….. I too , in association with Mr N Deller walked out of the voting without realising what was happening!! Looking back on it – that was probably a huge mistake. as has already been said – the habitual offenders of the so-called “friendly” voting were all clumped at the front of the draw and hence it was more noticeable than usual.
Having had approx 5 hrs sleep to reflect on what happened last night i can see things a little clearer now.
Firstly – the right song won. Ruslana is the best performer that I have seen at a Eurovision Song Contest .People will say “well she only won with a good show” and the usual crap like that – but at the end of the day – the Eurovision Song Contest is a Television Show – more so these days when artists actually have to make Europe pick up the phone and vote – i mean – If a man just came out and sung on stage – you are hardly likely to vote for him are you?? ( cf Croatia , UK, Ireland).
Concentrating on the “neighbourly voting” for a second – what people have not factored into this equation is that this year – the countries with the good songs actually ARE Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Ukraine, Serbia and their “neighbours” are bound to vote for them because they are their neighbours and, consequently, because they are the best songs!! Yeah OK, there was the odd bit of strange voting like the habitual 7 points from the UK to Ireland , but factoring out the “goodness” of the songs and their geographical location – both Nick and I agree that there was no more neighbourly voting than usual. The only thing i would say is that Russia qualifying by right leaves a sour taste in both our mouths.
Moving onto the results themselves – well pleased with Ruslana, happy with Ireland (mwahahahahahahahaha!), disappointed with Jonsi ( although i gather he did not come across well on stage) – happy that we as a team called it 90% correctly in so far that we said the following :
Ruslana was Fantastic and will win
Greece wont win
Nick predicted 5 out of the top 7
Belgium would go nowhere as would Austria.
Cyprus would do well as would Sweden
Netherlands would not be remembered
Overall not a bad week’s work (though some people will still say we got it wrong and that we can’t tell the truth about this contest)