Cardamom (n) An Italian Mothers Day Tradition in which children post written greetings to the mother in question.
As part of our Book Club selection I am now reading ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid, somewhat reluctantly.
Last year the BBC did a whole series in which Andrew Lord Webber, with the aid of the public, Graham Norton and the ubiquitous Barrowman, selected a candidate for Eurovision for whom Lord Webber wrote a suitably schmaltzy tune.
This year, the songwriters are chubby professional cockney Pete Waterman and his evil sidekick, Mike Stock. Perhaps worried by the effect that Pete Waterman may have on BBC viewers with his menacing glare for six weeks, the PTB wisely cut the whole thing down to one show.
With his customary modesty, Waterman auditioned the hopefuls by requesting them to sing some of his old hits. ‘This is a classic pop song!’ he said, with absolutely no sense of irony, when requesting one poor boy to sing ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’.
A girl called Esma screeched, shouted and hit nearly every wrong note in the catalogue, but was nevertheless put through to the final three by Mr W.
Thankfully, the public have a great deal more sense than Pete Waterman and kicked her arse off the stage straightaway.
Our singer this year then, is a nice man called Josh with a large nose.
Due to the nature of Eurovision, and the fact that songs from the Stock/Aitken/Waterman stable tend to be pants beyond even the Ashley Cole level, we might actually stand a good chance of winning this year.
Showing posts with label Eurovision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eurovision. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Monday, 18 May 2009
Monday 18 May 2009
We had The Wise Woman of Wigan, the Ugly One’s cousin Carol and a midwife-cum-karate-expert called Lisa round for our Eurovision dinner. As it was Moscow’s turn to host the annual madness we had Beef Stroganoff with Russian Potato Bread, followed by Russian Chocolate Cheesecake.
There were no mad acts this year, although Germany had a stab at it, with a band fronted by an advert for bad plastic surgery. The poor man, squeezed into silver spandex pants with a face only a german mother could love, which is saying something.
Unaccountably, Norway won. Sung by Woody from Toy Story, the song was a Gilbert O’Sullivan-esque bucket of sentimental reindeer-poo.
I pulled The UK in the sweepstake. Despite the godlike presence of Andrew Lord-Webber, banging his fat fingers on the Russian ivories, we only came fifth, but then, that’s a damn sight better than we’ve done since the end of the last war, or it seems like it anyway.
There were no mad acts this year, although Germany had a stab at it, with a band fronted by an advert for bad plastic surgery. The poor man, squeezed into silver spandex pants with a face only a german mother could love, which is saying something.
Unaccountably, Norway won. Sung by Woody from Toy Story, the song was a Gilbert O’Sullivan-esque bucket of sentimental reindeer-poo.
I pulled The UK in the sweepstake. Despite the godlike presence of Andrew Lord-Webber, banging his fat fingers on the Russian ivories, we only came fifth, but then, that’s a damn sight better than we’ve done since the end of the last war, or it seems like it anyway.
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Saturday 24 May 2008
eurovision, yay!
singing dancing pirates and
we came last again.
The Wise Woman of Wigan and The Ugly One’s cousin Carol came over for Eurovision. We had a sweepstake, in which I picked out Bosnia, Israel, Latvia, France and two other countries we’d best just forget.
The Bosnians let me down straightaway, and then the Israeli entry, although written by Dana International and performed by a very cute man, was, well... dull!
I was hoping the Latvians might come through for me, but was laughed off the sofa when they appeared, all beardy-johnny-deppy-swashbuckley naff, singing a hi-ho-hi-ho shanty about ‘The Wolves of The Sea’.
Nul Points!
Although I’ve had my differences with France they were my last hope. Oh, cruel fate! The French entry looked like a Nineteen Seventies Schools Programming Science presenter, rode in on a golf cart and sang a maudlin song in English about how he loves ‘The Chivers’.
We all looked at each other blankly.
‘What are Chivers?’
‘Don’t look at me!’
‘It must be a French thing.’
‘Maybe he means ‘chives’’
Maybe he did. I was past caring. We all rang up and voted for the Finnish heavy metal band, not as heavy as Lordi, the Death metal orcs from a couple of years ago, but heavy enough.
As has become tediously typical, block voting ensued, and the Baltic Countries voted for each other, the Scandinavian countries for each other, Cyprus voted for Greece, and Greece would have voted for Cyrpus but Cyprus had been knocked out for being crap earlier in the week. The only people who voted for the UK were Ireland and San Marino (which as far as I know is a coffee shop in Brixton. Who’d have guessed it was an independent state with musicians and voting rights?)
A surprisingly large number of people voted for Greece, which none of us could understand, as we’d all scored them poorly on song, look and performance, but the winner was Russia, a pretty boy in a white shirt who warbled plaintively while a man in tights skated about on a coffee-table sized rink.
I shall write in and suggest that in future all countries ending in –ia or –va must club together and submit one song between them.
singing dancing pirates and
we came last again.
The Wise Woman of Wigan and The Ugly One’s cousin Carol came over for Eurovision. We had a sweepstake, in which I picked out Bosnia, Israel, Latvia, France and two other countries we’d best just forget.
The Bosnians let me down straightaway, and then the Israeli entry, although written by Dana International and performed by a very cute man, was, well... dull!
I was hoping the Latvians might come through for me, but was laughed off the sofa when they appeared, all beardy-johnny-deppy-swashbuckley naff, singing a hi-ho-hi-ho shanty about ‘The Wolves of The Sea’.
Nul Points!
Although I’ve had my differences with France they were my last hope. Oh, cruel fate! The French entry looked like a Nineteen Seventies Schools Programming Science presenter, rode in on a golf cart and sang a maudlin song in English about how he loves ‘The Chivers’.
We all looked at each other blankly.
‘What are Chivers?’
‘Don’t look at me!’
‘It must be a French thing.’
‘Maybe he means ‘chives’’
Maybe he did. I was past caring. We all rang up and voted for the Finnish heavy metal band, not as heavy as Lordi, the Death metal orcs from a couple of years ago, but heavy enough.
As has become tediously typical, block voting ensued, and the Baltic Countries voted for each other, the Scandinavian countries for each other, Cyprus voted for Greece, and Greece would have voted for Cyrpus but Cyprus had been knocked out for being crap earlier in the week. The only people who voted for the UK were Ireland and San Marino (which as far as I know is a coffee shop in Brixton. Who’d have guessed it was an independent state with musicians and voting rights?)
A surprisingly large number of people voted for Greece, which none of us could understand, as we’d all scored them poorly on song, look and performance, but the winner was Russia, a pretty boy in a white shirt who warbled plaintively while a man in tights skated about on a coffee-table sized rink.
I shall write in and suggest that in future all countries ending in –ia or –va must club together and submit one song between them.
Monday, 21 May 2007
Saturday 12 May 2007
eurosongs are not
what people are voting for.
they vote for control.
As has become an annual tradition, our friend, The Wise Woman of Wigan, came round for our Eurovision evening. Normally, we cook the food of the hosting country. This year it was Finland, which isn’t known for its culinary diversity. I haven’t seen many Finnish Restaurants about, even in the posh bits of Notting Hill which tend to value geographical obscurity over taste.
All we could come up with was Gravadlax and Flatbread. So, we decided to do a Smorgesbord, or a Lordisbord (in tribute to last year’s winners, the demonic-faced Lordi) washed down with copious amounts of vodka.
The Fins are a gothic lot, or so it seems, which no doubt comes from living in a twilight world up the cold end of Europe.
The competition wasn’t as exciting as in recent years, despite the gallimaufry of musical styles. Opera was represented by Slovenia (a soprano with a glowing palm which cast light on her face in an eerie manner as she belted out her tune, and a good belt it was too.)
Latvia sent out an El Divo operatic top-hatted combo who appeared on stage one by one in decreasing degrees of handsomeness. I imagine it was a difficult decision as to whether to send the ugly ones out first and gradually increase the cute factor, or do it the other way round. The point is academic anyway as they never got near the finishing line.
There was a lot of penny-whistley Titanic type Celtic music and the usual round of Turkish-techno numbers, but the star was undoubtedly Verka Serduchka, from the Ukraine, a blend of Su Pollard, Dame Edna Everage and Timmy Mallett, and his ‘Dancing Lasha Tumbai’, a crazy techno-pop nightmare that had ‘Eurovision Winner’ stamped all over it.
Unfortunately, as is always the case with Eurovision, the voting was all over the place and Ukraine was pipped at the post by a dreary power-ballad from a Serbian woman who looked like Joe Pasquale.
They was robbed.
I said this week that the UK (Scooch, singing ‘Flying The Flag’) would either do really well, or very badly. We ended up joint second from last with France, the only country beneath us being Ireland with their dreadful penny-whistly ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ number.
Fired up with Eurovision madness we drank and debated until 4am, while listening to music of ancient times (Well, not that ancient. It was mostly, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, and a smattering of Dolly Parton, although I did manage to sneak in a Sparks album somewhere in the middle).
Not many people seem to realise that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ was written and recorded long before by Dolly Parton.I’ve always thought of Dolly’s version as a sincere expression of amour for another human being while Whitney’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ sounds like a threat from a stalker with enormous lungs.
what people are voting for.
they vote for control.
As has become an annual tradition, our friend, The Wise Woman of Wigan, came round for our Eurovision evening. Normally, we cook the food of the hosting country. This year it was Finland, which isn’t known for its culinary diversity. I haven’t seen many Finnish Restaurants about, even in the posh bits of Notting Hill which tend to value geographical obscurity over taste.
All we could come up with was Gravadlax and Flatbread. So, we decided to do a Smorgesbord, or a Lordisbord (in tribute to last year’s winners, the demonic-faced Lordi) washed down with copious amounts of vodka.
The Fins are a gothic lot, or so it seems, which no doubt comes from living in a twilight world up the cold end of Europe.
The competition wasn’t as exciting as in recent years, despite the gallimaufry of musical styles. Opera was represented by Slovenia (a soprano with a glowing palm which cast light on her face in an eerie manner as she belted out her tune, and a good belt it was too.)
Latvia sent out an El Divo operatic top-hatted combo who appeared on stage one by one in decreasing degrees of handsomeness. I imagine it was a difficult decision as to whether to send the ugly ones out first and gradually increase the cute factor, or do it the other way round. The point is academic anyway as they never got near the finishing line.
There was a lot of penny-whistley Titanic type Celtic music and the usual round of Turkish-techno numbers, but the star was undoubtedly Verka Serduchka, from the Ukraine, a blend of Su Pollard, Dame Edna Everage and Timmy Mallett, and his ‘Dancing Lasha Tumbai’, a crazy techno-pop nightmare that had ‘Eurovision Winner’ stamped all over it.
Unfortunately, as is always the case with Eurovision, the voting was all over the place and Ukraine was pipped at the post by a dreary power-ballad from a Serbian woman who looked like Joe Pasquale.
They was robbed.
I said this week that the UK (Scooch, singing ‘Flying The Flag’) would either do really well, or very badly. We ended up joint second from last with France, the only country beneath us being Ireland with their dreadful penny-whistly ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ number.
Fired up with Eurovision madness we drank and debated until 4am, while listening to music of ancient times (Well, not that ancient. It was mostly, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, and a smattering of Dolly Parton, although I did manage to sneak in a Sparks album somewhere in the middle).
Not many people seem to realise that Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ was written and recorded long before by Dolly Parton.I’ve always thought of Dolly’s version as a sincere expression of amour for another human being while Whitney’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ sounds like a threat from a stalker with enormous lungs.
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