Just get on with it already…..!

So it’s almost February, all around Europe countries are clamouring to get their Eurovision efforts together and yet here in the UK, we have yet to hear anything whatsoever about who might actually be representing us come May. What gives, exactly? Granted, they left it till quite late in the day last year to reveal that Blue would be flying our much beleaguered Eurovision flag in Dusseldorf (and very well they did too), but given the renewed interest in the contest as a result why all the silence this year? Frankly we’re getting bored of waiting.

What we do know is that after the success of choosing a song and artist internally last year the BBC plans to do the same again this year (and before you all start grousing about it again, let us remind you it is because you cannot be trusted. And until you, Mr and Mrs Public, realise that this is a ‘proper’ singing contest and stop voting for the likes of Scooch as though it were 1984 and everybody is in silly costumes playing the flugelhorn, then you will most likely continue to not be trusted). And as such there have been all manner of rumours floating around the social media networks who the lucky representative might be. So while we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, let’s take a look at some of those names who have been mentioned in the Twittersphere, and elsewhere, and offer our own thoughts on why they might be a good, or not such a good, idea:

JOE MCELDERRY/STACEY SOLOMON

For them: Rumour has it that these two have been snapped up to perform a duet in Baku. Given their obvious cuteness and singing ability (we’re prepared to overlook Driving Home For Christmas, Stace), and the popularity of male/female duets in recent years, we suppose it could work.

Against them: Does anybody in Europe actually know who they are? A former X Factor flop turned Operastar and the ‘loveable’ Essex girl who might have a fun personality but who hasn’t exactly released many records? That said, we reckon the chances of this happening are pretty remote, since we seem to recall Stacey is due to give birth some time in May. So she might be a little busy. This could of course leave Joe on his own, which could work if the song is decent and he promoted the hell out of it. But it would HAVE to be decent. As opposed to a Josh Dubovie moment.

SUGABABES (New version)

For them: Not only are they well-known across the continent but one of their number, Jade Ewen, has been on the Eurovision stage before and hence knows exactly what she is doing. And like Blue, they haven’t done a whole lot lately except pose nicely for tabloid newspapers wearing tight things, so they could potentially benefit from the renewed interest. Plus of course Russia’s answer to the Sugababes did rather well in 2007 with one of the best entries of the past decade. It could work!

Against them: Heidi is currently tied up with Dancing On Ice (well at least until tomorrow, although she could be there for weeks yet!) which could mean she doesn’t have the time to devote to getting a song together. And does Jade really want to do it again? We’re not sure.

THE ORIGINAL SUGABABES

For them: This is an interesting rumour based around the fact that the original Sugababes line-up (Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan) are getting back together and working on new material with Emeli Sande, possibly one of the coolest girl singers on the planet right now. Could that new material include something for Eurovision? If it did it would doubtless be worth hearing.

Against them: Well, they can’t be the Sugababes if we already have a Sugababes, hence they would probably end up not being called the Sugababes and all the Sugababes fans in Europe expecting the Sugababes would complain about the lack of Sugababes on offer. Disaster ensues.

HURTS

For them: The duo dubbed ‘the new Tears For Fears’ by at least two people have previously expressed an interest in representing the UK, and they are certainly cool and fabby enough to do us justice. And given their fanbase it could give the contest a whole new credibility in the UK.

Against them: Or all their fans could turn against them for doing Eurovision thus ruining their careers. Oh what the heck. We would enjoy it. Although we’re not sure how famous they are in the rest of Europe – in terms of having the ‘instant recognition’ factor that Blue had. A lot of promotion would clearly be needed.

JOHNNY ROBINSON

For him: Well he can sing.

Against him: Much as we loved Johnny on The X Factor – especially that week he did The Darkness – we cannot think of any just reason why this job should be his. Not only is he a virtual unknown but this veers dangerously close to the sort of territory that the UK should really be trying to avoid now we have clawed back a shred of Eurovision credibility. You just know he would be given some cheesy camp pop nonsense to sing which would do nothing for our chances and certainly nothing for him (since we know he can belt those ballads out really well), thus undoing all the good work that was done last year. So if this really does happen we will – oh bang our fist on the table and shout ‘no!’ or something.

McFLY

For them: Enjoying renewed popularity thanks to Dougie Poynter’s I’m A Celeb victory and Harry Judd’s Strictly Come Dancing triumph, everybody seems to love them at the moment. And like Blue, we know they would do a good job.

Against them: Well they’re on tour in the UK till April so would they really have the time to devote to the Eurovision cause? Oh what the heck. We can’t think of anything against them, really (Editor has brief recollection of Harry Judd dancing Argentine Tango and swoons)

ADELE

For her: To quote one of her songs, ‘rumour has it’ that Adele entered the running after a Turkish website ran a story which mentioned both Eurovision and Adele. Thus someone on Twitter put two and two together and decided Adele must be representing us, right? Obviously it would be amazing. But we don’t speak a word of Turkish and even WE can tell you that’s not what the article said.

Against her: There would be nothing against her. Apart from the fact she ain’t doing it.

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la….etc

Now here’s a country who we had all but given up on in terms of producing a decent Eurovision entry. But just as we had started to cry, ‘Where is Anna Vissi when you need her!?’ Cyprus have come up trumps with what could be the first genuine contender of the season. La La Love, which is performed by Ivi Adamou (who came somewhere or other on Greek X Factor) is a throwaway, faintly trashy pop tune but nonetheless is big and mainstream and has a sense of ‘well guess what you’ll be wiggling to on European dancefloors this summer’. We’ll be honest, it could go either way. This could, potentially, be another Boom Boom or Haba Haba or other doubly-worded effort, which could be all fabulous and promising and then crash shockingly out in the semi-final (and given the fact that Ivi seemed to be miming in the Cypriot national final, we do worry she may fall victim to ‘mewing like a frightened rabbit on the night’ syndrome) On the other hand, it could also be the first genuine contender of the season. Either way, we defy you NOT to get up and shake a leg or a finger or something….

 

Permission to yawn?

Oh Denmark, we’re disappointed. After the double whammy of 2010 and 2011 we had high hopes for another cracking tune from you for Baku. And OK, so there’s nothing actually wrong with the song you’ve chosen, it’s perfectly decent and pleasant. It’s just that a) there were better songs in the final (There were. Seriously. We watched it. We know) and secondly, it’s just not very, well, exciting. And choosing a winsome but slightly quirky singer with a mid-tempo guitar-friendly pop tune suggests just one thing to us – that you have learned nothing from the failure of Anna Bergendahl. In short, we think you Should’ve Known Better. You see what we did there?

Getting ahead of the game….again

So here we are in 2012. Another year in which Eurovision has yet to happen, and here we stand teetering on the brink of another national finals season. With a contest which will be late in more ways than one, falling as it does right at the end of May, and – for the people in Baku at least – in the middle of the night. And once again the Swiss and the Albanians have beaten everybody to the touch by having chosen their songs already.

This year Switzerland, fresh from the sweet smell of – well, reaching the final for the first time in yonks, even if they did finish last in the entire world – were first out of the gate, playing host to a final which included a song from the contest’s first ever winner, Lys Assia. Sadly for the 87-year-old a return to the Eurovision stage was not to be, as her song C’etait Ma Vie was ultimately beaten by a pair of young whippersnappers called Sinplus and a track called Unbreakable. Which isn’t bad at all in a sort of ‘this doesn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of winning but we quite like it anyway’ sort of a way, but is it just us or does this sound a teeny weeny bit like The Killers’ Mr Brightside? Judge for yourselves, people:

Onwards to Albania, and in a Festival i Kenges full of songs which can only be described as ‘better’ (and included 2007′s representative Frederick Ndoci, he of the memorable pudding bowl haircut) this little number, Suus by Rona Nishliu ultimately triumphed. Now, since our Albanian’s a bit rusty and we found ourselves faced with a long list of song titles which made no sense to us whatsoever, we took the liberty of putting them all through an English-Albanian translator online and discovered what most of them meant. Except that is for this one, which translates as, er, ‘Suus’. We’re guessing it’s not a heartfelt ballad about the author of the Cat In The Hat, but if anyone can enlighten us further then do please get in touch.

As for the song itself….well let’s be honest it’s a bit of a messy effort which is around 47 minutes long (or at least feels like it is) and is backed by some slightly worrying screeching from the winsome Ms Nishliu. That said, we’re not going to file it under ‘no-hoper’ just yet given that the Albanians always do a clean-up job on their song and it always ends up sounding comparatively different by the time the contest rolls around. There is a kernel of a decent tune in there and potentially this could be OK in a Slovenia 2011 sort of way but they’re going to have to do some serious work on it to get it up to scratch. And somebody PLEASE buy the woman a hairbrush:

Coming soon: Denmark, Belarus and Malta. Which contrary to popular rumour is not being represented by Russell Grant. If it were we might find ourselves having to watch THIS in Baku (we know, we know, this clip has nothing to do with Eurovision. But it is damned funny):

Is it that time of year already…..??

Is it really seven months since we were sat here, patriotic flags and assorted snacks in hand, cheering Blue and Jedward all the way to the finish line only to utter a slightly subdued ‘Oh’ when Azerbaijan scooped their first victory? (because we’re being honest, we’ve forgotten what that song sounds like already).Indeed it was, and if we’ve been a little quiet during the ensuing downtime it’s only because a little thing called work has gotten in the way. In the past seven months however we have witnessed a low-level buzz of Eurovision activity including preparations in Baku, the ‘will they won’t they?’ dilemmas of Slovakia and Israel (both of whom appear to have signed up for the madness of May 2012), Jedward’s threat to represent Ireland once again, and of course a deafening silence from the UK. Apart from the usual scattered random stories about us being represented by The Spice Girls/Mika/Beethoven/Keith Harris and Orville etc. etc.

But now it’s that time of year again, as national final season is about to get underway. Yes folks, in just a few hours Switzerland will choose its song for Baku – the first song to be chosen for Eurovision 2012 in fact. We’ll have the Albanian entry too before the month is out, and there’ll be a trickle of national finals in January before the inevitable flood of songs in February and March. But the Swiss quest has been attracting a bit more attention than usual this year, and it can only be down to the presence of the legendary Lys Assia, who won the first ever contest back in 1956 and is back for another go, thus far doing so well that she’s managed to make the national final and will be competing with those young folks for the ticket to Baku.

Although we’re a bit peturbed by her intention to wear the dress she won the contest with all those years ago in Saturday’s show (does the name Miss Havisham spring to mind or is it just us?), we’re kind of hoping the now 85-year-old Lys triumphs, because frankly that will make for far more interesting viewing than yet another round of Jedwardian larks. And even if her song, C’Etait Ma Vie, sounds a teensy bit too old-fashioned to actually score her a second victory, she would be a more than welcome addition to the line-up – and we reckon she could teach those young ‘uns a thing or two.

Oh and we should point out Lys is not the only familiar name who’s tried out for Switzerland this year. Anybody remember Same Difference, the appallingly wholesome brother/sister duo who inexplicably made it to the finals of The X Factor in 2007? Well they’ve also made a bid to represent the Swiss, the only problem being that their effort Music didn’t make it to the national final. We’re gutted, obviously (well you don’t sound it – Ed) But cheer up chaps, there’s always the UK. Maybe.

And on that note let the festivities commence….

Welcome to The 2011 Eurovision live blog

Hello everybody. There’s only ten minutes to go until the start of this year’s Eurovision final and as always we will be liveblogging it as only we know how…..

1951 Nine minutes to go and we are watching The National Lottery. So what’s on in your country right before the contest? (we haven’t won a penny btw. Boo)

2000 We are officially UNDERWAY. Graham Norton has just informed us there are 25,000 people inside the Esprit Arena in Dusseldorf. On that basis the UK will clearly have to have it at the O2 following our inevitable victory this year. Or we are possibly just jumping the gun a tad.

2001 We fondly remember Stefan Raab, he of the light-up jacket in 2000. He isn’t going to sing is he? We can but hope such a thing does not happen.

2003 Anke and Stefan are singing Satellite. The words ‘somebody make it stop’ are honing perilously into view.

2005 Actually we quite like this rockabilly version of Satellite. It reminds us a bit of Roger Cicero’s ill-fated Women Ruled The World. Let’s not even go there….

2006 We are beginning to get a growing sense that they have forgotten about the contest and are just going to turn this into one big jamming session. No, wait up….there’s Lena! Shouldn’t she be practising for later?

2007 Hmmmmmm Germany are really enjoying this aren’t they? They’d better. It could be another 28 years before they get to host it again….

2009 And now they are showing us how they turned the Esprit Arena from a football pitch to a stadium. No offence but could they just get ON with it already? This is in serious danger even at such an early hour of turning into Munich 1983. And none of us want that….

2014 Finally, we are underway! Paradise Oskar has the enviable task of starting things off this evening (this means he won’t win of course). Is he this year’s Tom Dice? Of course he is. Bless.

2018 How much do we love Dino Merlin? We can’t even begin to tell you. if he wasn’t saddled with the kiss of death number two spot we would almost have him down as a winner. As it is he’s even better than he was on Thursday. Presumably he’s off to put his feet up now…..

2022 Denmark is officially the best yet. To be honest they don’t have a lot of competition so far but HOW good is this? Seriously…..

2027 Evelina Sasenko from Lithuania is singing C’Est Ma Vie with all the conviction of someone who knows she doesn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of actually winning this thing. File under ‘actually I’m just happy to be in the final and I’m as damn well surprised about it as you are’.

2031 We’ve said it once and we will say it again – Hungary’s song IS Taylor Dayne redux (if you are too young to remember her look it up). And we all know who is coming next don’t we?

2035 Wait a minute…..is that Jedward giving a ‘polished’ performance??????? It just might be.

2036 WINNER. Maybe….

2040 Against our better judgment, we are loving Sweden’s Eric Saade although dismayed to note he has yet to locate his other glove. Mind you that was a belter of a performance, considerably better than we were expecting. Has he taken the shine off of Jedward?

2042 OK. We love Getter Jaani but someone needs to tell us what the London Eye is doing in a song about New York.  We are guessing nobody will however…..

2044 Don’t forget you can join us Tweeting at TVonVM……

2047 We didn’t like Greece, we liked it again, now we’re not so sure again. Help us.

2048 Sorry but Stereo Mike is still the silliest name we have ever heard for a DJ. But it’s OK because the rather lovely Alex from Russia is coming up which means that your editorial team may have to go and lick the TV…..

2051 ‘Do you feel my heart beat Europe?’ Er, no….

2052 Stefan Raab had a fabulous light up jacket in 2000. Alex Sparrow’s just looks like he has glued a piece of paper to the back of his jacket. Not good….

2057 Amaury Vassili is the first of the Big Five to take to the stage. He can certainly sing but he looks as nervous as hell. And he needs un hairbrush. Let’s move on…..

2100 Italy. We don’t acgtually want to say anything else about that.

2104 We’re in the green room with Dino Merlin. Just get on with it already….

2106 Another nice performance from Anna Rossinelli who once again should be just happy to be in the final. But we all know who is next……

2107 It’s TIME!!!!!!!

2109 We’re not sure we’re liking those suits if we’re being honest. But in all other respects………crikey.

2110 Well that was one of the best things we’ve seen all night. Could we possibly even begin to believe that we might actually win it??????

2112 And from the sublime to, er….all right we admit we don’t understand the Moldovan performance. Still if it’s your only opportunity to see a unicycling fairy all year then we suggest you take it…..

2114 Alert! Alert! It is time for the host nation…..

2117 And very good she is too. But let’s be honest it does sound like Love Cats by The Cure.

2121 Romanian Dave is enjoying himself enormously. Shame the rest of us aren’t.

2124 Now this performance from Austria is seriously classy. Why did we not see this song coming? Could this be the one to take top honours? We wouldn’t rule it out…..

2129 We’re getting used to seeing professional turns from Azerbaijan now and this is no exception. Clearly they want this badly. We remain concerned however that the special effects people could have an eye out with that fake rain….

2130 We never thought we would ever find ourselves saying this in the history of the world but the forthcoming Slovenian song is also a contender. I mean we are talking SLOVENIA here. Seriously…..

2137 Ah, Iceland. We don’t want to be horrible about them at all given the backstory. But it is nice to see that Robson and Jerome have found gainful employment since the hits dried up…..

2142 The surprise packages just keep on coming? Who’d have thought Spain would turn in such a great performance? With that fabulous draw as well we could be looking at another top ten finish…..

2146 Ukraine is much as it was on Thursday night. But the sand artist is just showing off now. yawn (reaches for remote control to put on Britain’s Got More Talent, comes to senses just in time……)

2149 We’ve said it once, we will say it again – Nina from Serbia is adorable. But we still maintain she bought her tights in Primark.

2154 How can it be the last song of the night already? It has only been on for two minutes, surely. Once again the whole thing has been a blur and we have forgotten it. But based on what we have seen tonight we have NO IDEA who is going to win. No, seriously. UK were great, Ireland bonkers, France strangely disappointing. Georgia’s singer is still wearing a lampshade. Confusion is setting in.

2214 It is time for the interval act and we NEED to eat. Back for the voting……

2218 Germany have hired a wedding band for the interval entertainment. Well it’s original…..

2224 ‘I hope they don’t say Blue – None’ says Graham Norton. Why oh WHY did we not think of that one??????? Drat!

2225 They are just showing off now……

2228 Yikes and then some It is Dima Bilan. And four points for the UK already!

2229 The first 12 of the night goes to Azerbaijan……

2230 12 for the UK! SHRIEK!!!!!!!!!!!!

2231 12 to Denmark now. It is going to be a close one isn’t it?

2232 and 10 points to the UK from Italy! Hurrah! We are IN THE LEAD. Official…..

2234 We are not first anymore. Damn you Cyprus and your neighbourly voting……

2235 12 points to Georgia from Ukraine?????? The world has gone mad……

2236 Norway don’t look a bit cross at being booted out in the semi final. And they have only given us one point. Gits.

2237 Are we surprised they gave the 12 to Finland? Not a bit of it……

2239 Ukraine winning now. This is going to go down to the wire……

2240 And now Sweden in the lead. Told you they would be popular……

2241 First points of the night for Switzerland, from Slovakia. No nul points this year then…..

2242 It is the UK voting. Wonder who is getting the 12?????? Austria, Bosnia, someone explain that?

2246 Lithuania’s 12 from Poland got the most muted reaction of the night. Sweden still in the lead. We can believe that……

2252 Oh do stop singing, man from Slovenia. Another 12 for Bosnia and Herzegovina though, yay!

2257 Could Bosnia and Herzegovina become the first number two act to actually win?? Could happen. We don’t know what will happen any more. We want a lie down…..

2306 Are we going to Baku next year? Or, er, Italy perhaps?

2311 This is seriously exciting voting. The UK and Ireland certainly haven’t disgraced themselves but we sense Azerbaijan may have it in the bag. Cue lots of disgruntled complaints about how it is biased towards the East. Bollocks it is. They had a good song. End of.

2315 Italy are now the only country who could topple Azerbaijan. We always said we liked that track. Seriously. Ha ha.

2318 And it’s official. Azerbaijan have WON. We saw that coming. Yes, really, we did…..

2324 So what would happen if, just once, someone dropped that trophy????? And how will Eurovision handle the inevitable time difference? Will the contest be in the middle of the night? Or will we have to watch it in the afternoon? Will they have it in Baku or, er, Baku? No doubt these questions will be answered in the months to come. As for us, we are off to analyse the scoreboard. And have a bit of a lie down for the next six months……

Clash Of The Titans….

This time last year, with the Eurovision final just hours away, we were resigning ourselves to the fact that the UK was probably going to come last again, sighing about the fact nobody in this country was taking it seriously but vowing to support poor old Josh Dubovie anyway because, damn it, our national pride was at stake. Fast forward to this year and things could not be more different. For once there is actually a real sense of interest and excitement in the UK about Eurovision – despite all the bleating naysayers going on about it all being political and biased towards the East (of course, that’s why it’s in Germany this year, hmmmmm?)

Except of course it’s not just because the UK has finally decided to take it seriously and field a well-known act. It’s because for the first time in as long as we can remember there are two acts on tonight who will be very familiar to UK viewers – quite remarkable given that we’re usually lucky to even have heard of one. And in recent days the focus has switched from ‘can Blue bring Eurovision back to the UK?’ to ‘the titanic battle that is Blue vs Jedward’. Both have a fighting chance of bringing home the gold tonight, and even though the latter might be representing Ireland there’s still a huge groundswell of support for them here. The whole notion of ‘are you Team Blue or Team Jedward’ has sprung up without warning, and everybody you ask seems to have an opinion on it (we have yet to meet anybody who has said ‘Team Kati Wolf, actually’. But anyway….)

So let’s just look at this from both sides of the coin for a minute. Team Blue supporters vehemently argue that Jedward are a silly novelty act and that Duncan, Lee and co have entered a proper song and it’ll bring glory back to the UK if it wins and maybe enable us to start taking the contest seriously once again. Team Jedward fans will inevitably tell you that Blue are old and past it and have a dull song and that the wacky Irish twins are, well, more Eurovision somehow (although the people who say this last bit are clearly the people who still have a preconceived idea of what a Eurovision song should sound like and henceforth are the reason we ever sent Scooch in the first place).

It’s true that Blue probably have more at stake here than Jedward do. A lot is resting on how they fare tonight given that it is, after all, their big comeback. And given the UK press’s perception of our Eurovision prowess (having conveniently forgotten the period between 1967 and 1997, it seems) nothing short of a victory will be any good whatsoever. Remember how they denounced Andrew Lloyd Webber as a Eurovision failure when Jade Ewen finished FIFTH in 2009? Er we’d say that was far from a failure (do these same people also call their children a failure if they finish fifth in a spelling test at school? Er, I think not). We can hear the sound of venemous pens being sharpened as we speak and can picture tomorrow’s headlines – ‘WE CAN’T', ‘BLUE’S EUROVISION FLOP CONTEST’ etc etc which would no doubt be applied even if the UK finished in second place with 400 points.

On the other hand Jedward probably don’t have quite so much to lose since their bizarre career seems to be on the up anyway and not winning Eurovision probably wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to their many advertising deals, personal appearances and general habit of hanging around and being annoying. Granted, the song is probably what those aforementioned people would call ‘more Eurovision’ but that’s not necessarily the key to victory these days as we well know, while the Blue fans hoping for a victory will happily denounce it as throwaway rubbish. The question you have to ask yourself at this juncture though is – is it the song they are not keen on or the fact it is by Jedward? If Lipstick were by any other artist in the whole of Ireland would people be so hesitant about admitting they liked it? Somehow we think not.

We are the first people to admit we were very sceptical about the whole Jedward business when we first heard about it. But we also hold up our hands and admit that they have a very catchy, memorable tune on their hands – and being less of a worthy, serious song than Blue’s effort doesn’t make it any less of a worthy candidate for the title. And we can’t help but be impressed by the way they have won the rest of Europe over with their mad personalities and frankly bizarre performance – which actually looked as though they were making it up as they went along. More importantly it is a song which suits them perfectly – there would be no point them trying to do something a bit more staid any more than there would be a point to Blue trying to do a song like theirs. Everybody would get in a muddle and end up with the dreaded ‘nul points’ and then there would we be?

The point is whoever you are supporting tonight, both Blue and Jedward deserve to be up on that stage for the simple reason that they’ve brought Eurovision fever back to the United Kingdom after years of ennui. And if either one of them triumphs, you can guarantee Eurovision Blog will be celebrating on their behalf.

And on that note, we shall offer our usual vote of thanks to our lovely readers and every person who has helped us with content during this Eurovision season, and rest assured even after the season is over we’ll be back here offering salient comment whenever there is something of interest to report before the whole thing kicks off again around Christmas And don’t forget to join us back here later on for the liveblog or Tweeting for Virgin Media at TVonVM…

Just Talk To Us Already: Germany!!

Mind your manners everybody, we are indeed in the presence of Eurovision royalty. Ahead of tonight’s final, your very own Eurovision Blog has managed to grab a brief few moments with Germany’s very own reigning champion Lena, and is utterly chuffed to bits that at least one former winner has been kind and gracious enough to talk to us (are you paying attention, Dana International…..?)

Nice to have you back again after last year’s victory! But tell us, what prompted you to return to defend your Eurovision title? I really wanted to be the German contestant again, since it was so much fun last year. And I also wanted to defend my title in my home country.

Which of this year’s other entries do you rate / like? My favourites are the ones from Blue (UK), Nina (Serbia), Paradise Oskar (Finland), and of course the Irish twins Jedward!

Which is your favourite Eurovision entry of all time and which is your favourite from your home country? I’m sorry, I really don’t know…

Here in the UK Eurovision is regarded by many as a bit of a joke (something we are aiming to change this year with our entry). Do you think your victory last year has helped to change people’s perceptions of it in Germany?
Yes, there has been a big party here in Germany after last year’s victory already. And now, since we are this year’s host country, even more people are interested in the contest and they’ll watch and enjoy it.

Have you heard the UK entry and what do you think of it? Is it a bit better than our recent entries or are we going to come last again? Be honest……:) ) I have always been a fan of Blue – I mean, I grew up with them / their music. They are great! And I’m sure you won’t come last this year.

Tweet tweet!

Twitter fans looking for somewhere to share their salient Eurovision comments on Saturday night – why not pay a visit to the team from Virgin Media’s TV website, who’ll be holding a Tweetathon during the contest? (and, er, yes, we might have something to do with it). The fun will kick off just before 8pm tomorrow night at TVonVM. You know the rest. Oh, and suffice to say there will be liveblogging here also, leaving you utterly spoiled for choice…..:)

PermaTan12

Just Talk To Us Already: Greece

Hoping you will watch his dance, so to speak, it’s the very charming Loucas Yiorkas from Greece…

Introduce yourselves and tell us how you ended up representing Greece in Eurovision this year! Hello! I am Loucas Yiorkas and this is Stereo Mike and we are representing Greece at the ESC 2011 with the song “Watch my dance”. EMI, my record company proposed that I entered the pre-selection round which was a big surprise for me and also quite shocking. Mr. Kokkinos, the music producer of the company, had the idea for this collaboration with Stereo Mike. The original idea came from Mr. Liras to create a song combining a Greek folk rhythm (zeimpekiko) and a well know music genre (hip hop) which would make a very interesting sound.  So I took the zeimpekiko part and Stereo Mike took the hip hop part.

Are you looking forward to going to Dusseldorf ? What can we expect from your stage show? We are looking forward to going to Dusseldorf indeed. With regards to the stage show please allow me to keep this as a surprise.

Which of this year’s other entries do you rate? Each country has 3 minutes on stage and anything can happen. There are most definitely some very good songs in this year’s contest.

Which is your favourite Eurovision entry of all time and which is your favourite from your home country? That would probably be “Lane Moja” by Zeljko Joksimovic (Serbia 2004) and from Greece “Die for you” by Antique.

Here in the UK Eurovision is regarded by many as a bit of a joke (something we are aiming to change this year with our entry). How is it regarded in Greece ? For us here in Greece the fact that it is a European contest is regarded as something of high standard.

Why do you think so many people still love it so much even after all this time? I strongly believe that music is an art which brings people together and this is why many people still love it.

What will be the first thing you do if you win?
I think that I ‘ll try to be calm but very very happy in my heart.. I’d rather be spontaneous in my life so I’m trying not to think about this moment but just live it if it comes.

Have you heard the UK entry and what do you think of it? Is it a bit better than our recent entries or are we going to come last again? Be honest……:)
It is actually a very clever choice of performers with a very good song. I believe that Blue CAN win this year’s competition!

Did you enjoy your recent trip to London to promote the song? I very much enjoyed my trip to London . People seemed to like our song. We have good memories of this trip.

It’s become a bit of a standing joke in Eurovision circles that Greece and Cyprus always give each other 12 points. If you both make it to the final do you think Greece will keep up the tradition? What do you think of the Cypriot entry this year?
Greece and Cyprus are essentially the same nation and pretty much have the same culture. I think that the tradition will probably continue this year as well! The Cypriot entry is also an interesting song as it combines Greek and Oriental elements.

And finally, tell me why Greece should have the chance to host Eurovision in 2012 and which city would you choose to host it?
Our song is a music proposition which is a novelty for the Greek and European music. In my opinion, the fusion and perfect marriage of the various music genres is how music advances.
There are many beautiful places in Greece which could host the ESC. It would be a tough choice.