Britain does not need to see this

Last night I risked electrocution pulling various SCART leads out of the back of my digi-box and DVD player and hammering them into the back of my old VHS recorder, which had come out of retirement especially for the television event of the summer - the launch of Big Brother 8. I wasn't prepared to miss horse-face Katie in the Apprentice over on BBC1 you see. Well, now I wonder why I bothered. Whoever had the bright idea of putting eleven girls into the Big Brother house and no men ought to be ceremoniously sacked forthwith. And just look at the state of the eleven women chosen, especially the two twins, who seem to think they are living incarnations of Barbie. I like to think I have a high pain threshold when it comes to nauseating entertainment (I sat through Cilla Black's Moment of Truth shows for example) but seeing two oddball twins scream repeatedly at each other and declare that they "love pink" is enough to make me vomit. I beg all British readers to vote them out of the house, Britain does not need to see this.

A much needed dose of schlager

It seems that ever since Sweden picked The Ark to represent them in Helsinki (and we all know how that ended), we schlager-fans have fallen upon hard times. In such barren days, we must relive past glories, so here in all their glory are 2001 Melodifestivalen winners, Friends, with their very cheesy Lyssna till ditt hjarta. Perhaps it lacks a little oomph live, but at the end of the day, you've got to love those hip-slapping, foot-tapping, swaying synchronised dance routines. The dance moves become even more impressive when you consider the costumes. Just look at those red leather trousers... the blonde in particular looks like she's been crow-barred into them. Once false move, one slip of the leg and who knows what terrible consequences might have ensued.

Play it for the girls

Danny Saucedo is back, with a new single Play it for the girls and album Heart Beats out this week. The new single has been slated all over the net for "not being catchy enough". That's rubbish, if you liked Tokyo then you'll definitely like this one too. It's similarly infectious. Unfortunately, waif-looking cheesy pop-singing Danny seems to be using the occasion of his second single to insist that he's in love with a lot of girls... hmm, methinks the boy protesteth too much. But what makes this a great song is the completely canned, cheap electronic keyboard-style drum roll as the chorus approaches. You just can't buy that sort of cheese for love nor money in the UK these days. Check it out for yourself. While you're at it, check out the luminosity of those orange underpants. You know when you've been tangoed..

play it for the girls

tokyo

The truth about my Eurovision

A few readers have emailed me out of concern, asking why, when I covered the run-up to Eurovision 2007 on my site so extensively, why did I not comment at all on the event itself? Well, the truth is about to become clear. I spent Eurovision in a state of severe drunkenness at London's finest venue... hosted by Britain's greatest drag-queen, Eb-on-knee see pic on left!


I can't actually remember a lot about the performances, other than that we were mildly pleased with the Spanish entry (I can remember them, they were on at the beginning, before my liver was overwhelmed with alcohol). I regret to say that the middle section of the contest is a blur, and all I remember about that is trying to steal this man's oversized, pink novelty glasses. My memory is a black hole at this point, but swims back into focus when the Ukraine took to the stage and at this point I remember doing a lot of dancing, a lot of cheering and almost ending up in a punch up with a couple of po-faced party-goers who looked like they'd been sucking on lemons. Of course, the highlight of the night was seeing Eb-on-knee. My sister and I are long-time devotees of Britain's greatest drag queen, so we took her a sparkly wand (albeit a cheap one from Claire's accessories) and presented her with it for the evening. Eb-on-knee whipped off her top to reveal a Union Jack corset when Scooch came on stage to sing for the UK. As I said, it's all a blur for me now. As the evening wound up and it became clear that we were going to have to listen to dreary old Serbian entry Molitva being performed as the winner, the silver lining on the cloud was that Eb-on-knee invited us to quaff champagne with her on the floor. The floor which I now remember was carpeted and pretty disgusting. Can't believe I sat on it in my favourite jeans. And as we sat quaffing champagne, the thought popped into my head to ask Eb-on-knee to record a personalised message to one of my mates on my phone, as she couldn't attend Eurovision. And here you can see the result. Look, you can even see her waving the gift we gave her. God bless her!

What might have been

Even a full week on from Eurovision, my site is still getting hit at a rate of knots by people searching for Dima Koldun, the Belarussian entrant. So I thought I'd put up the last of my photos of him.

Right: There was an air of potential mullet about Dima's haircut in the run-up to the final.

Did anyone notice that he'd had a new haircut for his performance in Helsinki? There was a certain air of the Paul Daniels magic show about his performance and the cheesy dance moves were fabulous.

Right: Poor Koldun looks none too pleased with the Belarussian delegation's attempts to give him a short back and sides.

It appears that not even appearing all over the net in various states of undress was enough to win the competition for poor Dmitry. Mind you, it was enough to take Belarus into its first ever Eurovision final and a respectable sixth position. Helped, of course, by the awarding of 12 points by Russia and Ukraine which, of course, I'm sure is nothing to do with them either bordering Belarus or being close political allies. Unbelievably, the UK gave poor Koldun zip.

Of course, he might have fared a little better than sixth place if only the draw had been a little kinder to him. As it was, Koldun performed firmly towards the start of the show and by the end, most viewers were probably too drunk to remember it. I know I was.

Right: In an attempt to liven up his magician's act performance, Dmitry rehearses backstage on how to pull his rabbit out of the hat.

Jonatan Cerrada desktop wallpaper

Who could refuse the opportunity to put Jonatan Cerrada, spiky hair and sunflowers on their Windows desktop? If you like the look of this wallpaper, then download it for free by left-clicking on it, wait til it downloads, then right-click and select set as desktop background.

Most fabulous hair in the pop world

Unless you watched the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004, you probably haven't heard of Jonatan Cerrada. He entered the contest singing for France, despite the fact that he is actually Belgian with Spanish roots. Jonatan also has the most fabulous hair to be found in the world of pop, narrowly beating Jimmy Jansson into second place. Well, until he went and shaved it all off, but the less said of that, the better. Jonatan came to notice in France when he won the French version of Pop Idol and thereafter was selected to represent France at the Contest.

If you saw the contest itself, then you surely haven't forgotten the white suit and the rather scary woman on stilts. Or the fact that Jonatan should have won, but instead wound up with 40points staring 15th position on the scoreboard in the face. But it didn't stop him going on to release his successful debut album, Siempre 23, and following it up with the equally successful La Preuve du Contraire. By way of an introduction to Jonatan, check out the videos below.

A chaque pas - The Eurovision 2004 performance. I think here we can all agree that on hair style alone, he should have walked the competition. Given it was a special occasion, he managed to achieve an even more voluminous effect than usual.


Rien ne me changera - Anybody who wishes to see Jonatan frolicking around in the desert getting sweaty by a campfire and smearing himself with what looks like oil would be well advised to check out this clip, from his first album.

Je voulais te dire que j'attends - Not quite sure about the thinking behind this clip for one of his singles from the first album. Jonatan appears to be playing the role of a peeping tom, watching the woman in the flat opposite, obsessing over her, keeping a secret stash of photographs of her in his bedroom. Look out for the court injunction soon, Jonatan.



Elle etait si jolie - Unfortunately you can't buy his performance here, duetting with fellow Pop Idol contestant Thierry Amiel.

Praying for Belarus to get through

With less than two hours to pass before the beginning of the long-awaited Eurovision semi-final in Helsinki, I would bet that there are 28 very nervous contestants preparing to give it their all on stage. Koldun will be one of many praying for their chance to make it through to the final on Saturday.

The lot of the losing semi-finalists is a tragic one. Their fate is to be known forever as mere "also-rans", valiant challengers eliminated in the earlier heats of this trashy contest. Eighteen brave thoroughbreds destined to fall at the first furlong. Within the next five hours, eighteen brave contenders will find their ship of dreams crashing spectacularly on the barren rocks of semi-final humiliation. And as you cast your eye down the list of tonight's participants, it's easy to see that some are sailing sturdier ships than others. Some of the ropier entries are only capable of sinking into the abyss.

On this cheerful note, and without further ado, here are my ten predictions on which countries will sail a steady course towards participation in Saturday's final, in no particular order:

Belarus
Turkey
Denmark
Andorra
Bulgaria (she'll get by with a little help from her neighbourly friends)
Switzerland (just about)
Serbia (look at the size of my diaspora)
Macedonia
Slovenia
Cyprus