by Richard A » Sun May 14, 2023 1:34 pm
I wasn't impressed with the song either: she was channelling Abba but not that well. Finland was better, but still not brilliant. And we liked Portugal; I also thought Norway deserved better it got. Mae did a good job for the UK (a lot better than some of the entries), but if a country goes to great efforts to tell Europe to piss off, you can't complain if they return the favour. And at least the juries gave us more than they gave Germany - I'm glad Arneb recognises just how truly awful Germany's entry was. Czechia was better if you watched the subtitles for the lyrics, but few entries in anything other than English have ever won. (A deserving exception, fitting the Eurovision of the times, was in German, as Arneb may remember - although I thought the subsequent German-Dutch version even better.)
But there were some interesting political notes. Greece only gave Cyprus 4 points - normally, the mutual exchange of 12 points is a Eurovision given. Mind you, Heid got it right about the song: Meh. And Ukraine didn't do anything like as well as I expected. But then, not only is the war not as "fresh", this year's entry was nowhere as good as the Kalush Orchestra served up last time.
And the pictures of the Eurovision celebrations around Europe as people were voting answered a question that had been in my mind from the beginning. The parade of Ukrainian stars at the beginning made me wonder, to plagiarise from Austria, where the hell is Ruslana? The answer turned out to be, in Kyiv leading the home party. Which reminds me of another star appearance of hers, which I'll put on Last Music Video You Watched shortly.