Vote for motherland or we cut your gas off! (Eurovision Song Contest)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Eurovision Song Contest
Date:	26/05/08 (201 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gay guys rejoice!

Disadvantages: Empties the pubs?

Whilst the brilliant Lewis Hamilton was winning the Monte Carlo Grand Prix yesterday, Europe's most prestigious motor race, his black British counterpart, Andy Abraham, an ex bin man and X-Factor star, was finishing last in the Eurovision Song Contest the night before, Eastern Europe again exerting their power on the contest voting patterns, now that the public phone call and text decides the point's allocation. Since 2000 six of the last eight winners haven't been from the traditional old Europe and that won't be changing any day soon. No one, not even our Terry Wogan, seemed to mention the possibility that our guy was black and so bottom of the pile, although our entry was pretty crap to be fair. Ashley Cole and Emile Heskey know all about vile and open racism in Eastern Europe though. Having the final in Belgrade didn't help European unity and relations either. But last years winner gets the final and so you can't argue on that score. At least Roman Abromovich gets another European home final after the pretty Russian girl romped home on Saturday, much easier to buy the referees in this contest.

It is, of course, the partisan immigrant vote that decides the winner these days, mostly in those fragmented new countries of the Balkans and Russian Republics -Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Ukraine all gave Russia the full 12 points. If you think racism is bad in the U.K then you wait until you go to these places! It was also noticeable that the Scandinavian countries shamelessly voted for each other on mass, Norway, the nil poi's of old Europe, earning an impressive 5th place off the back of the chilly country posse.

An example of this patriotic bias is abstractly shown in the Bosnia vote. The only way Bosnia Herzegovina would vote for its number one enemy in Serbia is if hell freezes over. Well it does seem to freeze over on the annual Saturday night in May. The reason it happens is because of that migrant vote in Bosnian, the one third Serbian immigrants in that enclave ,the ones that proudly pick up the phone on behalf of Bosnia and vote for their home state of Serbia. It's the same with old enemies Greece and Cyprus and with Turkey and Germany, and the more astute would have noticed that the bulk of England's vote went to Poland, 10 of their measly 14 points accrued via the market towns of East Anglia, but finishing rock bottom with Britain and Germany. Poland did not vote for us because its one way traffic from Poland these days. No penalty shoot out for Eng V Germany either.

The voting system...

People in each country can vote by tele-vote or SMS. Each country's 10 favorite songs are awarded 12, 10, then 8 through to 1 points based on the votes of the population of each country. All participating countries in the semi-finals and final had the right to cast points in the final

So if the phone vote is so skewed to voting for their own, from what ever part of the world the viewers are in, what's the point of carrying on this way? Russia have the biggest voting population and won this year, whilst the Ukraine also registered huge voting patterns, ironically Russians in the Ukraine voting for Russia and vice versa. As they are the biggest two Russian states its obvious they would win with that organized block vote. Some of the more cynical observers would say it was politically expedient of the Old Russian caucuses and the new eastern European E.U counties nearest to Russia to vote for them or they will get their natural gas cut off. Proof of that kowtowing had to be in Georgia voting for the motherland, the motherland that had cut of their gas last year! The most right wing country in Europe, Austria, withdrew at the last moment for obvious reasons. Russia's Dima Bilans, 'Believe', triumphed on a cheese packed night in Belgrade.

The number of entries was a record 43: 19 in each semi-final; 25 in the final (5 prequalified and 10 from each of the semi-finals). Debuting countries were Azerbaijan and San Marino, whilst Austria pulled out. Europe's four biggest countries contribute the bulk of the money to fund the event and the big broadcasters have to pay a flat 200k fee to take the event live. The BBC get an impressive 10 million viewers every year and the pubs are always quiet here when the show goes out, mostly lads in the pubs.

The top 10 in 2008

Russia, 272 points
Ukraine, 230 points
Greece, 213 points
Armenia, 199 points
Norway, 182 points
Serbia, 160 points
Turkey, 138 points
Azerbaijan, 132 points
Israel, 124 points
Bosnia, 110 points

With just two old European countries in the top ten and the vast majority of Europe's Muslim counties in their instead you can see who picked up the phone and who enjoys the show most. This is Europe's national pride on show here and perhaps a picture of the past and perhaps future divides. But we would rather see the bias here than in the Balkan streets. There was also a strong Jewish vote expressed for Armenia and Russia, where the forgotten genocides occurred.

The contest, of course, is a bit of fun and taken more seriously by the more European centric nations at the heart of the E.U project, and let's face it, what would gay men would do without it. Camp is not the word. We even had the story popup where General Franco rigged it so Cliff Richard couldn't win in Spain in 74. I hate to say this but for once France did something good. Then we had the comical Irish entry, a hand puppet from Dublin, rightfully disqualified in the semis (but only just). Eurovision had become a running joke in Ireland because they kept winning it and so had to host it, costing them a bomb. Every year they would enter a deliberately weaker singer an every year they did well, to the point when they were sabotaging their own acts, culminating in the puppet. I think there is an element of that with England now by putting up dire acts and giving them dodgy amps-who will forget 2003 and Love is Alive by a band I cant and don't want to recall the name of. But you what ever you think of it, you would have to say, as did Terry Wogan, this is no longer about the best song. The song remains the same indeed...

Previous winners...

6 of the last 8 winners are the Eastern Europe entries. But previous to that all the winners were north and west of new Europe. The power is shifting in Europe and at the moment we are only singing about it.
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2008 Russia "Believe" Dima Bilan
2007 Serbia "Molitva" Marija Serifovic
2006 Finland "Hard Rock Hallelujah" Lordi
2005 Greece "My Number One" Helena Paparizou
2004 Ukraine "Wild Dances" Ruslana
2003 Turkey "Everyway That I Can" Sertab Erener
2002 Latvia "I Wanna" Marie N
2001 Estonia "Everybody" Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL
2000 Denmark "Fly on the Wings of Love" Olsen Brothers
1999 Sweden "Take Me to Your Heaven" Charlotte Nilsson
1998 Israel "Diva" Dana International
1997 United Kingdom "Love Shine a Light" Katrina and the Waves
1996 Ireland "The Voice" Eimear Quinn
1995 Norway "Nocturne" Secret Garden
1994 Ireland "Rock 'n' Roll Kids
1993 Ireland "In Your Eyes" Niamh Kavanagh
1992 Ireland "Why Me" Linda Martin

C/O of Wikipedia for research purposes...

Summary: Happy campers!