EUROVISION 2017

[Morrison Lard]

The first semi-final starts this Tuesday on BBC Four, then the second lot on Thursday, and the final is on Saturday 13th May.

Hosted in Kiev by an all male trio, and 2 of em are Ukrainian comedians, so there should be plenty of laughs.
There's no Russia this year.
Australia are back, again.
Italy seem to be the favourites by quite a way, despite having the sheer audacity to sing in Italian.
It's racked up 108 fucking million youtube views already!!
Lucie Jones is the UK's entry, who reached the dizzy heights of 8th place in the X Factor in 2009. Why do we even bother.

_{Can't wait for all the great brexit jokes!}

[Deanjam]

There's no Russia this year.

That's what they want you to think.

[Deanjam]

More of this please!

[mothman]

I can't even remember who our entry was last year. Two lads, maybe?

We Brits seem to be able to balance two contradictory viewpoints. The first, not taking the whole thing seriously, while secondly also wondering why we can't field anyone decent to represent us. This despite being undisputedly the second (or even first equal) greatest popular-music nation on the planet.

[Attila]

Yay! Time to dust off 'My Lovely Horse' and then settle in for a Saturday evening of weirdness (hoping for weirdness, anyway, and not endless taking-it-too-seriously power ballads).

I'm hoping Putin crashes the scene by riding onto the stage shirtless and bareback on a bear, sword in one hand, flaming torch in the other. He let me down in the Olympic opening ceremony.

[DrGreggles]

[Urinal Cake]

Australia are back, again.

Why? Are we going to replace the UK now?

[Attila]

I'm on a small tablet with crap wifi, so you're on your own to go look at Cezar from Romania. One of my top faves, along with Estonia in 2015 and my best fave, when Les Picards Fatals were on for France.

[Thursday]

Honestly though this is going to be horrendous this year, is it possible to get minus points?

[Mr Eggs]

(hoping for weirdness, anyway, and not endless taking-it-too-seriously power ballads).

Ethnic shit. Give us some ethnic shit FFS. Bagpipes and woven hats.

[Blumf]

https://eurovision.tv/participant/lucie-jones/info

Lucie Jones will perform her emotive song Never Give Up On You for the United Kingdom at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

Why are we doing a serious one? We'll be buggered no matter what this year, let just have a laugh.

[Thursday]

A British person singing "Never give up on you" to the whole of Europe does sound like a good bit of trolling actually.

[BlodwynPig]

Britain can't even do camp or funny right either.

[mothman]

But that's the thing. When we do camp or funny, we're perceived as directly making a mockery of the whole thing. Other nations can get away with it, it's shrugged off as they're just having a laugh this year (or, occasionally, trying to ensure they don't win, and thus have to host, again). Most of the songs in Eurovision are serious but forgetable. It's the comedy ones people in the UK remember, at any rate, because they play into our perceptions (if not outright prejudices) about the Contest and indeed Europe in general.

This song of ours, if anyone else did it it's probably be in the top ten when results were tabulated. Because it's the UK and nobody likes us, it'll be in the bottom ten. And that's how things will continue, until we either stop entering (or even leave the EBU because in our new one-party state anything with the word "European" in it will be thoughtcrime), or maybe ditch our Big-Five Favoured-Nation status (and financial contribution) in which case we won't even get past the semi-finals. And that's the way things will continue. It's possible that our having a genuinely big name entry might change that - assuming whomever it was got over their snobbery about it, and/or the fear of still being embarrassed by a poor showing when not even they are able to make a difference to the UK's result.

[DrGreggles]

Britain can't even do camp or funny right either.

[BlodwynPig]

Something about strokes and maltesers.

[Icehaven]

God ours even has a vomiting-into-the-mic moment, we're doooomed. As if we weren't anyway.

[dr beat]

I'm hoping Putin crashes the scene by riding onto the stage shirtless and bareback on a bear, sword in one hand, flaming torch in the other. He let me down in the Olympic opening ceremony.

I reckon he's saving that for the World Cup next year.  I like to think he keeps watching the Queen and Daniel Craig at the Olympics and he thinks 'right you bastards I'll top that!'

[bomb_dog]

Will be giving the semi finals a go again this year. I think a lot of the weirder/odder stuff now gets filtered out at this stage.

My top tip - watch the stream on the internet so you don't have Scott fucking Mills requesting interactivity about your Eurovision semis-parties and twitter comments and incessant 'shout outs' to Geoff and Linda who are having a eurovision party with straight bananas and milka chocolate and pizza and bratwurst etc.

Last years little videos introducing each act were really rather nice, and the whole thing seemed nicer still without inane sub-sub-Wogan commentary and twitter shouts over it. Broadcast on BBC4 without the UK commentary please!

[rjd2]

Italy look pretty unstoppable don'they? 100 million views on youtube, catchy as hell song, fun stage performance and a good looking front fronting it. 4/6 or so with the bookies is probably the shortest anyone has been a week before the final.

Small money on Armenia, think it goes down a storm on the night and its got people behind it who have Eurovision success previously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw6LdDo7HxA

Don't get the appeal of Bulgaria and Portugal can feck off.

Also internet meme saxman is back this year for Moldova with the below which is nowhere near as fun as their 2010 anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvaLAs9cex4

[rjd2]

Shame Belgium who were second favourites a few weeks ago seemed to have fallen away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbomdE81_mA

Corker of a tune.

[Morrison Lard]

Did anyone watch the 2nd semi final?
I thought it was crap compared to the first one.

The yodeling woman was ok, San Marino was so awful it was bloody brilliant, can't actually remember the rest.

[Mr Eggs]

I thought the 2nd semi was ace. That Eoin McLove pisstake cunt for Ireland was tremendous with his balloon.

[Epic Bisto]

Glad to see the forum is back up for one of my favourite annual topics.


On the tactical voting side, I predict that we'll do about as well as something that will fail.

[Morrison Lard]

Glad to see the forum is back up for one of my favourite annual topics.

Fucking right, I love Eurovision, getting pissed and CaB.
The three align perfectly just once a year, and thank Neil this place is back in action.

[Icehaven]

I thought I was going to be out until about 9ish tonight and actually was barely bothered because I thought we'd be CAB-less, and now I'm home an hour earlier than I thought and here with loads of wine, I might actually cry with joy.

[Icehaven]

The only thing that could make it better is if they introduced the possibility of getting minus points.

[Icehaven]

Nice to see the bloke from Assassin's Creed representing Norway.

[Epic Bisto]

Legend Gary appears to be singing a couple of times tonight, while Leanne from Corrie is singing for Germany.

[Epic Bisto]

Fucking 'ell, Gary's even co-hosting it!