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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¡Ole! ¡Ole! ¡Ole! ¡Ole! .... ¡Y Viva España!

A thoroughly deserved win tonight for Spain in the Euro 2008 final. I don't even mind about the money. It had been 44 years since Spain's football team won anything significant (when they won this competition in 1964), so it's about time and no one will begrudge them their win, as they finally put to bed their reputation as perennial underachievers in football tournaments. The stats speak for themselves; 12 goals scored and only 3 conceded across their six matches, due in no small part to goalie and captain Iker Casillas. That's him holding the cup above - and a bonus picture here, for Adrian, who picked him out as one of the hunks of the tournament.

It's been 39 years since Spain won Eurovision. Perhaps they could have a serious go at that next? In a timely news story, it's interesting to note that the last person who was seen as a serious Spanish hope for winning the song contest, namely Rosa in 2002, last night became the first person chosen to represent their country in both the Eurovision Song Contest and the Eurovision Dance Contest. She won the right to dance for Spain later this year in yesterday's final, with her male partner to be chosen at a later date.

España...¡Baila! ¡Baila! ¡Baila!

Labels: Casillas, Euro2008, Eurovision, Rosa, Spain

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For all I wrote about this before and despite the way it prevented La Casa Azul with one of my favourite songs of the year from winning in Spain, it's not as bad now as I thought it was.

Spain - 'Baila El Chiki Chiki' - Rodolfo Chikilicuatre



What was originally only 1m 40s long is now a whole minute longer and for all that people dismiss it as a load of nonsense, it's actually one of the wordiest songs in the contest. It's worth examining the lyric here and reading the multitude of footnotes to get all of the references. Some of it is quiet funny and topical, so I can see why Spain voted for it.

Of course, it's all in Spanish, but Alf Poier managed to come 6th in 2003 with a song in an Austrian dialect of German. If you can make people laugh, the language doesn't matter. Spain has also just had a TV contest to pick the extra backing dancers for this, so they're definitely milking it, despite Rodolfo belonging to a competitor TV channel, La Sexta, to the state channel TVE, which is actually entering Eurovision for Spain.

I think this will be the highest placed of the Big 4 countries, probably top 10. With the wind in the right direction, it could be top five.

Labels: Eurovision 2008, Spain

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I have listed all the Eurovision songs and acts known so far on the left, and will update with links and names as we get nearer to the contest. By my reckoning, there are 34 songs known so far, with nine more to come.

Two more countries will pick their songs tonight; Armenia and Spain. Armenia will choose a good one, because their singer Sirusho has been given four fine specimens to sing. There is no duffer amongst them. (Listen to them all via here.) I would go for 'Strong'. Disco queens of my acquaintance have gone for 'Qele Qele'. Armenia's choice is anybody's guess, but wouldn't it be nice to go into a national final knowing that you were assured of sending a good song, no matter what? Those of us who are subjected to Michelle Gayle doing a chicken dance can but dream...

We're decamping to Schlager Mansions, with a sleeping bag, a flask and some Pro Plus tablets, to watch the Spanish contest. Scheduled for a mere three and a half hours, previous experience tells us it could easily be five. They have ten songs to fit in, and Spanish television is incapable of showing a three minute song without talking about it for at least 20 minutes afterwards. In theory, this is the culmination of what most people seem to think was A Very Good Idea Indeed. Spain used MySpace to have an open submission competition, where practically every song was put up on the page and open to the public vote. There were five hundred songs! Far too many to make proper judgments. I even know someone who submitted one. Some real favourites started to emerge, most notably La Revolución Sexual by La Casa Azul. Here's the video of the too-long-for-Eurovision version, which reveals both the song and the video itself to be rather brilliant. (Is that Chris Lowe in the helmet?)



But then, it all went horribly wrong. The problem with a public vote is that the public will vote. A so-called comedian entered the fray, receiving support from a TV programme (on a rival channel to the Spanish company which enters Eurovision) and now we are faced with the prospect of Spain choosing the most embarrassingly unfunny attempt at comedy as their entry. This cross between Rolf Harris and Alvin Stardust is Rodolfo Chikilicuatre and his 'song' 'Baila el chiki chiki' (Dance the Chiki Chiki), which pushed La Caza Azul into second place, with 109,995 votes versus 67,706. They're both in the final, as it's the public's top five plus five more plucked by 'experts', but who would bet against this load of tosh winning?



So, prepare for Spain doing exactly what Germany did on Thursday; throwing away one of the best songs in this year's competition. ¡Me cago en la leche! (as my Spanish teacher once heard a chef say in a Spanish hotel).

The irony is that Spanish TV called this whole process, which has really engaged people and caused lots of people to discuss the Spanish entry, ¡Salvemos Eurovision!, which means 'Let's Save Eurovision'. It seems the Spanish public need saving from themselves. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong tonight.

Labels: Eurovision 2008, Salvemos Eurovision, Spain

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01:39. Just home from Schlager Towers. Spain eventually chose the boyband Nash to finish near the bottom of the Helsinki scoreboard for them, with the Thomas G:son song 'I Love You Mi Vida'. It was a tortuous process which filled 3 hours and 40 minutes of Spanish airtime, only finishing at 02:10 Spanish time (01:10 here). Out of the songs which finished in the top two of the scoreboard (from the 25 original options available) it was the wrong song, by the less talented singers. It should have been Mirela, with La Reina de la Noche.

Sweden got it half right, choosing Andreas Johnson for the final, but dumping saucy After Dark, who finished fifth, in favour of a ballad that won't go very far in the final.

It's bedtime. We'll be watching more national finals tomorrow (ie. later today); Armenia choose their second ever Eurovision entry and Montenegro choose their first as an independent country. Oh yes, the Balkan block increases by another one this year!

Labels: Eurovision 2007, Melodifestivalen, Mirela, Mision Eurovision, Nash, Spain, Sweden

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