly, the numbers are on bits of paper inside Matrushka dolls. Thankfully only one doll.

Alexander Rybak from Norway pulled out the draw he needed - 20th slot. Of the slots still available tonight, only 21st could have been better.

It's now a very slow start to the final. For those who think the French song is also dreary, they'll have nodded off until Sweden wakes them up at song four.

Ukraine drew the prime slot that was left, at 21. Saturday's final certainly builds up to towards the end now!

01 Lithuania
02 Israel
03 France
04 Sweden
05 Croatia
06 Portugal
07 Iceland
08 Greece
09 Armenia
10 Russia
11 Azerbaijan
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
13 Moldova
14 Malta
15 Estonia
16 Denmark
17 Germany
18 Turkey
19 Albania
20 Norway
21 Ukraine
22 Romania
23 United Kingdom
24 Finland
25 Spain

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2009

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But first, as I fear he won't get through tonight, here's my Sexiest Man of Eurovision 2009 award. It goes to Zoli Ádok, who will look very good singing and dancing with a vest on tonight for Hungary. Sadly, his song's a bit mediocre, but if people vote for the best hunk in a vest, he could be in luck. Zoli's the one on the left by the way. The one on the right is the lovely Franko from the OnEurope blog team. Franko has been having his picture taken with almost all of this year's contestants (32 out of 42 when I last asked) and the results are all here on his Flickr photostream.

Predictions then.

Qualifying for the final from tonight's second Eurovision semi-final in Moscow.

Dead certs:

Norway - CORRECT
Azerbaijan - CORRECT
Greece - CORRECT

Quite likely:

Moldova - CORRECT
Albania - CORRECT
Netherlands - WRONG
Denmark - CORRECT

Next most likely:
Ukraine - CORRECT
Estonia - CORRECT
Latvia - WRONG

So that's my ten. In Tuesday's semi-final, I struggled to find seven songs, after seeing the performances, that I wanted to progress to the final. In tonight's semi-final, there are fourteen I'd like to see go through, so there is bound to be some disappointment.

I haven't done any big bets tonight, but I've put between one and ten pounds on each of the ten above, just for the sake of it.

Sadly, tonight's hosts in Moscow will be the same as Tuesday's. Reports from Moscow say they're even worse in rehearsals, and the performers are having more trouble singing in tune too.

If the BBC doesn't show the interval act tonight, I'll probably withhold my licence fee, after they deprived us of t.A.T.u. with the Red Army Choir on Tuesday, doing my favourite t.A.T.u. song, Not Gonna Get Us. I'd been looking forward to it, but we got a pointless interview instead.

BBC Three, 20:00 BST.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, predictions

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The physical release of Jade Ewen's 'It's My Time' was supposed to have been this week, but it's been postponed to next Monday instead, obviously so they can put 'Eurovision 2009 winner' stickers on the CDs. The download was released on iTunes though. As physical sales only account for around 2% of singles sales nowadays, the delayed CD release shouldn't be preventing Jade from storming the charts on Sunday then, should it?

Let's see how the Radio Edit has been doing in the iTunes chart so far this week.

By Sunday night: made #93
By Monday night: fallen to #110
By last night: up to #68

UPDATES
Wednesday night: up to #62
Thursday night: up to #59
10:00 Friday morning: up to #52
Friday night: up to #43 on iTunes, but now appearing in the official chart's midweeks (up to Thursday night) at #69.

Not exactly setting the world on fire, is it? If Polydor/Universal had released the song as a download in March, when Jade won Eurovision: Your Country Needs You, it would easily have gone top 5 on the back of the TV exposure and, with the way singles sales work these days, it would still be hanging around and having a resurgence now. I expect it will go much higher than #68 eventually but still, an opportunity wasted. So far.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Jade Ewen

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Дмитрий Шепелев (Dmitriy Shepelev) was easily the best thing about the hosts of last night's Eurovision semi-final. He looked even hunkier than this picture and his silliness in the Green Room was easily forgiven, compared with the two main hosts, Andrey Malakhov and Natalia Vodianova, who were atrocious, as per usual for Eurovision. He has spent the last ten days hosting nearly a hundred media conferences for the assembled hacks, so he deserves a pat on the back. I would be happy to give him one.

Russia had a year to prepare for this, but only announced the hosts last week. Did no one want the job? The lack of preparation showed through as clearly as the lack of a scriptwriter. If they had one, they must have wasted all their time writing that twaddle for the opening sequence, which wasted five minutes of my life. We have to put up with the terrible twosome again on Thursday. They should promote Dmitriy to the main stage and get rid of the bouffant man. Luckily, we have completely different hosts for Saturday's final, in the sexy shape of Alsou, who represented the motherland in 2000, famously accompanied by equally sexy British dancers David and Will, who Wogan memorably described, with a talent for accuracy which sometimes deserted him, as "big girls' blouses". Alsou will be accompanied by the splendidly named Ivan Urgant. Perhaps he will live up to his (almost) surname and just get on with the bloody thing.

Here's another picture of Dmitriy Shepelev, this one in the Eurovision media centre, courtesy of eurovision.tv. Every day that goes by makes me wish a little more that I'd gone to Moscow. Sigh.

Labels: Dimitriy Shepelev, Eurovision 2009, Дмитрий Шепелев

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Ideal size for hosting Eurovision 2010.
Ideally located to suit BBC regionalisation policy.

Hosts: Jessica Garlick & James Fox.

Sorted.

Labels: Cardiff, Eurovision 2010

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Excellent news for Jade Ewen and the UK, as two dancey numbers which haven't a hope of winning have just been drawn before her and after her in Saturday's final. This is the best we could have hoped for. There's now no likely winner near the UK at the end of the show. Dare we hope? Dare we?

The media masses in Moscow have apparently gone into a UK-based frenzy following this draw. Andrew Lloyd Webber clearly convinced Mr Putin to allow weak songs to be drawn around us to make us look even better. Spasiba!

The line-up for Saturday's Eurovision final now looks like this. Tonight's ten qualifiers are in bold. The Big 4 and hosts Russia were already drawn into place. The other ten places will be taken by Thursday's qualifiers.

01
02 Israel
03 France
04 Sweden
05
06 Portugal
07 Iceland
08
09 Armenia
10 Russia
11
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
13
14 Malta
15
16
17 Germany
18 Turkey
19
20
21
22 Romania
23 United Kingdom
24 Finland
25 Spain

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2009

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Qualifying for the final from tonight's first Eurovision semi-final in Moscow.

Dead certs:

Armenia - CORRECT
Turkey - CORRECT
Bosnia-Herzegovina - CORRECT

Quite likely:

Malta - CORRECT
Portugal - CORRECT

Next most likely:

Belarus - WRONG
Switzerland - WRONG
Romania - CORRECT
Sweden - CORRECT
Bulgaria - WRONG

So that's my ten, in a very unpredictable semi-final tonight. This semi-final is far, far worse than Thursday's. I struggle to find ten songs I want to put through to the final from tonight's eighteen. On Thursday, there are far more deserving songs.

I have serious bets on Armenia, Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina qualifying tonight. If they do, I'm laughing. I also have smaller bets on Portugal and Malta, plus a wildcard bet on Belgium, despite reports of bad rehearsals (see also Sweden), on the basis that the whole of Europe loves Elvis.

Have fun tonight if you're watching with the lovely Paddy O'Connell on BBC Three, 20:00 BST.

Labels: Eurovision 2009

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When the draw was made on 30 January this year, which determined that the UK would be voting in the first Eurovision semi-final, on the Tuesday, I said to friends that the BBC had another major challenge this year. They needed to make people aware that the Tuesday semi-final exists. It looks to me as if they just haven't even bothered to try. The trailers have started for Saturday's final, featuring Jade, Jade and more Jade, but the existence of any semi-finals, let alone the one we're voting in tomorrow, isn't mentioned.

Have the semi-finals been advertised at all? Please let us all know in the comments if you've seen or heard any publicity for them.

Although it's easy to say it doesn't matter (and of course none of it matters in the great scheme of things), the truth is that the viewing figures for Eurovision's single qualifying rounds (2004-2007) and semi-finals (2008) have been reasonable for BBC Three but pitiful in terms of anything on the main channels. The lack of advertising means that many people who would watch the shows miss them entirely. More importantly, it skews the UK vote horribly, because the only people watching are committed fans and the immigrant populations in this country whose own countries are taking part. They have the communication networks, through their newspapers, community radio and websites, to make a significant population ready to vote.

If there's any doubt about this, let's look at the great shame of last year's second semi-final, where the UK televote gave the maximum 12 points to Cyprus, one of the worst songs in the entire competition. Cyprus failed to qualify for the final, finishing a deserved 15th out of 19 songs, but one third of their 36 points came from us. I don't remember Wogan complaining about OUR diaspora voting, also evidenced when we gave Ireland's Donna & Joe 12 points in their 2005 qualifier, but they too failed to make the final. Low viewing figures allow our televote to be hijacked and that's a shame.

So, based on recent patterns and who's likely to be watching tomorrow, here's where I think the big semi-final points from the UK televote are going, and the reasons:

12 points - Turkey (Turks in UK.)
10 points - Sweden (Fan fave.)
8 points - Malta (We love Malta, and it's plucky Chiara again.)

Labels: Eurovision 2009

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Last night's Eurovision party, hosted by the Schlagerboys at the Wellington, was utterly fantastic. Much vodka, much flag-waving, much singing and many blue and yellow balloons!

There was an unwanted guest though. Here I am, trying to reverse her powers of witchcraft and make her disappear.



Photo (c) Schlagerboys 2009

Labels: Carola, Eurovision, Schlagerboys

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He's on stage with Albania!

Photo (c) All Kinds Of Everything 2009

Labels: Albania, Eurovision 2009, Leigh Bowery

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Jade's first rehearsal today. Classy and well-sung. Rapturously received by objective bloggers, even those who didn't like it before. I may cry.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Jade Ewen

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It's Day 7 of Eurovision rehearsals in Moscow. So much is happening today.

Vladimir Putin has just paid a visit to the media centre and France's Patricia Kaas has produced a standing ovation with her first rehearsal, turning up the heat considerably on the favourites who have emerged so far.

Most of the 37 countries in the semi-finals have now finished their two rehearsals each, with the rest finishing tomorrow. This just leaves the Big 4 and hosts Russia to cram in both of their rehearsals this weekend, before the public dress rehearsals for the semis start on Monday and the real thing starts on Tuesday night. (Note to UK: we are voting in TUESDAY'S semi-final. I have to tell you this because the BBC can't be bothered. Have you seen any trailers yet?)

France is the first country of the five to rehearse. Jade is due on at 13:40 UK time, but they're running a little late, so check out OnEurope and All Kinds Of Everything some time after 14:00 for immediate reactions. I've been lapping up both of them all week. The seven people involved are doing a great job between the two blogs.

By coincidence, the UK's first rehearsal today, 9th May, comes on the eleventh anniversary of Birmingham hosting the contest, which must mean it's the first time it's fallen on a Saturday since then. We must be on a repeat of the 1998 calendar this year.

9th May is also Europe Day, and Moscow has a huge military parade to celebrate victory in Europe in WWII, which is why friends in Moscow were rather disturbed earlier in the week when the tanks trundled into town below their apartment! Their photos are here on OnEurope.

We'll be celebrating and previewing tonight, when the Schlagerboys are holding a pre-Eurovision party at the Wellington here in Brum. They'll be imposing their mp3 collection on a willing audience, before they fly out for a fleeting visit to Moscow next weekend. It should be schlagertastic!

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Jade Ewen

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The stage is set for unrest and possible riots in Red Square on the day of the Eurovision final next week. The mayor of Moscow has now done what most of us thought he wouldn't dare to do this year, even though he's done it before - he has banned the Moscow lesbian and gay Pride parade. It has always been planned for Eurovision final day, with most people assuming that the glare of publicity (and the presence of so many films crews in Moscow for the contest) would prevent it being banned, as Moscow gritted its teeth and tried to appear more tolerant to Europe's media. But no. Moscow's mayor doesn't care about that. He has a homophobic agenda to maintain.

Had I been going to Moscow, I would have been looking forward to taking part in the Pride celebrations. Needless to say, the organisers of the parade say they're going ahead anyway. Previous Moscow Prides have seen protesters being beaten up by fascists while the police stood idly by, or even joined in. Saturday 16th should be interesting. I'm expecting to see plenty of Europe's schlager queens on the barricades.

Labels: Eurovision 2009, Moscow Pride

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Eurovision 2009 starts today, as the first Moscow rehearsals kick off this morning! Chig couldn't afford to go, but the usual suspects have made it, thankfully.

I heartily recommend that you spend the next two weeks reading the rehearsal blogs at OnEurope and All Kinds Of Everything. Work and other pressures mean there won't be a fat lot about Eurovision here on World Of Chig this year, but those two blogs by people I know kept me thoroughly entertained in 2007 when I last didn't go to the contest. I'm sure they'll be doing the same thing again.

There's plenty to read there already, including a picture of the OnEurope team's toilet, should you be concerned about their sanitation. Annoyingly, they're saying it's not that expensive in Moscow. As the money was the main reason for me not going, this is slightly galling. Hey ho. Let battle commence! Can anyone beat Norway's Belarussian to the Eurovision crown? The bookies think that only Greece can challenge Alexander Rybak. It's not worth betting on either of them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a Bosnia-Herzegovina win instead, because the song deserves it and Sarajevo will be a whole lot cheaper than Oslo next year. We'll see over the next fortnight. Excited!

Labels: Eurovision 2009

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