Welcome. Here's a list straight off to get you going. What - it's a journal, you say? Ah, but isn't a journal simply a chronological
List of Things Which Have Happened
18 May 2009
More thoughts about naff music - Eurovision. And not just the music, but the politics. I watch this show not so much for the music as the fact that it's virtually the only time when the British public takes any notice of Europe. I like what is essentially a mad hyperactive geography lesson - even if to be honest most viewers will only end up with a hazy idea where some of these places are. It's an ignorance which means that a lot of the political voting goes unnoticed. We know all about Greece and Cyprus; and it's probably thanks to Cyprus not getting through to the final that the UK was the beneficiary of Greece's douze points. But since it passed by the supposedly expert commentator, I guess most won't know the background to Romania and Moldova swapping their top points, nor Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Ah - Turkey. The commentators seemed to think that the new jury system had softened the political aspect of things; that's not my perception, at least, the impact didn't go very far. And the voting changes do nothing to affect the diaspora vote, which is largely to the benefit of Turkey. Not that there aren't other diasporas, of course, but the keen Eurovision voting of Turks all around Europe is a true phenomenon. In a way, I have some sympathy for it. If I was an exile, I might well vote for my homeland. But it does seem to go much further than that. For the second year running, our top votes, 12 points, went to Turkey. It's likely that some of those votes will have been from true blooded English people, because we're like that, broad minded, and frankly the Turkish singer's costume left little to the imagination, and the song was fine. But I do kinda wish all those keen Turks would think a bit about the impression their voting gives. Of course they want their song to do well, and being in another country gives them the opportunity to vote for their own. But maybe it doesn't exactly leave the rest of Europe thinking that Turkey is the best. Maybe, as I suspect in our case, it just makes us feel that our vote has been hijacked, and although we did quite well this year, despite having an average song, a lot of people in this country will still feel disenchanted with Eurovision. Come on you Turks, show yourselves to be good Europeans, and start voting more broadly...?
However. I did say the Turkish song wasn't bad. And nor were most of the songs in the final. I thought the end result was fair enough, and like everyone else, I think Norway's song was a very worthy winner. There were still some injustices, though that's inevitable in such a mammoth event as this. I had great sympathy for Chiara from Malta. She has a terrific voice, and really should have won on one of her previous appearances. Too bad. Malta unfortunately is one of several small countries who don't have any natural 'constituency' to vote for them and hence have to be outstanding to get noticed. Of other things which continue to rankle, the long term absence of Malta's nearest neighbours Italy is highly regrettable. The annoying thing is that Italy's main complaint, about the lack of serious regard for the art of song, has been a very fair one. But perhaps after this, they may reconsider, alongside other past winners like Luxembourg. Another perennial pity is the way hosting countries exercise great skill in offering a song which appears to show effort but has no actual chance of winning. Russia's song was a case in point. They put on a fantastic show, you have to hand it to them... except that they wouldn't have thanked us at all, would they, if we'd all voted for them and obliged them to host it again next year.
Anyway, overall, things seem to be looking up for the Eurovision Song Contest. In a way, the reason it matters is precisely because it doesn't, if you see what I mean. If we're at all bothered about Europe coming together, we won't see it truly happening because political leaders schmooze in international meet ups. It'll happen because events like this take place. Now... what about a revival of It's a Knockout/Jeux Sans Frontières? Er... uh maybe not :)
3 May 2009
Oh it hurts. My legs are aching after yesterday. Not that I'd claim to be particularly fit at the moment, but I was badly caught out by my annual game of pesäpallo. Finnish baseball. It's a case of using muscles in an unfamiliar way, isn't it? (I hope it was the pesäpallo, I wouldn't care for it to be swineflu, but no one was talking about holidays in Mexico or anywhere) The Vappu picnic is a Finnish institution and happens on or around 1st May.
And the above scene showing a moment of inspiration at a Finnish quiz took place on an 'intensive' Finnish weekend a couple of weeks ago, which I've written about here. Oh, I was on the winning team but we did have a ringer ie. someone who was practically Finnish. So, lots of Finnish culture at the moment. It so happens a load of Suomi albums from favourite bands have come out recently, and I'm enjoying fabulous new songs from pintandwefall, PMMP, Vuk, and Scandinavian Music Group... you really should be searching these out if you've never heard of them. On top of that, a strange and obscure mission involving talking about a Finnish song in French has got me listening to all my Indica albums over and over... Bliss.