The annual Eurovision song festival is upon us once again !!

Watched breathlessly by goodness knows how many hundreds of millions on their Tellies! ")

Maybe not Americans or Australians despte the fact that the majority of song lyrics are in English !

I think that the original rules stipulated that ALL songs had to be sung in their native language - but I may have forgotten.

But I haven't forgotton the years when the participants numbered less than 20 - today there are 44 - and the musical standard has NOT improved.

They do seem a bit better this year in Azerbaijan - the winners of last year's competition !

In fact there are now so many that the affair has burgeoned from a single night to 3 nights.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the 1st heat in which 10 songs/countries are selected out of 18.

The same is due to take place tomorrow (Thursday);

Then on Saturday evening the 10 'winners' will bash it out together with the 4 *PERMANENTS* UK, France, Germany, & Italy !!

WHY their priviledged exemptions   - I don't know - perhaps somebody could explain & justify ............

............ sounds a little similar to the veto-protected members of the UN Security Council - hehehe !!!)

This year the Russian elderly  'babushkas' "BOOM BOOM" attained 9th place out of 10 - Israel was unsurprisingly passed over for the finals (no matzas for them this year - weak pun intended !) !

N.B. There is a clip of the Russian ladies on a thread somewhere here !!!

Originally Posted By Len Green (23 MAY 2012 2:35pm)
 

This year the Russian elderly  'babushkas' "BOOM BOOM" attained 9th place out of 10 -

That's not a correct statement, they were the ninth finalist to be revealed at the end of the show.

The finalists are revealed in a random order, so there's no way to know how good or bad each candidate has scored, not until the whole contest is over that is.

I personally hated the russian entry, the song is horrible and the elderly are just there as a lame excuse to get many sympathy votes.

So far most songs were quite poor, with a few exceptions like Denmark, Cyprus and especially Ireland 

I hope the other semi-finalists are better, but usually the balkan countries send even worse candidates to the contest :\

Originally Posted By markornikov (23 MAY 2012 4:40pm)

Originally Posted By Len Green (23 MAY 2012 2:35pm)
 

This year the Russian elderly  'babushkas' "BOOM BOOM" attained 9th place out of 10 -

 

That's not a correct statement, they were the ninth finalist to be revealed at the end of the show.

The finalists are revealed in a random order, so there's no way to know how good or bad each candidate has scored, not until the whole contest is over that is.

 

I personally hated the russian entry, the song is horrible and the elderly are just there as a lame excuse to get many sympathy votes.

So far most songs were quite poor, with a few exceptions like Denmark, Cyprus and especially Ireland 

I hope the other semi-finalists are better, but usually the balkan countries send even worse candidates to the contest :\

Many thanks for your correction !

I'm NOT being sarcastic or cynical !

I REALLY DO appreciate it when somebody corrects a factual error of mine and I take it in the good spirit it was given.

In this particular case I'm not surprised.

We were debating after the the results came out whether they were in any special order (& in particular, order of votes cast) or whether purely random.

And you have answered this query ! THANKS !

Incidentally whoever posted the clip here some time ago I seem to remember thought that they might win ?!?!?!

It IS possible - being an obvious GIMMIK (SP?).