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Irish Independent
May 20, 2007 Sunday
Not quite war and peace, but by Lordi it's not far off
THIS year's Eurovision got a lot of people hot and bothered under
their Seventies-style wide collars. General election spleen was put
on hold last Monday as zillions of angry texters and livid emailers
flooded the airwaves with their fulminations and recriminations.
The national hissy fit made comments directed at soccer boss Steve
Staunton seem like the genteel chidings of a mid-Victorian vicar. A
week is truly a long time in cholerics.
Sligo trad-group Dervish were derided as miming monkeys, and lead
singer Cathy Jordan was accused of being off-key, avoiding eye
contact with the camera and "swaying like a demented leprechaun on
acid". And these are theprintable comments.
But the national rage was not confined to Ireland's woeful
performers, or even the shadowy figures in RTE who are suspected
(wrongfully) of Machiavellian genius in ensuring that the Point
Theatre never becomes the Douze Point Depot again, as it did in the
mid-Nineties.
No, this is the Eurovision, so Johnny Rotten Foreigner has to be
blamed. Thus the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was lambasted for
letting in all those foreign countries with unpronounceable names
(and beautiful women) and for letting nice countries (with good
voting records towards Ireland) like Luxembourg and Italy leave.
There was further fury that the bloody foreigners we let into our
country - to clean our hospital wards and mind our children for
sub-industrial wages - used their Irish euros to vote for their
homelands.
In Britain, which scooped second-last place courtesy of Scooch, a
leading Liberal Democrat politician, Richard Younger-Moore, claimed
that the current voting system (tele-voting by the masses, introduced
in 1998) is "harmful to relationships between the peoples of Europe".
For the record, the Eurovision Song Contest, inaugurated in 1956 to
promote unprecedented peace and original harmonies between the
countries of Europe, has, to date, been responsible for a military
coup in Portugal (1974), religious riots in Israel (1998), diplomatic
incidents between Turkey and Greece, diplomatic demarches between
Sweden and Norway (1995), political ill-will between Germany and the
rest of Europe (1995), popular ill-will between Ireland and the UK,
civil unrest in Slovenia, Finland and Switzerland (2007), racial
strife in Austria, revolution in Ukraine (2005) and open skirmishing
between Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 (which precipitated their
eventual separation).
What has been agitating those who advocate withdrawal from the
contest is the perceived unfair voting advantage enjoyed by the
eastern countries. (The Russians in Estonia, for instance, voted with
a diasporic intensity for their lost homeland.) That RTE's Eurovision
broadcast was sponsored by 'The European Year of Equal Opportunities
for All' added insult to perceived injury: the Eurovision where East
beats West.
The fact that next year's final will be top heavy with eastern
European countries has given weight to calls to introduce two
semi-finals, one for western countries and the other for 'New
Europe'. But such a move could copperfasten the rift between Old and
New Europe rather than easing it.
The schism is, in fact, threatening to precipitate a mass withdrawal
of aggrieved establishing countries like Malta, Sweden (smarting from
the poor showing of their hotly tipped glam-rock entry), Switzerland
(miffed by non-qualification) and Belgium (still nursing bitter
memories of last year's non-qualification).
Some doomsayers believe that only a return to a jury vote will bring
equity back. But while this system may eliminate the power of the
migrant vote, history suggests that Eurovision juries can be more
easily nobbled than zillions of texters. It is a well-known murky
fact that many Old Europe juries were instructed on their allotment
of the precious points. (Maybe Ireland's seven wins weren't as pure
as we would like to believe.)
Meanwhile, the anxieties of those TV executives and Eurovision fans
who fear that the current eastern vice grip will become a fatal
stranglehold are not eased by the news that Azerbaijan will be
entering the fray in 2008. It is assumed Azerbaijan will form a cosy
bloc with Armenia and Georgia, and will cosy up to Turkey.
For more clout, western countries would need the splinter effect,
like with the collapse of the Soviet Union: the UK would need to
fracture into England, Scotland, Wales; Ireland would become
binational; Spain needs to grant independence to the Basques and the
Catalonians; Portugal to make the Algarve independent, and France
accept the national aspirations of Corsica, Brittany and so on.
However, Eurovison connoisseurs reckon that the eastern Europeans are
dominating because of their flair, energy and contemporary tunes.
These countries take the contest seriously and send fresh,
high-energy performers.
Such observers believe that a pariah state like Serbia won the
contest because it hoovered up votes from all over Europe. Oh, and
Marija Serifovic's song Molitva (Prayer) was a damned fine ballad
superbly performed. Simple as that.
May 20, 2007 Sunday
Not quite war and peace, but by Lordi it's not far off
THIS year's Eurovision got a lot of people hot and bothered under
their Seventies-style wide collars. General election spleen was put
on hold last Monday as zillions of angry texters and livid emailers
flooded the airwaves with their fulminations and recriminations.
The national hissy fit made comments directed at soccer boss Steve
Staunton seem like the genteel chidings of a mid-Victorian vicar. A
week is truly a long time in cholerics.
Sligo trad-group Dervish were derided as miming monkeys, and lead
singer Cathy Jordan was accused of being off-key, avoiding eye
contact with the camera and "swaying like a demented leprechaun on
acid". And these are theprintable comments.
But the national rage was not confined to Ireland's woeful
performers, or even the shadowy figures in RTE who are suspected
(wrongfully) of Machiavellian genius in ensuring that the Point
Theatre never becomes the Douze Point Depot again, as it did in the
mid-Nineties.
No, this is the Eurovision, so Johnny Rotten Foreigner has to be
blamed. Thus the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was lambasted for
letting in all those foreign countries with unpronounceable names
(and beautiful women) and for letting nice countries (with good
voting records towards Ireland) like Luxembourg and Italy leave.
There was further fury that the bloody foreigners we let into our
country - to clean our hospital wards and mind our children for
sub-industrial wages - used their Irish euros to vote for their
homelands.
In Britain, which scooped second-last place courtesy of Scooch, a
leading Liberal Democrat politician, Richard Younger-Moore, claimed
that the current voting system (tele-voting by the masses, introduced
in 1998) is "harmful to relationships between the peoples of Europe".
For the record, the Eurovision Song Contest, inaugurated in 1956 to
promote unprecedented peace and original harmonies between the
countries of Europe, has, to date, been responsible for a military
coup in Portugal (1974), religious riots in Israel (1998), diplomatic
incidents between Turkey and Greece, diplomatic demarches between
Sweden and Norway (1995), political ill-will between Germany and the
rest of Europe (1995), popular ill-will between Ireland and the UK,
civil unrest in Slovenia, Finland and Switzerland (2007), racial
strife in Austria, revolution in Ukraine (2005) and open skirmishing
between Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 (which precipitated their
eventual separation).
What has been agitating those who advocate withdrawal from the
contest is the perceived unfair voting advantage enjoyed by the
eastern countries. (The Russians in Estonia, for instance, voted with
a diasporic intensity for their lost homeland.) That RTE's Eurovision
broadcast was sponsored by 'The European Year of Equal Opportunities
for All' added insult to perceived injury: the Eurovision where East
beats West.
The fact that next year's final will be top heavy with eastern
European countries has given weight to calls to introduce two
semi-finals, one for western countries and the other for 'New
Europe'. But such a move could copperfasten the rift between Old and
New Europe rather than easing it.
The schism is, in fact, threatening to precipitate a mass withdrawal
of aggrieved establishing countries like Malta, Sweden (smarting from
the poor showing of their hotly tipped glam-rock entry), Switzerland
(miffed by non-qualification) and Belgium (still nursing bitter
memories of last year's non-qualification).
Some doomsayers believe that only a return to a jury vote will bring
equity back. But while this system may eliminate the power of the
migrant vote, history suggests that Eurovision juries can be more
easily nobbled than zillions of texters. It is a well-known murky
fact that many Old Europe juries were instructed on their allotment
of the precious points. (Maybe Ireland's seven wins weren't as pure
as we would like to believe.)
Meanwhile, the anxieties of those TV executives and Eurovision fans
who fear that the current eastern vice grip will become a fatal
stranglehold are not eased by the news that Azerbaijan will be
entering the fray in 2008. It is assumed Azerbaijan will form a cosy
bloc with Armenia and Georgia, and will cosy up to Turkey.
For more clout, western countries would need the splinter effect,
like with the collapse of the Soviet Union: the UK would need to
fracture into England, Scotland, Wales; Ireland would become
binational; Spain needs to grant independence to the Basques and the
Catalonians; Portugal to make the Algarve independent, and France
accept the national aspirations of Corsica, Brittany and so on.
However, Eurovison connoisseurs reckon that the eastern Europeans are
dominating because of their flair, energy and contemporary tunes.
These countries take the contest seriously and send fresh,
high-energy performers.
Such observers believe that a pariah state like Serbia won the
contest because it hoovered up votes from all over Europe. Oh, and
Marija Serifovic's song Molitva (Prayer) was a damned fine ballad
superbly performed. Simple as that.