eurovision note

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i: armenia for the win
ii: norton NOT AT ALL AS BAD AS WOGAN hurrah (in fact fine given i hate him; and given he was doing a total "wogan script")
iii: ukraine = is this the hardcore continuum i heard so much about? the whacky moscow camerawork was (i assume) putin-ordered sabotage
iv: utterly baffled by the unanimous runawayness of norway
v: brit song also did better than should have but it was a slow year really
vi: new voting system good for professional craft earnestness; will deliver pbs-ification of eurovision
vii: eurovision-as-carmodian-space news... i thought very little, except maybe continued rise of small, under-regarded nations (armenia, moldova) (were they even in any previous final? moldova is the smallest and poorest country in europe, i believe, and just returned an actual old-skool communism-for-communists party to govt by free and fair election)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Norway = I guess if it got 150 points I could see how/why, as in it was like no other entry. But is the cuteness really worth 400 points?

I liked Azerbaijan, Turkey, Estonia did the classical thing quite well - hated the British entry. Ukraine was hilarious.

I felt Romania were better than the points they got? Armenia and Moldova were pretty good, yeah. I really like the Eastern European countries and the touches they add. Western Europe is shit => France was garbage; Germany an atrocity exhibition.

Norton should have tried to subtly rubbish the "Wogan scipt". Not bad, but to return to 'its all about the music now not about the block voting that is actually such a minor element it doesn't actually determine the winner' is a terrible piece of commentary. Although he wasn't helped by the fact that Norway was gonna win 5 mins in to the voting.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

so is it live or pre-recorded? norton's script was so evidently wogan-ish that it screamed shared script-writer to me (unless norton is a genius as sustained mimic: there was literally NOTHING said that wogan wouldn't have said, in almost the same delivery); but a script needs someone to have seen it in advance -- not necessarily MUCH in advance, a half hour time delay would probably be enough... it needn't be auto-cue script so much as "make this joke about this" (viz the blue gimp)

i find i don't find norton's judgmentalism at all a problem -- i guess it's somewhat self-undermining as regards conventionalism, given norton's general shtick -- where wogan's i always found insufferable)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

my feeling about the british entry was pretty much "A for effort, F for effect", but this is -- despite everything, including Andrew Lord Webern -- enough of an improvement on "F for effort, F for effect, cue intlerable whining about outrage of results" that I didn't mind an upper mid-table result, there were worse songs this time, and we don't get exposed (though i'd like to know more about) the tantrums thrown in other countries...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I assume they do a full dress rehearsal and the script is based around that.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

it never struck me it was at ALL scripted when it was wogan - tho to be honest i could never listen to him for more than abt five mins before just turning the sound down and only turnng it up for the performances...

[petronia.livejournal.com]

There's a full (makeup-less) dress rehearsal not to mention semis, all is up on the Youtube!