Eurovision 2017 – Go Lucie!

Posted on May 13, 2017 by suzie81speaks

Normally I begin my Eurovision preparations several weeks before the contest. Aside from Christmas Day and the final day of the academic year before the summer starts, Eurovision is one of my annual highlights, but this year it has almost sneaked up on me. I was away during the first semi-final so was unable to watch it live, so The Bloke and I watched the two semi-finals on Thursday and Friday night. I must admit, I was a little disappointed – there isn’t one song from the other countries that really stands out for me and there are lots of similarities in staging and outfits (half of the women seem to be white wedding dress style clothing). Continue reading →

Eurovision 2016 Predictions and Points

Posted on May 14, 2016 by suzie81speaks

Yes, it’s that time of year again, and The Bloke and I have got the snacky treats ready. It’s the Eurovision final, and I’m teaming up with Hugh (Hugh’s Views and News) and Helen (Journey to Ambeth) for a Twitter-fest during the show. Normally, we would be joined by Steve (Steve Says), but he’s decided that our company isn’t good enough this year and has gone to the live show in Stockholm (of course, I’m not jealous in the slightest).

Last year, the UK entry was so awful I was under no illusions that we would do badly. However, this year, Joe and Jake’s song has grown on me and I’m genuinely hoping that they do well. It’s a catchy song, the lads have worked hard and seem like lovely people, and deserve some success from it. I can’t vote for them, but I’m wishing them lots of luck! There are a number of surprisingly good songs being performed in the final, so it’s a close race. Continue reading →

Acts That Would Be a Better Entry for Eurovision 2016

Posted on February 26, 2016 by suzie81speaks

I love Eurovision. It’s one of the highlights of my year, behind Christmas and the start of the summer holidays, and The Bloke and I make a big deal of getting in the snacky treats and alcohol and generally having a laugh at the nonsense that is spewed out each year.

Tonight we watched the #EurovisionYouDecide, the contest in which the UK votes for their favourite to represent us in the competition. The winners were ‘Joe and Jake,’ former contestants from vocal talent show ‘The Voice,’ who, while they seemed like nice people, the song wasn’t offensive (and nothing could be more offensive that the god-awful sh*t show we put forward last year) and they could sing in tune, they were lacking in what my mother refers to as ‘oomph’ – that power and presence that makes people want to stand up and yell YEEEEAAAAH when the song has finished. It was vanilla ice-cream, without the vanilla. And they were the best of a ‘meh’ bunch.

For me, Eurovision has not been a rewarding experience over the last nineteen years. We’ve tried everything, including the boyband (Blue), the world famous crooner (Englebert Humperdink), we’ve even shoved Bonnie Tyler on stage in a desperate attempt to get back into Europe’s favour. Continue reading →

Eurovision 2015: A Deserving Winner and an Embarrassment for the UK

Posted on May 25, 2015 by suzie81speaks

Måns Zelmerlöw from Sweden

The Eurovision results are in and Sweden, the favourite, was declared the winner. It was a catchy song, with simple but effective staging and deserved the crown. I had a good evening – The Bloke and I got the snacky treats in, we gorged ourselves during the contest and I was amused by the thousands of Twitter comments that dominated my timeline for the majority of the evening. Admittedly, it was a little more relaxed (and dare I say, dull) this year – the competition was littered by powerful ballads, with a distinct lack of gimmicks that I have come to associate Eurovision with over the years. Clearly, many have started to take it much more seriously.

To make things a bit more interesting, I had teamed up with Steve from Steve Says and Talk About Pop Music and Hugh from Hugh’s Views and News prior to the final to offer our predictions for the outcome. Here were our predictions:

And here is the final list:

I got seven of the top 10, as did Steve, and Hugh got six, so I think we did quite well. However, all three of us were quite deflated at the fact that the UK yet again was more of the comedy item for the year and we finished in a much deserved 24th place. Steve did a fantastic post about this, that I totally agree with. As one of the ‘Big Five,’ who contribute the most money and automatically gain a place in the final, you’d think that whoever is in charge would take it a little more seriously and stop submitting the rubbish that they come up with every year. It was embarrassing to see our entry – a Mick Jagger tribute and an unknown reality contestant – prancing around on the stage wearing, as Steve put it ‘cheap wrap-around glow sticks purchased at Poundland,’ to some awful charleston inspired nonsense and attempting to resurrect Louis Armstrong. No, BBC, just no.

To make matters worse, we can’t even blame the tactical political voting that has been such a prominent part of the system for so many years – there was far less of this in the competition, with countries giving 12 points to countries that they wouldn’t normally vote for.

I was, however, delighted for Guy Sebastian and his brilliant performance for Australia. So much so, in fact, I bought the song from iTunes and have been listening to it constantly since the competition ended.

What did you think of the contest? Did the right person win?

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Eurovision 2015: Grand Final Predictions

Posted on May 23, 2015 by suzie81speaks

It’s that time of year again, and after watching both semi-finals I’m excited about the Eurovision Song Contest final tonight!

In celebration, I’ve teamed up with Steve from Talk About Pop Music and Hugh from Hugh’s Views and News to offer my predictions for tonight. We’ve done our lists seperately and have awarded points in the manner used in the competition and after the results have been revealed we’ll get together and see who has got the most right. I’ve been torn between listing my favourites and the ones I think are actually going to do well, so I’ve created a mixture of both…

From the team of Suzie and The Bloke, here are our predictions and our votes for tonight…

1 point goes to… Monika Linkyte and Vaidas Baumila: This Time (Lithuania)

2 points go to… Il Volo: Grande Amore (Italy)

3 points go to… Aminata: Love Injected (Latvia) (i don’t actually like this song but tactical voting will mean it will do quite well I think)

4 points go to… Voltaj: All Over Again (Romania)

5 points go to… John Karayiannis: One Thing I Should Have Done (Cyprus)

6 points go to… Polina Gagarina: A Million Voices (Russia) (Note: this will depend on whether Europe still hates Russia or not)

7 points go… Nadav Guedj: Golden Boy (Israel)

8 points go to… Bojana Stamenov: Beauty Never Lies (Serbia)

10 points go to… Mans Zelmerlow: Heroes (Sweden)

And finally… DOUZE POINTS go to… Guy Sebastian: Tonight Again (Australia)

Eurovision 2015 Semi-Final 1: Boggie, Ming the Merciless and Tit-Tape

Posted on May 20, 2015 by suzie81speaks

Every year, there are three things that I desperately look forward to. The end of the academic year (ie. the start of the summer holidays), Christmas Eve and, of course, Eurovision.

To those on the outside looking in, The Eurovision Song Contest must look like a large group of aliens have landed, taken lots of LSD and decided to create a performance out of the results. The premise is simple – countries from Europe (or Europe-ish, or Australasia in this year’s case) are represented by a song, and the other countries vote for them using a point system, interspersed with poorly crafted jokes from presenters in often ill-conceived dresses. The winning country gets to host the contest the following year. In recent times, there have been two televised semi-finals on the week of the event, with the top ten from each participating in the final on the Saturday night. They are joined by the ‘Big Five’ – United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and Italy (we all pay to go straight to the final) and this year they will be joined by the hosts, Austria, and Australia (that well-known European country) who have been invited to participate as part of the 60th anniversary of the event.

Every year The Bloke and I have our own private Eurovision party – we stock up on snacky treats, create a mini-buffet for ourselves and we enjoy the utter madness that unfolds before our eyes on the television. Over recent years we’ve witnessed a number of weird and wonderful performances – a man in a hamster wheel, Russian grannies, pirates, Dustin the Turkey, a beautiful bearded man in a dress, and of course, Jedward (twice) and we laugh at the blatant biased voting and political allegiances. It’s a brilliant way to spend an evening. However, it isn’t all gimmick and silliness – it’s a showcase of some of the most spectacular voices and talented singers around the continent, and every so often I will fall in love with one of the songs and listen to it repeatedly. Even now, one of my most popular songs on my all-time playlist is Marco Mengoni’s ‘L’essenziale,’ Italy’s entry from the 2013 contest. Admittedly, I haven’t a clue what he is singing about (he could be declaring his love for macaroni cheese or a ham sandwich for all I know), but it’s a truly beautiful song, delivered by an equally beautiful voice.

Last night was the first of the semi-finals and I already had an idea of some of the songs available, mainly due to the fact that one of my favourite bloggers, Steve from Talk About Pop Music hasn’t actually stopped talking about it since the 2014 contest ended, but I was looking forward to admiring the staging (which gets more spectacular every year) and the presentation of each song.

There were some really interesting performances – I particularly liked the Russian entry ‘A Million Voices’ sung by Polina Gagarina (who looked absolutely stunning and must have been tit-taped to within an inch of her life in her very low-cut white dress, and my favourite of the evening was Serbia’s entry ‘Beauty Never Lies,’ that was sung by Bojana Stamenov and composed by the same person who had written last year’s winning song. Hungary’s entry, ‘Wars For Nothing,’ sung by Boggie also had a beautiful message (despite her unfortunate name) and I warmed to Romania’s entry, Voltaj, after I got past the fact that the lead singer reminded me of Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon. There were Geordie impersonators from The Netherlands (wayyyaaayyaa man!), the shortest ever song from Finland, who were represented by Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, where all of the members have learning difficulties (brave move and nice to see, but I think that the Eurovision community were very much divided about it), and ‘Anti Social Media,’ a band from Denmark who had clearly spent their time listening to early McFly tracks.

Oh, and this… from Moldova. Well, that’s just showing off (although I’m sure I could do that after a pint or ten)…

However, I also had the chance to hear Australia’s entry, and I already have my new song crush…

Roll on the second semi-final!

What about you guys? Did you watch the semi-finals? Have you got a favourite?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog. Don’t forget to check out my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks and now you can also find my new Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks

Today Was Going To Be The Day… Or Maybe It Wasn’t

Posted on May 10, 2014 by suzie81speaks

Today was going to be the day that I got my life in order. I was going to get up, clean, tidy, organise, print, file, mark… I was going to go to bed with a sense of accomplishment, achievement, and satisfaction.

However, it’s now midnight and I find myself moulded perfectly into the sofa with The Bloke and the cats, feeling refreshed after a lovely bath and stuffing my face with party snacks as we have just finished watching Conchita Wurst – the ‘Bearded Lady’ from Austria – win the annual Eurovision Song Contest. There has been no housework, marking or filing done, the washing I had planned on doing is still in a pile and even though the house isn’t dirty I still wouldn’t be comfortable inviting any of my friends round in its present state!

I love Eurovision. I love the cheese, the lights, the… beards. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of the weird and wonderful from all over Europe and always good fun to watch. For example, tonight’s performance props have included a man in a hamster wheel, a woman on a trapeze, Polish girls using their boobs to gain votes, a circular piano and a see-saw. There have been blatant rip offs of already established artists and songs – Germany’s singer looked and sounded like Pink, Bruno Mars’s less talented doppelgänger made an appearance, and The Netherlands sang a slightly altered version of The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take.’

Britain’s song came 17th. It wasn’t a bad song – we’ve done much worse in the last few years, but the political side of the the votes hasn’t worked in our favour since the Iraq war. Similarly, Russia, who usually do quite well, we’re booed throughout the voting process because of their current disagreements with their neighbouring countries. I felt quite sorry for Russia’s performers – they were only 17 years old and didn’t deserve it.

However, the ‘Queen of Europe’ tonight is Conchita Wurst, a drag performer who belted out a song that could easily have been used as a James Bond film theme. He/she absolutely deserved the title. Just to answer your questions.

1. Yes, he is a man.

2. Yes, that is a real beard.

3. No, it isn’t Kim Kardashian, or Cheryl Cole.

Today wasn’t completely unsuccessful however… I won £1 on the lottery. That will get me very little but it’s the principal of the thing…

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog