Eurovision: Norway win, UK 5th
Yep, UK came 5th. And to think I hated the recorded version of that song because when Jade sang live *ahem* LIVE -take note Romania and your Balkan Girls- she actually made that song sound much better. It also helped that the world renowned Andrew Lloyd Webber was on stage with her playing the piano.
Norway won with over three hundred points, the highest in any Eurovision contest so far. They were represented by a Belarussian fiddler who sang about his ‘Fairytale’. He was cute, he had the Zac Efron (although I thought he was a sort of Chace Crawford/Ed Westwick hybrid) factor so he was always going to get the tweenage vote because he couldn’t rely on his voice to wow people, by his own admission he says he couldn’t rely on his voice.
I lost count of how many countries gave them 12 points but he was already mathematically unreachable when he hit 200 points. The song itself was a change from the usual Europop but not to worry, that was very much in attendance as usual. In the end, it wouldn’t be Eurovision without the odd Europop entry.
So here’s Norway’s winning song which is catchy until you realise you can’t get it out of your head.
So. what about the other countries who fell over themselves to join the biggest embarrassment in Europe? Here goes…well, the ones who stuck in memory.
Greece’s Sakis had me crying with laughter. The man didn’t want to wear that shirt and to be honest he didn’t need to either. All the body popping and strange dance moves meant that his torso was showing for most of the song. He should have ripped the shirt off and he would be happier.
I also found Mr Germany’s camp glittery pants more mesmerising than his song. Shame on you Germany. When I heard that they would be using Dita Von Teese as a part of the performance, I thought they’d do pretty well. But they totally underused her when she could have been used to take the focus off Mr Germany’s lack of vocal range. However, vocal range for Sweden’s Melena was not a problem as she managed to hit the highest note in the competition in a €37,000 dress. Given the lack of talent, make of that statement what you will. I surprised myself when I quite liked the Armenian song. It was different to say the least but I quite liked it whilst I found Ukraine’s entry disturbing and I thought she may have pulled something with her energetic dancing.
France’s entry was so typically French it couldn’t have been any more French if she got out a pack of cigarettes and started cradelling a baguette. It was angsty, emotional and very Paris in the 50s.
The Portuguese entry was in comparision, very happy and colourful and very out of place in Eurovision.
Despite obviously not having the funds that her Swedish counterpart had for her dress, Iceland’s Yohanna delightfully dressed in ice blue frills was one of my favourite performances of the night. She could sing better than the likes of Norway, the song was listenable and in the end she ended up runner-up. Even though they had said this year’s contest will be less political than last year’s, the memo didn’t get to Israel who tactically put an Israeli girl with an Arab girl and made them sing about how they are able to co-exist in perfect harmony. The song was beautiful but it didn’t do all that well in the votes. I can’t for the life of me remember the Moldovan performance but I think it may have been the milk-maid who came across as the happiest person in Europe. Their neighbours Romania may have mimed their song ‘The Balkan Girls’ which had some questionable lyrics (these people have to stop using Google translate) and a questionable girl in the shadows…
Some country (answers on a postcard) stole Coldplay’s Viva La Vida military look whilst
Denmark played Stars in their Eyes with a guy who couldn’t keep his legs together on stage for one second as soon as he stood up off the stool. Any wider and he would have been in pain. But that pain wouldn’t have compared to the pain Ronan Keating fans would have felt when the Dane was impersonating Ronan. Compared to the tone of the night, Danish Ronan was plain weird.
Finland showcased the fact they have no communication with each other and the rapper was too old to wear his cap back to front. The highlight of this song was the pyrotechnics and the guys whose cardigans were shrinking at an alarming rate twirling batons with…yup you guessed it..fire. In a stadium where the wind machine was expertly overused, I couldn’t help but think there could be disaster at some point.
Russia’s entry was a late entry but her daddy is a billionaire so go figure. Anywho, she sang about Mum, showed herself as a rapidly aging Benjamin Button and had a nervous breakdown all while wearing shower curtains.
And so there you have it. Eurovision didn’t disappoint, it is still as tacky and classless as it usually is. There were the definate WTF moments. The voting is still political with most countries but the UK did much better than they had in 7 years.
The Football, John Terry to the Rescue and The Apprentice
…I didn’t watch the Apprentice last night because of the football but I will watch it tomorrow and do the round-up of the events.
In other news. England won. Yep, they beat the Ukraine 2-1. Crouch scored the first one and made Smithy proud byrevisiting the robotics and ‘pulling the rope’ like Smithy said in the Comic Relief sketch. Then England sort of deflated and were boring to watch again. The Ukrainies scored their goal in the second half as a melee in the penalty box resulted in Andriy Shevchenko scoring. How bad are this team if someone who has only played 15 minutes of football this year manages to score a decent goal? For a while it looked like England went back to being England pre-Capello but then they did something they have never ever done…They chased the match. Believe it or not, England played like they wanted to win. Their persistance paid off and John Terry scored the winning goal in 89 minutes. This means England of all teams, are still unbeaten in their World Cup group. Incredible.
More of the same please. Even in those nasty shirts.
The only reason he is on this here blog is because he saved the unbeaten run of England. He’s not Captain Fantastic or Marvel or Marvellous by any means. He is the ultimate Captain Irritating when he’s at Chelsea and he’s Captain Okay in an England Shirt.
But as a United fan I hold a place in my heart for dear JT, after all, him slipping and ending up on his arse in the penalty shootout in Moscow made brilliant TV and handed United the CL. Altogether now, Viva John Terry…
Footie!
Its another batch of internationals tonight but they’re all World Cup qualifiers this time around.
For the disillusioned England fan, take pride in the fact that our captain doesn’t do drinking all night after a match not in an England shirt anyway. Also take pride in the fact our goal keeper didn’t spend all night in a bar after the match on Saturday. If you can’t then you’re probably Scottish…
Barry Ferguson, known to one half of Glasgow as the Rangers captain and known to the other half as…let’s not go into that. Its a war even Obama would struggle to understand. Anywho, Barry and his Rangers teammate McGregor went on an all night drinking sesh after the Scots lost to Holland on Saturday night. The team had gone to bed but these two were still awake, drowning their sorrows and much to their disappointment, the night turned into day and they were caught by their coach, George Burley.
The sad case is, they are going to play tonight anyway because there is no one else to take their places in the event that the numbskulls were banned.
And the moral of this story is: Don’t go on all night drinking sessions if you’re a footballer and you’re staying in a hotel with the rest of your team.
Tonight, England finally get down to the business of qualifying for the World Cup.
England’s Player of the Year. That trophy looks like an Oscar awarded for the theatrical people but using something similar for sport- that can’t be giving the right signs can it. But what a week for Roo. 
Hmm, if they had treated Capello’s ideas for the kit with those expressions maybe it wouldn’t have gotten past the drawing stage.
The opponents are Ukraine with Andriy Shevchenko. Unfortunately for England they have to wear that crappy kit the Ukraine are unbeaten. When I last checked, so were England, so someone is going to have to give up the unbeaten record. England had a striker virus in that 3 were injured on Saturday during the match with Slovakia and therefore, Goabby Agbonlahor has been called up to the squad. Joy of joys.
In other news, its April Fools day and I woke up to strange stories in the newspapers. As ever, 1st of April brings with it some caution when reading the newspapers so you don’t fall into the April Fools tricks but one story about Alan Shearer going to Newcastle was a weird one. I wouldn’t believe it at first and thought that anyone who was playing this prank was never going to Newcastle again for the rest of his life. However, as the day went on, I realised this was in fact true. Bad timing from the Toon, really bad timing. They could have waited until after 12pm instead of releasing the news at midnight last night to coincide with the beginning of April and of course April Fools. Anywho, he will be revealed as the replacement
Awwww
He hasn’t got anyone to clean his boots for him.
Awwww. Frank Lampard with all the money in the world doesn’t have a little skivvy.
I’m being mean. He said young players should pull their socks up more and be less pampered because in his days at West Ham, he used to clean the boots of the first team. Frank would like a return to that sort of learning. Apparently, reserve team players earn more than players in the Coca Cola leagues.
Frank says young players shoud basically serve older players so people like Gabby Agbonlahor, worse that Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to cockiness, should be cleaning the boots of Gareth Barry. Good. Barry could throw them back at him and pretty hard too. Where Agbonlahor is concerned, I’d be on Frank’s side anyday. But the thought of Jonny Evans making a mistake while cleaning Wayne Rooney’s boots on a bad day doesn’t bear thinking about.
You can tell it was Lamps’ press conference yesterday. There’s tons of news on him and his thoughts today. Lamps also had a dig at the England leisure wear calling the shirt horrible. It’s beige with stripes. It doesn’t look good. According to numerous reports, Capello had a say in the designing of the training kits but some players aren’t happy to be walking about looking like millionaire chavs…
Well, you can’t have it all and is it me or is it silly to expect Capello, a man who spends half his life in a suit, to give fashion advice to people younger than him?
The Sunday Afternoon Post.
I still can’t get over the England kit. Bleh.
John Terry is in today’s Live magazine in the Daily Mail with the title ‘Role Model’. I beg to differ.
*drumroll please*
F1!!! The first race of the season took place this morning in Melbourne with Jenson Button in pole and basically the favourite for the season even though its still unbelievably early but the way their car has functioned has made the others scared. Even Massa said Brawn could win the Championship.
Anywho, Button won. Barrichello came second and I had thought Trulli came third but there was some furore over lapping times and he was disqualified and that left Hamilton 3rd. I know. Its kind of a Ronaldo effect you know, all that ‘your love makes me better, your hate makes me unstoppable’. That’s Hamilton. Everytime I think he’s done for he comes back and surprises me. Depsite starting around 15th or somewhere in Jenson’s old stomping ground, Hamilton made it thorugh the field pretty quickly and was 7th until Kubica and Vettel crashed into each other out of sheer stupidity and that pushed Hamilton into 5th then he overtook Rosberg and claimed 4th. Now that I look at it, Hamilton only made it into single figures because of the incompetance and lack of luck of the other drivers who qualified ahead of him.
And what of Ferrari?
Well, never one to disappoint or even live up to expectations, Kimi drove what must be his 5th car in 2 years into the concrete wall… again. Yes, for the umpteenth time in the last 1 and a bit years he smashed the car into the wall. Honestly, forget traction and diffusers because when it comes to him he needs a warning sign. ‘STOP! BRAKES! WALL!’ Or some sort of magnet to keep him on the track. Look, Kimi if you keep crashing into the wall/tyres/other cars/mechanics, you’ll never win anything. Understood?
I hope he didn’t start as he means to go on. Massa however, avoided testing Newton’s Law and instead broke down. But he was never in the points to begin with, Kimi was and he threw it away like he has done since he won the Championship in 2007.
Its Malaysia next week and there’s a high chance that a Malaysian wall has a date with a certain Finn.
EDIT: Just been on the F1 site and looked at all the circuits. This however, will come as a surprise. Kimi Raikkonen holds the record on 6 tracks. The only man who has more records is Michael Shoemaker Schumacher. Well then?
The England Kit
Its bad. And it costs £50. £50!!!! For a white polo shirt and white shorts. I don’t get it. I just don’t.
Here’s the technical explanation for each bit of the kit modelled by John Terry. Bear in mind his mother and mother-in-law shoplifted Pedigree Chum, this shirt is going to be way out of anyone’s range.
Meh. It looks like a polo shirt to me.
How cheesy. ‘Single button placket collar for improved style and ventiliation. The emodiment of Capello’s smart performance’. The first bit sounds like The Fast Show and the second bit is a contridiction completely. Capello and smart shouldn’t be used in the same sentence let alone in a sentence to describe the England team.
‘A return to the classic white on white of 1966′
Of course, we can’t let go of that can we. Some people can fall back on 2003 and a world cup runners up medal in 2007 whilst others can fall back on the Ashes in 2005 but this bit falls back on ‘66.
‘A statement of unity and confidence – an intimidating sight for opponents’.
This is almost as bad as England RU Nike red swish intimidating opponents because they wonder where the swish is going…
Kits are mental. Spain’s new one looks good but the PR couldn’t have been anymore dodgy even if they tried. War paint of three lines (Adidas) which ended up looking like kitty whiskers. They weren’t intimidating, they were quite funny to watch actually. At least they didn’t reveal the new kit during the national anthems. That was odd England.
En-ger-land = FAIL
I don’t care if they win. They make me want to sleep. You know those Nytol things, England should advertise them. They eventually won by 4-0 but poor Slovakia might as well be tucked up in bed now. The thing with England is they can get the goals but the way they go about it is downright boring. Teams who win World Cups and Euro Championships have to be entertaining as well as annhilators. So far, we haven’t even got the annihilation stuff right and the slow pace is disasterous. I’m probably being too harsh on them but I just spent 92 minutes watching them slug around the pitch and those are 92 minutes I’ll never get back. I can’t even change who I support, because of the nationality and I want to support my own country’s team. Okay, so I supported Ireland last week in the rugby but that was more of a fangirl thing than a nationality thing.
So call this a revenge post. I’m not going to talk about the match nor the technicalities instead I’m going to look at the sad case of the England team.
First, any team who doesn’t know all the words to their national anthem are a national embarrassment. The other teams England play know their anthem whilst our lads bumble and mumble their way through God Save the Queen. Its as if we should be singing God Save (insert egotistical England player here). Its not rocket science. Then Aaron Lennon for some reason or another decided he wouldn’t sing full stop and Rooney not singing obviously is nothing new. Why don’t we have an anthem like Spain? No words (the lack of words is due to backlash from the warring provinces). It would save a lot of embarrassment.
This is how it should be done in an England football shirt apart from Gary Nev of course.
Not hard is it? Its not rocket science and if the rugby players can learn it and sing it with passion then it shouldn’t be that hard.
Secondly, if there are too many big names in a team we end up with what I like to call The Galacticos Disaster. Real Madrid couldn’t escape it and England can’t. The names and the so called Untouchables get picked first regardless of having played atrociously for their respective clubs. Its unfair on the ones who would love to represent their country at senior level and wouldn’t take advantage of it.
Thirdly, if that’s how England think they’re going to set the world alight next year in South Africa then they are one deluded team. The goalkeeping mess leaves something to desire.
Fourthly, that kit. When they said they were going to unveil their new kit and it would be a whitewash I thought 3 things:
1. Its all white
2. Its going to be classy
3. Jeez. Another one?
But then, without sounding pervy, they disrobed and OMG. Not OMG like Gossip Girl OMFG. OMG as in oh my God what is that?! Its a polo shirt, akin to the one I had for high school PE and bright white. The sort of white that they showcase in fabric conditioner adverts.
Its so white and bright it should be in a Daz advert.
Fifthly, if there’s a roof on Wembley, why the hell didn’t they shut it! We’re not in South Africa. It rains here believe it or not and they should have checked the BBC weather service before going out this morning. Why is it that the Millenium Stadium guys get it right all the time but Wembley don’t.
Drowned rat, anyone?
Its Ukraine on Wednesday which means proper World Cup qualifying and providing they’re still awake by the end of the match this could be good.
Football Commentary Crap on TV
September 10, 2009 at 9:00 am (Decsions and All The Ranting, National Pride, TellyVision) (commentators, england, football, i have a headache, ranting, television, ugh, world cup 2010, yay)
I love football. My weekends and mid weeks revolve around getting access to watch a football match which is of interest to me. I can’t live without it, so when I watched England I was pretty happy to watch my national team do their best to qualify for the World Cup, but something or rather someone’s innane babblings kept annoying me.
Before the match kicked off, I was reminded ‘England have never qualified for a World Cup when they’ve played at Wembley’. Oh, so much for resting all my hope on the shoulders of a bunch of millionaires. They’re only going to let us down again. Even before I could even begin to think that, the annoying babbler said ‘England have never qualified for a World Cup with two games left to play.’ All I could think of was…was…nothing. I was taken aback at how little faith we have in our national team. Yes, I am one of those people who like nothing more than to revel in the patriotic glory when England win, but love to point out all the weak links when they lose. It seems like there are so many more out there who feel the same way. So, the match began.
I am so very aware that ITV are about as brilliant to football as the BBC would be to presenting The BRITS. ie, it would be car crash. I always thought ITV could present the wrestling because they loves the theatrics. When was it acceptable for Steve McMannaman to sit there in the studio looking all Mickey Rourke like, with his hair slicked back and say that a player ‘didn’t want to get his hair dirty’. Man, this is the bloke for whom the phrase, (forever haunting Liverpool players) ‘Spice Boy’ was coined. He is as vain as the others if not more. Moving on to the beacon of technological hope, the man who has limited vocabulary when it comes to describing a match. Yes, the one and only Andy Townsend. I watched him on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and he knows nothing. I must know how he gets that flat screen gadgetry thing to work when he has to analyse the match. Until they introduced that screen to ITVs football coverage, I had thought Jonathan Davies doodles on still frames during rugby matches was pretty damn useless. Thanks to Townsend, football punditry looks like a BA Hons subject. The fact that only he is allowed to touch it furthers that observation.
So, I was innocently watching the match and for one reason or another, the commentary team’s musings jumped out at me more than usual. It may have something to do with the splitting headache I had been experiencing but suddenly the phrases ‘hugging the touchline’ and ‘within range’ annoyed the bejeasus out of me. Firstly, is it possible to hug a touchline? Is it even morally right to show that much affection to a patch of grass with a whitewash line running through it? Secondly, what’s within range. What’s the acceptable range of a free kick? 45 yrds? Beckham’s range?
Which brings me to this, the most annoying football commentary cliches.
1. He’s got a very good squad. Definate STRENGTH IN DEPTH.
Can you have strength in depth? What’s the strength? The size of the squad or the amount of players who can easily be brought in and adapt immediately to playing first team football? What’s the depth? The size of the squad again? Then the strength AND depth are the same thing, right? The phrase had been used in rugby union but crossed sports when Alan Hansen started using it to disect the ’shocking’ football he analyses every ’shocking’ Saturday night on the ’shocking’ MOTD. Now every pundit thinks the phrase is acceptable football language, without ever knowing what it really means (see Offside Rule). Shocking.
2. ‘Its well within Beckham’s range’.
Move over the humble ‘metre’. Make room ‘yard’ because there’s a new measurement in town. Beckham’s Range. What is Goldenballs’ free kick range anywho? And whoever is writing it down needs help to get a life.
3. ‘ON PAPER, it looks an easy three points…’
4. ‘…But football is a FUNNY OLD GAME’.
3 is never seen without 4. Like there isn’t an Aldi without an Iceland somewhere nearby. On paper every game would be easy, but all that crap goes out of the window once the players are on the pitch. As for football being a funny old game, its the commentators trying to cushion the blow once your team goes ahead for 90 minutes but end up losing in the last 2 minutes. Ask any Chelsea fan and they’ll agree, football is a funny, mean, karma ridden old game.
5. ‘At the end of the day…’
Somehow, despite only playing 90 minutes of football, it qualifies as a day in most footballers dictionaries. This phrase is used so much that no one knows what it means anymore in any context. Its a sure fire way to avoid taking the upper hand on the rest of the team or the one individual who lost the 3 pts or 2pts for the team. It is used most commonly with the words ‘the lads played well’ or ‘we got the 3 pts’.
6. What this game really needs is a goal.
Oh well. It says it all really. Its not a game worth watching if there are no goals, and this phrase isn’t clever. Its downright stupid. No shit Sherlock, stupid. Why on earth would people pay to watch stalemate between two teams, who need to be reminded by the commentator exactly how a football match works.
7. In the event of an extra time goal. This CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Always, always, always stated during extra time or added time where a goal is scored and changes the outcome of the game. But that’s it. That goal only changes the game, not everything in general. Sorry, apocolypse, you’re too late, Yeovil went out of the FA Cup to Colchester. This CHANGES EVERYTHING. They’re so pre-occupied trying to be cinema trailer voiceovers, they forget they’re commentating a football match, which won’t be adapted into a motion picture with a David Arnold or Hans Zimmer score behind it and won’t win Phillip Seymour Hoffman any Oscars.
And a couple of things in general…
FACTS FACTS FACTS
Motty used to be the one who churned out useless facts about players, but now it seems all of them need to wedge in a couple of facts. No football match is complete if we don’t know the angle of a free kick (a la Germany 2006 with the computer graphics for every player who took a free kick), how many shots on target a player has had since he could kick a ball or how many times he’s played for the team. All I want to do is watch the match, cheer my team on but instead I get facts, facts, facts. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t reading them out every 5 seconds, where every other sentence has a statistic embedded.
Mind reading.
‘And you can hear the crowd now, so happy for their team, THINKING I’d better book those tickets to South Africa now’. Yes, ITV, always wanting to be one step in front of their competitors now have a mind reader as a commentator. He read 70,000 minds in one second!!! Eat your heart out Derren Brown. Mind you, he’d make a brilliant commentator, he’d be interesting.
Clairvoyancy
ITV especially, are really dabbling in the dark stuff. It might be something to do with all those times they showed repeats of Harry Potter and now they’re starting to believe they can see the future. ‘I don’t see a goal in this for [enter unfortunate team name here].’ Where’s your crystal ball? Did you see yourself being a commentator again? Must be broken…
From football is a funny old game, describing its knack to be unpredictable at the best of times, to fully committing themselves to the ‘fact’ that there are no more goals in a match…and they never will admit to being wrong when the last minute goal goes in that changes everything. But at the end of the day, its much easier to listen to them then to not know what the hell is going on but see little coloured dots running around the pitch like on Football Manager. Nevertheless, I must be greatful that we dont get this here.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
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