Thursday 21 May 2015

My Eurovision Top (and Bottom) Fives

Everyone who is obsessed with large events of global significance like the Olympic Games, the World Cup or the Eurovision Song Contest, has lists. It's the one thing that unites us all. We're showing our autistic side, that's all, and quite frankly, WDGAFF what the detractors think - this is our prize cow and we're going to milk it within an inch of its life. The one thing Eurovision nutjobs like me always do is ask others what their top 5 are. But we don't just talk about the songs...

Top five venues?

The one thing Eurovision always does, every year, is try to outdo the year before. To be honest, I think this year's is the best I've ever seen. The stage is magnificent, the background images divine and the sumptuous opening showed it all off. But apart from that?

Copenhagen - Parken Stadium (1993)
Nobody would ever leave this off the list. The biggest Eurovision ever, hosted not in a glorified conference centre or ice hockey hall, but a stadium. It was a lovely sunny evening and the atmosphere created itself.

Millstreet, Ireland - Green Glens Arena (2001)
Think it sounds like a place for a horse show? Yes, you'd be right. The most oddball place for any Eurovision ever, it was a huge tent erected over the show jumping area, and the whole thing could have been an unmitigated catastrophe, but on television, you would never have known.

Vienna - Hofburg Imperial Palace (1967)
Yes, Vienna again. If aliens landed somewhere on the planet I think Vienna is the place they'd think we'd chosen as our capital city. The glorious buildings give it that air, but the cream on the cupcake is Hofburg. Having the Eurovision Song Contest take place there, in the home of music, was the equivalent of having a Star Trek convention in Leonard Nimoy's kitchen.

Copenhagen - B&W Hallerne (2014)
Aaaand Copenhagen once more... But wait until you read why - this was a huge undertaking. A former dock warehouse, it was converted into a 10,000-capacity concert venue with its surrounding area being dubbed "Eurovision Island". We all thought it was barmy. In the end it was a stroke of genius.

Baku - Crystal Hall (2012)
Probably the finest setting for all Eurovisions, the Crystal Hall was a truly remarkable venue and the fact they even lit the building with the colours of the flags while that nation's entry was singing just makes it all the more embarrassing that the UK sent Engelbert Humperdinck that year.

Top five winners?

This is always a contentious one with lots of us Euronuts. My cut-off point is how comfortable I would be if my earphones fell out of my ear on the bus and my fellow passengers were to hear what I was listening to, and all of these pass. I have my own rule: whatever song is in my head when the performances are over I'll vote for. Funnily enough, these below were all in my head, and the songs I hoped would eventually win that evening. I'd say it depends on the day as to who I think was the best of all time, but I can at least rummage up a top 5:

"Molitva" - Marija Šerifović, Serbia (Helsinki, 2007)
The simple choreography, the backing group, the unpretentious staging, the powerful voice and the anthemic build-up made this for me a simple choice for this list. The fact it was the only winner not in English since 1991 is unimportant. I believe the song is important, not only the lyrics, and often a song is made more beautiful if it is sung in the language of its genre. This is a perfect example.
VIEW HERE

"Love Shine A Light" - Katrina and the Waves, UK (Dublin, 1997)
This is no bias. Even 18 years later, this song's upbeat message containing those two vital winning Eurovision ingredients of hope and friendship, still make this the most deserving winner of the 1990s. I am a great fan of simplicity and unpretentiousness, and once again, this act contained no drop-dead gorgeous people, no strobe lighting, no silly dancing and no idiots losing clothes. Although the green collar was a bit OTT, it stood out a country mile and won by a 70-point landslide.
VIEW HERE

"Fly On The Wings Of Love" - The Olsen Brothers, Denmark (Stockholm, 2000)
In the grand scheme of things, this song is another triumph for the simple. Just two old guys on their guitars. Like the other two songs I have listed, it's got an unforgettable anthemic nature about it and like the UK song above, is about hope and friendship. On the night, though, nobody thought it had a cat in hell's chance. But it blew everyone else away with a 40-point margin.
VIEW HERE

"Insieme: 1992" - Toto Cutugno, Italy (Zagreb, 1990)
I have always liked Italian when it is sung. I have often hoped the Italians would do well at Eurovision as they send in quality songs, mainly due to their Sanremo festivals, which turns up some very important and long-lasting quality artists. This time was different. In 1990, this song ticked a lot of boxes: two years before the Maastricht Treaty, Europe was gripped by revolution to the east. The Germanies were reuniting, and the idea of European integration was becoming reality. This song, almost totally in Italian, had importantly three words in English: "Unite Unite Europe". The song is not a classic, but it has the same characteristics as the others above: rousing anthem, simple choreography and a memorable chorus, even if the singer makes some appallingly embarrassing moves, and the brass section of the orchestra plays some excruciatingly kitsch high notes. It won not on quality but on being the right song for the right occasion.
VIEW HERE

"Fairytale" - Alexander Rybak, Norway (Moscow, 2009)
I had a little difficulty choosing my fifth: Finland's Hard Rock Hallelujah and Ukraine's Wild Dances would round off a top seven, but I chose Fairytale because it fits the theme of the others I have chosen: memorable melody, simple choreography and no cheap gimmicks. It went a step further though: the guy could really play the fiddle. He won by the biggest margin in Eurovision history, 169 points ahead of his nearest rival, Iceland. I voted for it, and so did the rest of Europe.
VIEW HERE

Bottom five winners?

I would say at this point, whoever wins the Eurovision, despite tactical voting, still needs the support of the rest of the continent, and generally the best song always wins. For me, though, there are years when the voting public has got it terribly wrong. Most of the ones I've chosen come from the period when there was 100% public choice. It's got a lot better since they started jury votes again, but here are some that should never have won:

"Believe" - Dima Bilan, Russia (Belgrade, 2008)
If anyone won because of a gimmick, it was this guy. I hated the song, the mercenary Olympic ice skater, the stupid choreography, Bilan's heavy breathing and the utter fix that year seemed to be. There were such very bad songs that year, that it was actually the least worst of the rest. Remember Greece's "Secret Combination"? Armenia's "Qelé, Qelé"? Ukraine's Shady Lady? Nope. Nor do I - much. It could have been worse had they won. But they were the runners-up in what for me was, musically, the worst Eurovision of all time. The economic crash had just happened and I think most of Europe was glad to give hosting a miss the year after. My favourite of that year was France's Sébastien Tellier with "Divine", a train-crash of an act, that actually made it pretty good.
VIEW HERE

"Running Scared" - Ell & Nikki, Azerbaijan (Düsseldorf, 2011)
Cheesy, schmaltzy, saccharine, whimsical rubbish of the lowest order. It could have been so much better with a few tweaks of the scoreboard. Italy was second with a storming number called "Follia d'Amore" and Denmark's A Friend In London was not far behind in 5th place. But then again, Jedward was there in the mix, as was Sweden's Eric Saade, with, I believe, the worst rhyme in music history: "Stop, don't say that it's impossible / 'Cause I know it's possible." Who thought of that one? Can you imagine the writers sitting there? "So guys, we need a word that rhymes with 'possible'. Any takers?" So let's not beat ourselves up too much.
VIEW HERE

"Every Way That I Can" - Sertab Erener, Turkey (Riga, 2003)
This, for me, was the most unjust result of the 21st century. Sertab Erener's copy+paste of a song did nothing to enhance the beauty of music. It was weak, fatuous and lacking in any feeling at all. Totally the opposite end of the spectrum from the two above, which exaggerated emotion. This one was all about the act, which, when levelled against some of the other competitors that year, was never going to fail. The act was also high on the list of t.A.T.u. that year, a fake lesbian duo who arrogantly blustered into the competition claiming they were going to win. In the end they came third, but when I tell you only three points separated the top 3 places, it was close. In fact, if the Irish hadn't had a telephone meltdown and the viewing public had their say, Russia may have won - who knows? Avery injustice should have a counterbalance, and Sertab denying the Russians that year was it. But the greatest injustice of all was who came second. Belgium's Urban Trad, with their atmospheric folk song "Sanomi" should have won, were it not for the Swedish votes in the second-last round of points. They gave eight to Turkey and two to Russia, and none at all to Belgium, meaning the phlegmatic Slovenians stood in the way of Belgium's first win, and I couldn't see them giving points to Belgium. Inevitably, they gave their ten and twelve to Turkey and Russia respectively and Belgium got only 3 from them. Sanomi, for me, is the best song never to win Eurovision. But more on that shortly...
VIEW HERE

"Rock 'n' Roll Kids" - Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan, Ireland (Dublin, 1994)
This was Ireland's most unusual win of all. During their "Reign of Terror" in the 1990s, they tried everything to stop winning. Channel 4's comedy Father Ted played heavily on this in one episode, when the Irish broadcaster decided to rig their national champion and send an atrocious song to Eurovision. It worked in a fictional comedy, but it didn't in the real thing and this duo sang a sad and wistful number about when they were young. If the Olsen Brothers were two old blokes with instruments, these were their anathema. A dirge of a song, but what gave Ireland the victory was not, I believe, that song. It was their interval act, Riverdance. I'm wrong, of course, but imagine if most of the juries had thought the Irish entry was their interval act and voted for that instead...
VIEW HERE

"Rock Me" - Riva, Yugoslavia (Lausanne, 1989)
For the fifth one, this is truly a fart at a funeral. It requires a build-up before I write about this one, as it is so unbelievably bad that I think typing too much could cause my head to implode in on itself. In 1989, following on from Sandra Kim (Belgium, 1986), Johnny Logan (Ireland, 1987) and Céline Dion (Switzerland, 1988), came the musically inept "Rock Me" by Riva from Yugoslavia. Barely half a decade having passed after the hit film Amadeus, this one seemed like a carbon copy (copy+paste was a new thing in those days) of Falco's Mozart-inspired eponymous theme tune, but without the class or depth of thought. It was just an empty vessel carrying a tune and some vacuous girl in a hideous red-white-black outfit gandering in and out of all the other performers like an unruly kid that's cramping the style of a cheap wedding band. Feel free to watch the video, but be warned: it will stay in your head for a long time afterwards...
VIEW HERE

Top five non-winners?

Out of all the categories, this is the one I could fill with my top 50. But I won't, as the Semi-Final starts in 5 and a quarter hours, and I want to see it. As you know, if you've been paying attention, Sanomi from Urban Trad was my Best Song Never To Win Eurovision, so these are my top-top five after that one:

"Calm After The Storm" - Common Linnets, Netherlands (Sweden, 2014)
After Sanomi, this is the Next Best Song Never To Win Eurovision. Many people's favourites are formed from their most recent memories, but in this case, I am sure, just like Sanomi, that I will think the same in 20 or 40 years' time. Calm After The Storm was a triumph of simplicity and moodiness that brought the hairs on my arms, neck and chest to a standing position. I had this song in my head two weeks after the competition ended. I was devastated it didn't win, but as Conchita won with her Shirley Bassey-style Rise Like a Phoenix, I could accept second place. It is timeless, unpretentious and soulful. Get out the tissues before you play it.
VIEW HERE

The next one is actually a person and not a song. Željko Joksimović is an inspirational and deep-thinking songwriter and singer.
Here are two of his entries: 
"Lejla" - Hari Mata Hari, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Athens, 2006)
"Lane Moje" - himself, Serbia & Montenegro (Istanbul, 2004)


Everyone was playing for second in 2006. Lordi's Hard Rock Hallelujah was a shoe-in, and rightly so. It brought metal to the people. But this song was the one I wanted to win if Lordi didn't.
In 2004, B&H came a close second with another haunting melody written by him. Ukraine's Ruslana took it with her Wild Dances, and I have no beef with her of the song - it was so full of energy and activity, I was surprised she was able to hold a note by the end. But Joksimovic epitomises everything good about folk, and like Goran Bregovic, he doesn't compromise on making music buried deeply in the soil of his homelands.

Balkan music is fabulous. It is very technical, with its own character and often-unusual number of beats per bar, and it saddens me when people talk about block voting at the Eurovision. I have often voted for songs from this neck of the woods, and most certainly for these two. Listen to the songs, feel the melancholy energy and stop knocking it!
VIEW HERE (Lejla)
AND HERE (Lane Moje)


"Dancing Lasha Tumbai" - Verka Serduchka, Ukraine (Helsinki, 2007)
Verka Serduchka was a Teletubby fairy in tinfoil and dark glasses who sang in several languages. A roly-poly, camper than camp phenomenon in silver, he/she souped up another traditional melody and made it into sublime Ukrainian turbofolk. I loved it and still do. The controversial lyrics seemed to say "I want to see / Russia goodbye", but they were given the benefit of the doubt on the night.
VIEW HERE

"Et S'il Fallait Le Faire" - Patricia Kaas, France (Moscow, 2009)
I have often voted for France at Eurovision, and this was the year the larger Western European countries put up a fight to wrest the competition away from the Scandinavians and Easterners. The UK sent Jade Ewen, with her Lloyd Webber power ballad "It's My Time", but France sent this terrific number. I've seen Patricia Kaas in concert, incidentally, also in Moscow, and she certainly puts on a show. This one is a typical chanson à la française and deserved a much, much higher position than 8th, but not bad, considering she sang third, usually a very bad place in the running order, when people at home are still getting their dinner plates washed and putting on the coffee. Still, I love this song, and it deserved better.
VIEW HERE

"No No Never" - Texas Lightning, Germany (Athens, 2006)
In 2006, I still lived in Belgium. A friend of mine took me in his car to his village near Berlin (Brussels outskirts-Berlin outskirts in 6 hours, including a stop for dinner - not so much driving fast, as flying low). The next day he took his family and me to the supermarket and there was this up-tempo country number playing in the building. I heard it several more times that weekend, and it really made me stop what I was doing and listen. When I enquired about it, they told me it was Germany's entry for Eurovision that year. I liked it a lot, but in the period of time when the music really did die, I gave it not a cat in hell's chance. Germany was later that year going to host the World Cup and this was a kind of pre-tournament theme. I still hear it played on the radio 9 years later, and that's the sign of a good song - no matter where it comes in the Eurovision, if it's good, it'll survive long after they've put the glitter and sequins away.
VIEW HERE

Top five hosts?

There is only one: 
Petra Mede!

VIEW HERE

I rest my case :-)

Sunday 3 May 2015

Why the electoral system in Britain is broken and how to fix it

In the beginning, the Labour Party went barking mad. Then the Conservatives got sleazy. One party in power alone, and the dangerous ideology that it implements, has caused untold damage to the nation, and now many people are reluctant to allow either of them to govern alone. Where do we go next?

The Labour Party of the sixties and seventies was full of paranoid militants and fist-pumping demagogues that were able, at the drop of a foreman's hat, to hold the country to ransom with one-out-all-out strikes and hard-cheese speeches if they didn't get their way. People saw through it all and Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party won by a thumping landslide. Even my left-leaning father voted Tory in 1979. Due to their utter profligacy, Labour had left the country in a serious financial crisis. They were also being held to ransom by firebrand union members who had seen to it that the electric regularly went off and the shops weren't fully supplied if they didn't get their way. With Labour unelectable, the Tories just ran roughshod over those they could bully and cajole (the unions, Northerners, Scots and the poor among others) and alienated whole swaths of the electorate that they didn't care about. Sometimes this was for the good of the nation (hence the swift but ruthless reduction in the national debt) but often the upshot was the sale of another government enterprise for a fraction of its asking price to a friend of a friend of the minister responsible, who also got a cut somewhere along the line.

The swivel-eyed lunacy of the left kept them out of power for 18 years, until the back-stabbing sleaze of the Major administration made Labour understand that by rebranding itself, it could win once more. Tony Blair realised socialism was a dirty word, but people wanted to throw out the Tories, and they voted for New Labour in their droves. Sworn capitalists, bankers, even right-leaning newspapers gave their blessing to the new set-up. The country went into a deep euphoric trance brought on by spin doctors' magic touches and Tony Blair's messianic speeches, which made the nation realise that at last they had a leader they could say was punching above the country's weight abroad and redressing the balance at home. The trance was so deep, Blair even got re-elected despite a highly unpopular war in the Middle East.

...However...

...However...

What we didn't realise, on that day when Blair gave up Number 10 saying, "it is over, goodbye," was that he had handed over the keys to the nation to Gordon Brown on the eve of a financial meltdown and a global recession that would have far-reaching consequences for some time to come, probably a generation. It didn't have to be like that. Other countries, like Canada, Germany and Australia, avoided it. He was, quite frankly, spending his way into people's affection. Buying popularity. The most narcissistic and deluded Prime Minister of a Western democracy there has ever been decided to bail out when the money dried up. Nice.

And in stepped Gordon Brown, the last Prime Minister of a one-party government we will have for a very long time. It wasn't his fault. This was Blair's ultimate revenge for his great rival: leave him to pick up the pieces; let him take the hit. And so he did. Officially voted the single-worst PM in living memory (after Callaghan and Heath that's quite some doing), Brown made sure Labour was to lose the 2010 election by being indecisive, dithering and looking gloomy even when he was smiling. He had no real policies, just improvised "ideas" from the many think tanks New Labour employed at the taxpayer's expense.

And finally in May 2010 the electorate decided there was another way. Out went old confrontational politics, in came consensual politics. The Con-LibDem coalition that formed held together pretty well for the full 5 years, and I think, according to the polls, David Cameron and his two-party government didn't do badly, getting the UK out of some pretty tricky situations. But during the last 5 years, several things happened that have transformed the landscape of UK politics forever:

a. the Scottish referendum mobilised a whole nation, and despite the failure to secure their own nation state, the SNP is poised to win nearly all the seats in Scotland. Labour made themselves toxic in the country by siding with the hated Tories in the referendum debate. I fail to grasp why the Scots should think this, because it's only on this one opinion, which was demonstrated by all the parties except the Greens. I'm sure Labour and the Tories think trees are green and the sun is bright: it doesn't mean you have to hate one party because they agree with your enemy.

b. This has caused other parties to seize their moment. Plaid Cymru in Wales, the Greens in England and UKIP have cajoled their way into mainstream politics to such an extent, that they found themselves sharing a stage with the Big Three (well, the Big Two and the little coalition partner) during the recent leaders' debates. The smaller parties proved themselves worthy of being there too. To such an extent, in fact, that in some polls even the Greens are ahead of the Lib Dems.

c. Labour and the Lib Dems have lost credibility - the former due to Scotland and the last time they were in power, the latter over broken promises to cancel tuition fees. This has let the others in. The majority of party swingers are Lib Dems to the Tories or UKIP and Labour voters to the SNP, Plaid Cymru or UKIP.

The problem now is that the parties and their leaders really don't have a clue how to operate in these new conditions. Miliband and Cameron are refusing to talk about the deals they would do with any coalition partners; Miliband has said emphatically that he would rather the Tories got back in than be part of an SNP-Labour coalition in any shape or form. How many of us really believe that? He was stupid to say it, because he will be held accountable after Thursday, if the mathematics mean it is the only option. Cameron is tight-lipped about his party's future, just like Miliband, and dodges any question about coalition. These two are the living embodiment of a country experiencing the death throes of two-party politics. People's allegiances have changed, much like their shopping habits. No longer do we go to the same shop for the product we want; we look around for a better deal, and at the moment, we think the better deal is a combination of parties, to keep checks on the bigger ones.

What is likely to happen after 7th May is anyone's guess, but I would hope that whoever is there will be grown-up enough to fix the electoral system. These are two scenarios:

1. All parties' leaders choose their brightest minds who are to remain impartial and non-partisan, to discuss how to implement a better and more representative chamber, maybe where you get the same percentage of MPs as the electorate voted for you. It is ludicrous that the Greens, if they get 7% of the votes, might still only get one MP.

Problem: although the Lib Dems, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens would benefit from this, the SNP, Tories and Labour, crucially the three biggest parties, would not. A fudge would most certainly happen that would please nobody and further alienate an already tetchy electorate.

2. I would favour keeping the constituencies but having a two-round election, where the two candidates in a constituency with the most votes would go through to a second round the week after, thus guaranteeing MPs garnered more than 50% of the votes in their chosen constituencies, but keeping them on their very best behaviour as they may very well not make it to (or through) the second round. This way, we keep the tried-and-tested constituency set-up, which assures MPs remain attached to their electorate, and at the same time ward off that most undemocratic and elitist list system favoured by some countries that should know better. Although proportional representation assures correct apportioning of seats, it distances party grandees from their voters as they know they're top of the lists and thus don't need to do any campaigning at all. They can just hire some party stooges to hand out balloons to passers-by at supermarket car parks. So I would be loath to unleash such a badly thought-out system on such an engaged and active electorate.

Problem: I can already see most politicians being fervent opponents, as this system means their electorate, instead of voting for whom they want, would possibly vote for the other candidate in a sort of "anyone but that lot" exercise. Tactical voting on a whole new level. However, if an incumbent MP has done a good job, most people would put party politics aside and vote with their heads. I know Tory supporters who vote for their current Lib Dem MP because he's been very good for their town.

Considering the looming hung parliament and the unfathomable mathematical hangover it is likely to create, it would not surprise me if the Tories and Labour went into some kind of German-style Grand Coalition just to keep their two wannabe sister parties, UKIP and the SNP respectively, out of government. I doubt it, but it is an interesting scenario. Could you imagine the stunned looks on the faces of the ruling coalition backbenchers, when some wealthy, landed Eton/Oxbridge alumnus with no chin and an accent that could cut glass is reluctantly siding with a tieless, comprehensive school-leaver wielding a thick regional brogue and bus driving and a stint at a supermarket checkout featuring heavily on his CV? Angus Robertson of the SNP would be the Leader of the Opposition. It wouldn't last long... but long enough to cause Scotland to chip itself off. Who outside Scotland remembers The Vow any longer?

Lastly, if big-party politicians want any credibility, they need to stop treating the electorate as idiots. If they are to do deals with other parties, they need to say so, so that the electorate can make up its mind better. This whole campaign has been about nothing but ignoring the vast elephant in the room that is the next coalition. I, for one, am not scared of the SNP; far from it. Considering the efficiency and straighforwardness of the Scottish government, I think the Westminster parties are scared the SNP will come in and sweep up too many of the little comforts the established parties took for granted. Complacency has no place in British politics any more, and I think a dose of SNP in government will do the country good. Leave the SNP out, and they risk Scotland breaking off altogether.