The Beatroot is a guest on Polandian. We’ve given him some comfy slippers, a cup of tea, and a nice biscuit. Now let’s all sit quietly and see what he has to say.
I don’t know why I put myself through the yearly ritual, ketch fest that is the Eurovision Song Contest. It just keeps finding new, deeper, more painful definitions of ‘awful’ to live up to each year. But it’s time someone stopped the fat lady singing. Before a small war breaks out in Europe.
Poland’s entry this year, by Isis Gee – who one journalist accused of being a transsexual, an accusation she denies – did rather poorly. In fact, it bombed to earth with more velocity than a lead statue of Ryszard Kalisz, tipped from a 20th floor balcony would. Thwaaack!
It was joined by the UK and Germany, in an untidy heap, at the bottom with a miserable 14 points.
Russia, meanwhile got 3,000,0000,00001 points from all sorts of countries that you would think would rather vote for their own separatist state claimants before they text messaged in a vote for the Kremlin. And all the Balkan countries, not two decades from a very nasty civil war, all vote for each other.
Even the Scandinavians pretend to like each other!
Does Eurovision exist in an alternative universe, where Europe is made up of thee regional blocs – the Nordic, the Balkan, the Eastern European, each in its own frenzied wife swapping party?
But what about the rest of us?
What about Poland, UK and Germany? Do we have no friends to swing with?
Now, admittedly, the German entry was BAD. It really was. There were four members in the band, who managed to sing three different songs, each in different keys. That’s quite a talent. But not one, sadly, that anyone would wish to have.
The UK entry reminded me of the Lighthouse Family. Nice suit! And the Polish entry was no worse than usual.
Meanwhile, the Bosnian entry – backed in the voting by their best friends the Serbs and Croats [?] – was truly, truly awful. It was like Ich Troje on heroin, but still managed to get loads of points.
Eurovision is the jewel in the crown of the European Broadcasting Union. They thought it up in the 1950s, when they started, to justify their existence. Now guess who are the two largest financial contributors to the EBU? German and UK.
So, backed by Poland – who even East Europeans don’t vote for – I propose that we threaten the three blocs of Europe currently in Eurovision orgy with themselves, that if they don’t start voting for us, then it’s time to take our money and set up our own song contest – for lonely countries. Sponsored by the Samaritans.
The Beatroot is the author of The Beatroot (if you can get your head around that concept) a blog about Polish politics, current affairs and, occasionally, root vegetables.
POLANDiAN 
Actually, I thought that complaining about awful songs, horribly misguided performances and suspect bloc voting were part of the fun of Eurovision.
A pop music song contest with halfway decent songs professionally that were professionally and tastefully sung and voted on by merit would be the most boring thing in the world. How fortunate that we have freak performances like Azerbaijan or various Europeans crooning in awful, mispronounced English or decent songs awfully performed (Germany) to keep things interesting.
I even thought that the final had a better mix of songs and countries than last year. Apparently they managed to keep the bloc voting to a mild roar in the semi-finals by breaking them into two groups and only letting the countries that were performing vote. They should have done the same thing with the final (or tabulated all the non-finalist countries together as a single bloc).
And how could you not love Bosnia’s insane but catchy and immensely likeable entry? It was easily my favorite (Portugal a distant second and … nobody really in third.)
If anything I think the UK’s entry this year was worse than last year.
Poland will never do well for many reasons, not least because Polish musical tastes are … specific and not shared by most other countries in Europe. This means that songs that appeal to Poles mostly won’t appeal to anyone else and trying to second guess other countries’ taste will just result in things like …. this year’s entry.
look. even terry wogan has threatened to pull out and his sarcasm is basically the only reason to watch it (not that i actually have in about six years though).
next year’s song should be entitled ‘up yer arse eurovision’. oddly, it would probably do better than this year’s uk entry. no pun intended.
Why don’t we ditch Eurovison and transmit some International Computer Science Student Contest of Singing While Drunk instead? That would be equally embarassing, but much cheaper, even if someone had to pay for all the drinks.
As in soccer, the UK clearly needs to divide up into smaller components that can then vote for each other.
Instead of Le Royaume-Uni, you could have the following voting members:
England
Cornwall
Wales
L’île de Man
Jersey
Guernsey
L’île de Wight
Ulster
Scotland
Sealand
Along with Ireland that’s a 11 nation voting bloc! Suck it Ex-Sovietstan and Former Republiques de Yugoslavie!
Of course, some people might find this to be an expensive and unwieldly process for the sole purpose of winning a trivial song contest whose distinguishing feature is undistinguished music, but desperate times call for desperate measures. But just imagine the expression on the faces of those snooty Azerbaijanis when they hear:
The Principality of Sealand awards twelve points to …… The Isle of Wight!
Coming last all the time didn’t do Norway any harm.
I have a better idea. Eurovision voting should be based on the EU’s double majority voting…or even the ‘Jagiellionian compromise’ where the Penrose method (colloquially called the “square root” system) which would narrow the weighting of votes between the largest and smallest countries in terms of population.
As a West Kent separatist I’d like to protest unfair discrimination. I don’t think Sealand really counts since it’s based on concrete. You will be hearing from the Grand Duchy of Maidstone about this…
Beatroot! I voted for Bosnia! Their song was FAB!
Understanding the lyrics helps to appreciate it, so I’m not surprised Balkan states voted for it – they understood it!
Na moju omiljenu foru…. prevarim faunu i floru…..da zivot nije postao u moru… nego od ljubavi… ljubavi… ljubavi
kolike protraćismo dane… lezeći, jedući banane………..pa spadosmo na niske grane… bez ljubavi… ljubavi.. ljubavi
Bez ljubavi
pokuśaću da te poljubim a ti se pravi luda……………pokuśaću da te poljubim a ti se pravi luda
And what’s with the last year’s UK entry? Flying the flag all over the world? What was that all abut? Empire?:D
At least Bosnia didn’t enter a turkey like Ireland did. This is the level that it has now reached…countries just taking da piss out of Eurovision.
Irlande twelve pints!
;)
Shake your feathers and bop your beak
Wave Euro hands and Euro feet
:DDDD
[…] beatroot writes at Polandian that Poland, Germany and the UK aren't getting any votes at Eurovision, and […]
i don’t like eurovision this year..plain and simple, they didn’t give justice to the country they’re representing. Sorry:-( i was expecting much this year.
btw folks, it’s me! forgot to log in my name(careless asian * pulls hair) lol