Losing once is not enough for some

Continuing with the theme of songs which fell before the final hurdle, here is the cautionary tale of one plucky wannabe Eurovision contender who just didn't know when to quit. For some people, one humiliating loss on national television is just not enough. They have to go back for more.

Alberta entered the Great British Song Contest in 1998 with her upbeat, pop-reggae number, Don't It Make You Feel So Good. Tragically, it didn't make the British public feel so good, and was pipped into second place by 4,000 votes. Faced with such a result, what did poor Alberta do? Determined to prove that she was capable of being beaten into second place twice, she showed up in the following year's contest, once again finishing second by only 700 votes. Still, she soon had her revenge on the public by releasing the terminally dreadful and slightly disturbing YoYo Boy. And she was never heard of again.

Here endeth the lesson, unless you wish to relive Alberta's near-moment of glory with Don't It Make You Feel So Good.

You stayed away too long

Good Eurovision entries are a bit like buses. You wait sixteen years for a good one to arrive and then suddenly two arrive at once. That was the case in 1997, when Joanne May showed up on Song For Europe (or the Great British Song Contest, whatever they decided to call it that year.) Of course, we all know that Katrina won that year and went on to win the contest. But Joanne had a great song too.
You Stayed Away Too Long was the forerunner of Jessica Garlick's Come Back. Not a lot is known about Joanne actually, other than that she originated from a small town near Bolton and finished third in the contest. British televoters dealt her the ultimate humiliation of being pipped even by the ridiculous Yodel in the Canyon of Love. No wonder she was never heard of again, I should imagine the poor girl never recovered.

They wuz robbed (part I)

In these bleak months between Eurovision 2007 and the start of the national finals for 2008, there is precious little for Eurovision fans to cheer about. So I have decided to relive a few past semi-triumphs. These are songs wot should have won but were cruelly left for dead at the foot of the scoreboard.

The subject of my first post is Hello from Mars, the 2003 entry from Latvia. F.L.Y. were a fusion of Latvian talent from a number of different groups, formed especially for the contest. Plenty of promise on paper. And as host nation, the chances of a top ten finish looked convincing. What a tragedy that as the final votes were cast, poor Latvia were found languishing in 24th place with only five points, donated kindly by their Baltic neighbour, Estonia. The song was pretty good though, once you get over the complete lack of continuity in the lyrics and the frequent lapses off-key. In fact, come to think of it, there are three compelling reasons why this should have won.

Firstly, I would challenge anyone to get such fabulous whites using ordinary non-bio powder. Though Westlife may consider themselves to be patron saints of the white tuxedo, in any duel of laundrymanship, the brilliance of F.L.Y's whites would quite probably have blinded them.

Secondly, dancing in a two-man, one-girl trio is actually quite an arduous task - especially if that girl happens to be a rather weighty lesbian in high heels who has managed to steamroller her way between you and your boyfriend on the G-A-Y dance floor. But is there any other group on this planet which manage to pull it off as well as F.L.Y.? Every conceivable combination of cheesy three-way dance move is used to crowd-pleasing effect.

Thirdly, it is no secret that many of life's most pleasurable acts are performed while on the knees, and this is no exception. The fact that one third of F.L.Y. finishes up gasping on the floor only adds to the spectacle. Bravo, man!

Relive the pleasure of the peformance below. And if you like it enough to listen to it in tune, click Hello from Mars for it.

Shake it, shake it, make it alright

If you tuned into 1994's far-from-classic Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, you will remember them. They were like an all-female version of the Village People. Mekado performed what many regard as Germany's 'last decent entry' to the competition. Wir Geben 'Ne Party was a camp little disco number, with a dance routine involving lots of hand-clapping, thigh-slapping, head-twisting choreography. And where did it get out plucky German trio? Only third place! Surely one of the greatest Eurovision travesties of all time. Relive the good times here and imagine what might have been.



I propose three cheers for this fabulous teutonic trio! They say good things come in threes, so here are three things you never knew and possible never cared about Mekado

1. The name Mekado was taken from merging the first names of the girls in question. Melanie is the one with black hair who often appears to draw inspiration for her outfits from an S&M catalogue. Katie is the tall blonde who has always disturbed me purely by having an unnatural distance between her eyes. Dorkas is the brunette who appeared on stage at Eurovision in what appeared to be a sailor suit constructed purely from her grandmother's crochet kit.

2. Dorkas went on to continue being a successful star in Germany and is now more blonde than Katie (the one with the dodgy eyes, sorry - can't get past that)

3. The group went on to release a full album, titled We're Giving A Party (Should've sacked the translator, girls). It's now out of production, but you can pick it up on Ebay if you're a shrewd bidder. Here's a taster of what the album includes. Good Morning I Love You is a slow pop number which gets catchy after the third listen. There's even a slight whiff of a key change towards the end.

Who puts the Fab into Fabrizio?

It's an exciting time in the fabulous land of trashy pop, because Fabrizio Faniello, or 'Fab', if I might be so bold, has released a double Greatest Hits pack, called Hits & Clips. That's right, you get a CD of his Fab's most fabulous hits plus a dvd of his video clips (minus that performance of I Do in Eurovision 2006!)

Fab's been a regular runner in the Maltese Eurovision pre-selections no less than seven times since 1998. Twice he's finished in first place, but occasionally he's fallen at the final furlong. His Greatest Hits pack is perfect for playing before you head out for a night on the town. Having done a bit of webtrawling, I've found a taster of what you can expect:

Love me or leave me
I'm in love (the whistle song)
Love on the radio

Three cheers for Fab and his camp, shirt-unbuttoned, air-punching dance pop. If you want to buy a physical copy, Amazon Germany is your best hope. In the spirit of celebration, I'm offering this free Fabrizio desktop wallpaper. Click the image on the left, wait until it downloads, then right click and set as desktop background.

Return of the hair

These exciting photos reveal that Jonatan Cerrada has seen the error of his brief dalliance with a hair shaver and has returned his hair to its former glory days of his volumous spikiness, just in time for the release of his third album which will happen soon (well, sometime after July). We can all be relieved at this. Let's revel for a moment in this good news by staring gratuitously at some of the latest photos. If he keeps growing it at this rate, it will soon reach the heady heights of the overgrown-bush proportions achieved at Eurovision.

Yet more of Koldun

It's hard to believe that almost a month on from the Eurovision Song Contest, I'm still getting so many visitors to the blog from people searching for Dima Koldun. So I decided to put up a few more photos of him. If only those web visitors had picked up their phones and voted for him, we might not have had to endure a reprise of Molitva at the end of the show.

Koldun gets a visit from schlager royalty - Queen Carola herself. Isn't she tiny? Or isn't he strapping?

Rehearsing the Paul Daniels magician moves before Helsinki performance.

I've never seen anybody accessorize this well with a pink pillowcase.

Koldun enjoys a visit from Rosie Palmer and her five sons.

Three steps to a textbook Koldun moody pose. 1: Back yourself up against a door. 2: Tuck fingers into your (girly) white belt and look tense 3: Tilt your head at 40 degrees and give it some teeth.

No wonder there are all sorts of rumours circulating about what goes on below deck aboard the Good Ship Koldun. All the nice boys love a sailor.

Frodo left the shire wearing his best hobbit bling.

Can you tell what it is yet? Koldun does his Rolf Harris impression.

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.

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.

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

Uncensored BWO action

The schlagerboys were the first to discover it, but it seems as though Bodies Without Organs are about to make some kind of breakthrough in the UK. Yesterday I was hanging around the flat, waiting for the builders to finish fitting my new kitchen when I heard the trilling of BWO's Chariots of Fire on Hits TV. I like the song, but it's not their best if you ask me, and the video is a bit dull. And what were they thinking of, superimposing Martin's face onto a bulldog? The resulting cross-breed looks a bit like the ugly one from D'Nash. In truth, I don't believe they've picked the right song to make their break into the UK market. It should have been Open Door, and in particular, the disco version.

The really big BWO news, of course, is that their new album will be called Fabricator and is set for release in September of this year. Before that, a single will be released, probably in Sweden, called Save My Pride. Does the title sound familiar? Yes, it's largely the same song as recorded by Alcazar on their Dancefloor Deluxe album, although apparently it's been remixed and re-jigged for added fabulousness. The Alcazar version did have the potential for greatness which BWO may be able to exploit. That's if they tear up and throw away the ridiculous lyrics. Well, if nothing else, we can at least hope for another video with Martin Rolinski looking as delectable as he did in the Open Door video which, incidentally, happens to bear more than a passing resemblance to the video for Adam Rickitt's I Breathe Again. You can compare them both here.
By the way, whatever neo-conservative flagged some of Rickitt's videos as 'Adult Content' on YouTube seriously needs to get out more. This is censorship gone mad!

Bodies Without Organs - Open Door (Disco Version)

Adam Rickitt - I Breathe Again

Must do better: Two which won't make it through the semi-final

1. Stevan Faddy (Montenegro) -Ajde Kroči


Stevan appears to be under the delusion that it's still the 1980s. Trashy old rock songs are still fashionable, as are tan jackets with unfathomably large lapels. Let me tell you now, they're not. Even if you try to make it look a bit edgier by leaving the cuffs undone. Stevan spends much of his time waving his elbows and hands about, pointing at the camera, looking pained. Somebody give him a guitar or a microphone to hold - anything to stop his arm twitching.

As much as I would like to see a return to the days when every country sang in their own national language instead of English, this song is strong evidence to the contrary.
And no, not even claiming you've got strong links to Scotland is going to get you any points from the UK.

2. Magdi Rúzsa (Hungary) - Unsubstantial Blues

Misguided people are raving about this on YouTube. But I'm not. "Why did you leave me?" trills Magdi in her whimsical attempt to imitate Amy Winehouse. Well, I can think of a few reasons why he left you, love. Firstly, you're a bit heavy-handed with the old slap-on, aren't you? Bit over zealous with the war-paint? This woman likes to trowel on mascara like a mason trowels on cement. Secondly, your gravelly voice sounds like nails down a blackboard and you needs to suck some throat lozenges, quickly. And another thing, you're crap at housework. If you want to get your man back, you'd better start by picking up the litter you've got strewn across the floor of your flat, because let's face it, nobody wants to live in a pigsty. Unsubstantial blues? More like unsubstantial effort.

Dima Koldun back by popular demand!

After a stampede of visitors to the blog following my recent exclusive, I have decided to give the audience more of what they want, namely more Dima Koldun photos. As you can see here, even a routine morning shower can become a photo opportunity when your goal is Eurovision glory.

Left: "Can I have the results of the internet juries?" After using the shower head as a telephone, one can only wonder what he did with the soap.

It's hard to predict who will win in Helsinki and I would be sceptical about trusting the many Eurovision polls online, for the simple reason that they allow voters to award 1-12 points, whereas in reality, people will only vote for their favourite song, not for several. But let's see where Koldun stands in the major Eurovision polls. At present, all signs point towards a top 5 finish. At escnation, Belarus is rated fifth by the voters and fourth by the juries. It's a similar story at soult and at the demandi website, where English-speaking voters have ranked Belarus in fifth position. The highest current rating for Koldun appears to be found in the escstats poll, where voters rank Belarus in third position and juries rank him second to Greece.

Left: After all this number crunching, Dima needs a lie-down.

Moving further afield, will Koldun be able to rely on any neighbourly voting to push his quest for glory onwards? Well, not necessarily, if the escestonia poll is anything to go by, where he is in seventh place. This is up one place from last week though. There doesn't look much hope from Poland either, as eurowizja places him only in eighth position.

So what does all this mean? All signs appear that Koldun will make it through the semi-final into the final. We all know what a good record the successful semi-finalists have in the final itself, so a top five finish is likely. A win is also possible, although this will depend on the performance on the night.

You can help cheer on Koldun in Helsinki by downloading this free, original wallpaper for your desktop. Simply left click on the image, wait til it appears, then right click and set as desktop background. And remember to vote for him on the night!

Bookmark me: More Dima Koldun to come!

Londonboy79 welcomes 500th visitor!

This afternoon, my fabulous site welcomed its 500th visitor in the space of three weeks! That of course is due to a large weight of visitors coming here over the last few days to check out the gratuitous photos of Dima Koldun which I put up here. And by way of a treat for my readers, keep this page bookmarked, because I am about to reveal another hot Koldun exclusive! In the meantime, let's see if his Eurovision entry Work your magic sounds as good in Russian as it does in English!

Video fabulousness from Macedonia

At last, this is what a Eurovision video should look like! It's Macedonia's Karolina and her entry, Mojot Svet, which poor Karolina has controversially been forced to sing entirely in Macedonian. But look at the video, it has all the key ingredients of trashy, pop fabulousness - Glitter and ticker-tape raining down from the skies! A wind machine! And glitterballs, big glitterballs, more glitterballs than your wildest dreams could hope for! Swamped in all this trashy paraphenalia when watching this, you can almost forget that the song isn't as catchy as it really should be. Let's hope Macedonia makes it into the final!

It's getting hot in here... gratuitous shots of Dima Koldun

Separated at birth? Not quite, but you'd be forgiven for getting them mixed up. One of these two men is singing for Belarus in Helsinki, and the other one is a has-been from last year's UK Big Brother. Ahh, they know all about Big Brother in Belarus you know, currently named by the USA as one of the last outposts of tyranny. I discovered on the internet today that Belarus has more police officers per head than any other country in Europe.

I tipped Dima Koldun for Eurovision success some weeks ago on this very blog and I'm tempted to vote for him on the night, not just for his catchy rock-pop number, but also to see the look on EBU faces when they realise that next year's contest will be staged in Belarus. As if he wasn't already one of the favourites to win in Helsinki, I have noticed a sudden trend on the web, namely his appearance all over the net in various stages of undress, including a rather suspicious shot of him hosing himself down with a common garden hose. Mind you, with temperatures soaring in the UK this Easter weekend, we could all do with a bit of that. Purely in the name of research, let's take a look at this latest publicity push by the Belarussian contender for the Eurovision crown.

Left: As temperatures soar, Dima loses control of his hose

My diaspora's bigger than yours...

Marija Serifovic (the one on the right) will be singing a dreary old ballad for Serbia in Helsinki. And in some polls, her sleep-inducing effort is tipped to be a front runner. I hope not, because it's so plodding and dull that I almost slipped into a coma when I tried to listen to the whole thing.

Even more worrying than that, in order to manipulate the voting, it appears that she'll be relying on Serb televoters living outside Serbia to phone in and vote for her. I read at doteurovision today that apparently a Serbian government official has called on Serb televoters outside the country to call in and support her, regardless of what the other songs are like. According to doteurovision, Marija "thanked the minister for his support".

In my opinion, this is exactly what Eurovision doesn't need. It's supposed to be a song and performance contest. Not a "my diaspora's bigger than yours" contest. And neighbourly voting doesn't need any encouragement anyway, it's already thriving. Good grief, whatever happened to good old British notions of fair play and simply voting for the best song on the night, rather than blindly voting on the basis of nationality!

Having read this news, I definitely won't be voting for this entry. In fact, you could stick a thumping electro beat behind it, make her sing three times faster, add a key change and a cheesy dance routine, and I still wouldn't vote for her.

Deirdre's your drama queen tonight

While watching poor Deirdre on Coronation Street this week coping with the fact that her husband-battering daughter Tracy has just been sent down to do bird in one of Her Majesty's prisons, it occured to me that long-suffering Deirdre has become one of soap's tragic figures. After all, she did a spell in prison herself after being implicated in her ex-husband's fraudulent activities. At least things are looking up for Deirdre, as she's been selected to represent the Ukraine at this year's Eurovision Song Contest. To avoid being spotted in Helsinki, she's taken to wrapping herself up in bacofoil like a Thanksgiving turkey. And see the way she has covered up those straining neck ligaments with a fur trimmed Ukrainian hoodie. The spectacles gave it away though. But after performing this mad-cap entry, let's just hope that poor Deirdre Barlow/Rachid doesn't end up facing another spell at Her Majesty's pleasure.