eurovision 2010: great music, shadows fall

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I've just finished watching the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Norway's Telenor Stadium in Bærum, a suburb of its capital, Oslo. My own predictions panned - the Netherlands never made it through to the final, and Spain ended fifteenth, despite having the opportunity to play twice due to a stage-invasion during their first attempt that I'd thought was part of the act.

It was very enjoyable, and I'd like to bring you what I thought was the best of the music - while looking at shadows that sometimes seemed to be lurking behind the industrial joy of what I'd hoped would be an uncomplicated night.

I don't think I'm applying for a stay in the Tower of London for saying that Britain's entry in this year's Eurovision was even a bigger turkey than Turkey (who did field one of their biggest bands, but disappointed with the absence of the usual belly-dancing act).

Manga (the band) is big in Turkey, and other countries were fielding artists who had written songs, recorded albums, and one even owned a recording studio. It would be churlish to suggest that the ten points given to Josh Debovie - landing us in 25th place out of 25 - it has to be said that the song is something I'd expect to hear Redcoats welcoming holidaymakers to Butlins with, or in a quondam Gang Show; I suspect it's not even sophisticated enough to make it into a franchise movie of the High School Musical genre. Maxima said it all when she commented that Jedward would have made a better job.

Last year's show in Russia was, it seems in a different world where lavish productions were possible - although news broke today that the expense may have put paid to Russia's chances of televising the World Cup. Given that the Russian show pulled Eurovision back from death by public apathy due to a tainted voting system, it was sad to hear booing when Russia was awarded points for Peter Nalitch and Friends' Lost and Forgotten, as the tale of lost love with a penitential streak was a really good piece and, like many songs this year, of an above average standard. Here they are at the finals of the contest to find a song for Russia:




Not that we were the only turkey, and this was when one started to see shadows. Giorgos Alkaios and Friends did a taverna-style dance routine that was pretty minimalistic in terms of costumes and background. Perhaps this was at the best as denizens of the northern Euro area, not least Germans, might have ended up asking their politicians what exactly they were contemplating mortgaging their future to. Likewise, the Serbian entry's chorus was "Balkan, Balkan, the Balkans!" and I wondered if the singer realised he was singing about the land the generation above him had gone a-slaughtering through.

On the other hand, Ukraine's Alyosha was much more demure live than in her video. An environmentalist from the land of Ukraine, she made no fatuous references to polar bears or ice but looked (in part) at the relationship between video games and the violence sweeping the world. This is from an earlier BBC recording showcasing the songs for Europe:




There was certainly no shortage of songs in English - but if this is an indication of the language's global ascendancy, in Eurovision terms the victory is a pyrrhic one. The cultural diversity that the European Broadcasting Union was set up to celebrate has lost out. Interestingly, however, Armenia's Eva Rivas got round this by sining, in English, a song themed around the country's national symbol, the apricot, which gives its colour to the flag's lower bar. There was a flurry of protest in Turkey about possible references to its genocide of Armenians in 1915, but it's not clear that the lyrics bear that out, and in any case Turkey gave Armenia 6 points. Rivas performs the song here in the second semi-final - note Jivan Gasparyan playing duduk (traditional Armenian flute) - at 83, he's the oldest musician to accompany a Eurovision act on stage.




Not to be outdone in the field of eminent musicians, Albania's Juliana Pasha was accompanied by Italian violinist Olen Cesari, who had recently played for the Pope, in It's all about you. Like a cross between Debbie Harry and Maddy Prior, she perhaps hoped that by going barefoot on stage she could emulate Sandy Shaw's winning performance with Puppet on a String in 1967. But even Cesari's heroic efforts couldn't rescue the song from its own mediocrity, which might have been disguised somewhat had it been sung in Albanian: so, as a hint of this was featured in the introduction to Oslo 10, I feel unashamed of bringing you Ms Shaw!




Later that year, Israel would launch a pre-emptive attack on Egypt fuelled by proof that the country was, with the help of all Israels neighbours and Arab lands from further afield, going to do the dirty first. If, in gaining Gaza, Israel is an occupying country, then it's probably the most benign occupier since Cyrus the Great. The burden of this is apparent in much of modern Israeli culture, and its 2010 Eurovision entry - sung, refreshingly, in the country's own language - is no exception: I think it'll take a while to unravel all the meanings contained, onion-like, in Milim, a love-song sung by Harel Skaat:




Belarus' entry, Butterflies, again sung in English, could have been a bit more rehearsed for pronunciation, and given that Eurovision posts translations of every song online would have lost nothing fron being sung in Belarusian or Russian. But they had an innovation towards the end of the song that announcer Graham Norton said would have every girl under eight shouting "I want one!" The video was great, but seeing how they represented the special effects live was sublime:





Ireland must have been another country watching Greece very closely, because my Irish friends tell me that back home they're not pleased that, after making such sacrifices in personal and work terms to mitigate the financial crisis in Europe, they are having to watch richer countries prepare to bail out Greece, which helped found the EU's instability by cooking the books in the first place. But Niamh Kavanagh, who won Eurovision for the Emerald Isle in 1993 - again an established star singing a song strong enough to storm any hit parade - gave a first-class performance with It's for You, another song this year looking beyond the precarious value of things to deeper truths.




Given that Belgium's French- and Flemish-speaking populations could be on the track for a messy divorce, it was perhaps wise of Tom Dice to sing Me and My Guitar in English. More than this, however, it was significant that a man alone on the stage with a guitar, helped just a little by strings on a backing track, should come 6th. Is this an indication that Europeans are rejecting showiness, or even setting their faces towards a new austerity?



Poor old Portugal has never won the contest despite, like Ireland, consistently sending great singers with great songs: this year Filipa Azevedo with a sentiment I know well: Há Dias Assim - It's One of those Days.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQI4X4BL4Qw

Germany's Lena was this year's Eurovision, with a throwaway pop tune that will be sung by young girls across the continent because it will annoy parents, especially Dads. Consider: "I went everywhere for you/I even did my hair for you/I bought new underwear that’s blue...I even painted my toenails for you..." 'Nuff said. The 19-year-old's enthusiastically-applied lipstick reminded me of what we used to call in quondam Glasgow "Jubilee lips" after the colour the ghastly iced concoction of that name, composed mostly of deep red food-colouring, would leave one's kisser.

The scoring was interesting: after French premier Nicholas Sarkozy humiliated Germany's Angela Merkel with a table-thumping tantrum over differences in how to overcome the crisis precipitated by Greece, the two countries awarded each other a lukewarm 3 points in the scoring; while Greece, having vented its spleen at having been found out in its own murderous tantrum, gave Germany, its potential financial saviour, 2 points in return for 8.

That said, the result was that a delighted girl won a prestigious contest, and this was her night. Here she is receiving the trophy:

blogosphere "thank-you's"

Risa from Isramom has been kind enough to tip me in an internet meme that was started on Adventures in Mamaland. I enjoy Risa's blog because she presents life in Israel as a series of everyday occurences in a religious Jewish family in the Holy Land, free from the accretions of gentiles like me who can write a blogpost then go to work in a Merry England wherein one can still perform the basic tasks of living without risk to life and limb. Thanks for the kind words, Risa; much appreciated.

These are the rules of the meme:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.


2. Share one thing about yourself readers might not know otherwise.


3. List six (6) bloggers you think are fantastic, and say why.


4. Contact the bloggers you've picked, and let them know about the award.

One thing about me that regulars to the Draughty Old Fen might not know is that I'm addicted to cheese. So much so that last night, I NEEDED cheese so much that I stole some of Maxima's white stilton with bits of fruit in it, which she buys because nobody else in the house likes it. She confronted me and asked me why I took it. I replied that I took it because it was the only cheese in the house. I'm still on probation.

Here are six bloggers I think are fantastic:

Firstly, Naomi Litvin. The author of We Never Lost Hope: a Holocaust Memoir and Love Story, she critiques antisemitism and the contradictions of modern society in a manner that is no less forensic for being literary. I like her because, as the father of girls, I am grateful for the spotlight she shines - with David Appletree of the Jewish Internet Defence Force - upon Facebook.

My second choice is Linda, an American home-schooling Mom and photographer who writes passionately and frankly about the joys and miseries of life, love and standing her ground as a staunchly pro-life Roman Catholic. Her blog, Don't Poke the Baby, is as unmissable for her lyrical wisdom as it is for her photography.

Ellee Seymour is a Press Consultant and journalist who blogs about both national affairs and the minutiae of her beloved East of England. The reason she's my third choice is that I admire the inner security that allows her to praise people with whose views she disagrees when she feels praise is due. Another reason I admire her is that she's a supporter of Headway, a charity that helps people get over head injuries.

John Smeaton, SPUC Director is the blog of the head of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. He writes for people from all political and religious backgrounds and none who are concerned for members of groups vulnerable to Establishment anti-life prejudices - the unborn, pregnant women, people suffering from after-effects of abortion that aren't recognised as existing, the terminally ill, people with chronic physical/mental illnesses,older people - to name just a few. I chose him because I have uneding admiration for the tightrope he walks by praising members of the Establishment who are brave enough to defend members of these groups, while critiquing enemies of the vulnerable, who are often members of the same Establishment groups.

Lorena lives on a ranch in Texas, and on Lorena's Blog you can find photos of the most exquisite quality. Her blogs, centred on family and animals with the occasional review, are well worth the read.

Lastly, but by no means leastly, I first heard of Naomi Litvin's blog through David Appletree's world-famous blog, The Jewish Internet Defense Force, which provides a voice for Jews in the US and worldwide at a time when many vested interests would have this voice extinguished. More than this, though, if you're not Jewish and/or haven't heard of David, keep an ear open: as Facebook falls, I think you'll hear his name as one of the brave who spoke out against the exploitative network when it could do no wrong in the eyes of the Mainstream Media.

Again, a big thank-you to Risa. It's one thing to get a badge for political blogging, but to be tipped by somebody who likes to read what you have to say is on an entirely different level. And, as the time when I can only blog occasionally as other things demand my time fast approaches, it's something I'll never forget.

Daniel Zeichner, that salute and a bizarre exchange

Old Holborn is an independent libertarian candidate for Cambridge who dresses as Guy Fawkes, including mask.

The reason I mention him is that he appears to have been the first person to have posted a picture of the city's Labour candidate Daniel Zeichner performing a revolting gesture during a debate at the Cambridge Union. Zeichner, giving his opinion of the Polish Law and Justice Party with which the Conservative Party in Europe is allied by giving a Nazi salute. This is yet another instance of the blogosphere leading the news agenda.

Zeichner referred to the incident at a hustings ran by the Stop the War Coalition at which Old Holborn was also present and - according to minutes - found it necessary to point out very early on, in a conversation that was heading in sinister directions, "80% of Conservative MPs and 40% of Labour MPs are signed up as friends of Israel. Only Israel has more Jewish MPs than Britain." The hustings was also attended by Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats, Martin Booth of Cambridge Socialists, Simon Sedgewick-Jell (representing Tony Juniper) of the Green Party and Daniel Zeichner. Conservative candidate Nicholas Hillman was speaking at another engagement.

Zeichner was lucky enough, given his recent history, to arrive right at the end of the section of questions on Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Soon after, though, the following bizarre exchange took place between Zeichner and a photographer standing at the front:

Photo:
How does Daniel Zeichner square what he says with his membership of Labour Friends of Israel?
DZ
I’m not a member.
Photo
I have information that you are.
DZ
I’m not.
Member of public to photographer: “sit down!”
Photo
I withdraw my previous comment, as my knowledge is not sufficient – what did you mean by “forces outside our control?”
DZ
My Dad was born in the 1930s in Vienna, and was driven out by the Nazis. I’m not Jewish, but my Dad lived in Vienna at a time when it was wise to get out.
The photographer turned to the seats and said "I want to reassure everybody I’m not anti-Jewish", then he and the member of the public who’d told him to sit down accused each other of wanting to direct the meeting before the Chair regained control.

As a member of both Conservative Friends of Israel and Anglican Friends of Israel, I'm curious: what's so wrong in being a friend of Israel? We deserve to know.

All of the minutes are very interesting - click to read them here. I'm sure that anybody who wants to take issue with them can refer to the video of the event filmed by Cambridge Socialists.

top ten songs about women's week

Click here to view top ten songs about Women's Week for 56k modems or slow broadband

I first became aware of Festa delle Donne (Women's Day) in the 1980s in Italy, which is quite appropriate as that is where it appears to have begun. At the end of the Second World War, it was decided to consolidate several days celebrating women in March, some with roots in antiquity, in March 8. I remember going to university and seeing just about all of the women wearing flowers on their coats - small, white flowers, I wish I could remember the name.

March 8 is still, of course, International Women's Day, but it has accrued a whole week around it, which this year lasts from Saturday 5 March to Saturday 12 March, with the day itself in the middle on the Tuesday. And, as a bonus, Women's World Day of Prayer on the inaugural day, Saturday March 5, focussing on Cameroon.

I'd been planning a Top Ten pertaining to women for some time, because I looked at my music collection and saw that there were few women fronting a band or singing solo there: Carole Fredericks, Ulanda McCulloch and Bonnie Tyler, for example, and, of course, Cambridge-born songstress EJ Norman (right - click to hear her music). Is collecting music by other blokes something men do when we graduate from stamps?

It's not an idle question: last night I had a bath, which among other things affords me the only opportunity I get to read for a prolonged time, and had BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on the shower radio. Having the germ of this blog in my head, it shocked me that well over an hour passed between hearing one female vocalist and the next, despite there certainly being no dearth of good music written and/or performed by women. If this phenomenon is threaded through the fabric of society, is it possible that, say, all-women shortlists to select Prospective Parliamentary Candidates - which I've always felt vaguely uncomfortable with but are supported by many including Ellee Seymour - are the way ahead?

On the other hand, the opposite situation doesn't pertain with Maxima: although she certainly listens to more female vocalists than me - like Diana Ross, Nancy Griffiths and Katie Melua - she also has in her collection The Jam and the Police (with their respective solo leaders Paul Weller and Sting), Madness and Planxty, as well as her family's favourites such as Guy Mitchell and Tommy Steele. (And Buddy Holly. Being a Buddy Holly fan makes life easier in our house.)

Making a list for this post, I found myself trying to identify only pieces sung by women but also composed by women, and wondered if I were unconsciously applying a sort of gender-apartheid? The thing is, if I am, I am therefore part of the problem and will be unable to appreciate it from the outside. I'm confused...

10 - what men think women think

I can only ever write this post from the outside, so here's Nick Lowe with Girls' Talk, showing how men can be paranoid about women when there aren't even any present.




9 - self-assurance

Beverley Knight released this recently with Chaka Khan, and these lines go right to the heart:

Where's the man to quantify
Everything I'm worth and who I am?
He should look me in the eye
Tell me where he figures in my plan...!





8 - remembrance and sorrow

Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel Imitation of Life was filmed twice, the 1934 version being eclipsed by the 1959 one - which I remember watching with my Mum in the late 1970s: here Mahalia Jackson sings at the funeral of the black woman who brought up a white girl who didn't quite appreciate the worth of her foster-mother until it was too late.




7 - remembrance and joy




6 - the girl he left behind

All around my Hat was originally written from the viewpoint of a minor English criminal sent to Australia for several years, but here legendary folk singer Sandy Denny fronts Steeleye Span in turning it round so that the girl he leaves behind will wear a ribbon in her hat for "a twelve-month and a day".



5 - sticking with it

French singer/songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman (who wrote for Céline Dion before she started singing in English) found himself surfing TV channels one night and was suddenly faced with a documentary called "Far West", part of which dealt with a group of nuns in the delivery suite of a maternity hospital. He was amazed by the footage and wrote a song that he performed with the supergroup he formed with his chums Michael Jones and the late, great Carole Fredericks, to whom this video is dedicated.



4 - incertitude?

Nena (Gabriele Kerner) released 99 red balloons (or luftballone) in 1983, not long after a British TV survey of the concerns of schoolchildren revealed nuclear war to be their greatest fear. Towards the end of the video, set on an army assault course in Germany (the father of one of the band members was a NATO colonel), if the band look distressed, it's because they were: unscripted gasoline bombs were exploding around them. But it made for a good video.




3 - identity

Here Gali Atari, who won the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing Alleluia wih Milk and Honey, sings of the joy and the pain of belonging to a place one cannot separate oneself from.



2 - What have they done to the weather?

Originally released as Weather Song, writer Malvina Reynolds wanted to highlight the effects of nuclear testing, which - reports the Telegraph's Bonnie Malkin, is still bearing bad news to the Aboriginies of the Australian outback. For a while, this became the anthem of a generation sufficiently secure behind their countries' nuclear deterrents to call for said deterrents' dismantling. (See the passionate support of the recently demised Labour leader Michael Foot for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which he helped found.) Here it's sungby one of the most beautiful voices of all time, Judith Durham, with of course the Seekers.




1 -trust

When Minima asked to play this at the start of an Advent course and I heard the first few lines, I thought it was time to hide behind my hands; but I hadn't trusted her enough - just over halfway through the song by Nashville-based Christian band Zoegirl, the lyrics develop to completely change the meaning of the piece.



If you enjoyed this, click here for more Top ten songs about...

top tips for Tuesday

Vicar and blogger David Keen gives lots of reasons to give up blogging for Lent. I'm not contemplating a Lenten fast from cyberspace, but with more things competing with my time something's got to give, and after the shouting's done over here that might be the blogging. I found reason (4) very compelling, but the killer quote was from Reginald Foster - that we should fast from what we sense is becoming a compulsion.

Revd Bosco Peters of the Liturgy blog wrote a post on Shrove Tuesday and its relation to Mardi gras and, as Ash Wednesday approaches, here's his reflection on the day's Collect and observing Lent.

I've read Rabbi Shai Specht's one-line explanation of the month of Adar as "the Jewish Mardi Gras" - here Risa from Isramom wishes everybody a Happy Adar!

Labour MP David Wright has got himself into a bit of a pickle. A tweet in his name referred to his political opponents as "scum-sucking pigs" ("if you put lipstick on scum-sucking pigs they're still scum-sucking pigs" - an obviously irresistable dig at Sarah Palin). If he'd put his hand up and said it was a stupid mistake we'd all have moved onto the next gaffe, but instead he seemed simultaneously to defend the remark as "legitimate comment" and claim that his twitter account had been hacked, turning the issue into one of ministerial propriety. Here, TotalPolitics director Iain Dale reproduces a letter from Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservative Party, asking him to answer several questions on the affair.

We've just had Valentine's Day, and this is the most poignant image I could find posted on that day: a US military nurse whispering into the ear of an unconscious Canadian soldier as they fly him to a hospital base in Afghanistan. May God be with all the Coalition troops as they roll out Operation Moshtaraq.

Seth Godin explains how companies racking up as many followers as possible on Facebook etc are on a hiding to nothing compared with viral growth of an idea or product starting from a very small base.

The name of Elie Wiesel has been sorely misused in the climate debate, therefore I recommend you help restore the balance by following David Appletree of the Jewish Internet Defense Force's advise on his new project, the Advisory Board of the Algemeiner.

Fr Tim of the Hermeneutic of Continuity writes on the Pope's encouragement of priests to use the opportunities afforded by new media, and includes a YouTub video entitled "Why am I a Catholic"?

Richard Normington worries about where the people who thought up the name for the UK's military satellite system got their inspiration from.

"We're supposed to talk to meat?". Sci-fi author Terry Bisson posts the correct version of a legendary short story of his that has been orbiting around cyberspace.

top tips for Tuesday

Revd Bosco Peters from the Church of New Zealand, part of the Anglican Communion, reflects on a classic 1970s paper on social networking to look at the strengths and weaknesses of Sola Scriptura, the Reformation doctrine that everything one needs for a Christian life is contained in the Christian Bible.

Naomi Litvin, author of Holocaust memoir and love story We Never Lost Hope, investigates the John Birch Society, which was instrumental in keeping Jews out of country clubs but disappeared up its own paranoia, and finds a sinister wall of silence. Be sure to check out Part Two of this intriguing search by clicking the link at the bottom of the post.

Nick Hillman, PPC (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) for the city of Cambridge, gives a diary providing a fascinating insight into a week in the immediate run-up to the general election campaign. I felt tired after reading this.

Government members got an answer to Stalin's question as to the whereabouts of the Pope's divisions recently when Pope Benedict XVI made a dramatic intervention reminding Britain that equality is not an end in itself while Harriet Harman's (Minister of Equality) Equality Bill was going through Parliament. The result: the clause in the Bill, which would have forced all the Christian denominations in the country to admit gay people, transexuals and atheists to the priesthood, regardless of their views on these matters, was dropped without recourse to the Parliament Act - which was used to ensure hunting with hounds was banned - to force it through. Here Fr Tim of The Hermeneutic of Continuity provides a link to a petition in support of His Holiness' visit to Britain. He has shown himself capable of walking in his predecessor's shoes, and I recommend you sign it.

The Big Picture (News Stories in Pictures) reminds us that dogs and sleds have been prominently figured in the news recently, and provides 30 beautiful pics of dogs, snow and sleds. Depending on the speed of your modem, may take a while to load.

The media noise about a banker being caught in flagrante cyberdelictus ogling a naked model while his colleague was being interview appeared to have drowned out Vodafone's embarrassment over an obscene Tweet coming from one of its employees during working time, but the latter case seems to have sent more bloggers rushing to their keyboards. In the light of the Vodafone kerfuffle, Fresh Networks presents managers whose employees may have to use social media with a guide to getting them used to the new communications media.

It's neither Exodus nor Deuteronomy, but this list of The 10 Commandments of Political Blogging from The Conservative Blog is an essential guide from an experienced blogger.

David Blackburn of the Spectator Arts Blog regrets that J.D. Salinger may have taken his autobiographical secrets with him.

Artist Edward Rawson is the son of Ian Rawson, Managing Director of the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti. Rawson filius writes a guest blog on his time helping in the earthquake-stricken country.

And finally - Lukas is the latest addition to Cambridge Constabulary's class of trainee police dogs. His handler named him after Lukas Dryml, a Czech speedway rider who used to ride for the Peterborough Panthers. In a charming first post written in Lukas' own paw, rad all about the puppy's first Christmas.

top tips for Tuesday

David Appletree from the Jewish Internet Defence Force (@JIDF) is presently at #2 in the Shorty Awards for Politics and, in being behind a Hamas sympathiser close to the Whitehouse, finds his shoulders bearing the hopes of many whose voices are being suppressed. Visit his site to find out what to do or, if you know, cast your vote!

In an explosive post, John Smeaton, SPUC Director relates in interview with the former director of an abortion clinic in Texas who has become pro-life after assisting in an abortion procedure and discovering that pro-choice and pro-abortion are synonymous.

Pope Benedict XII has made a stinging attack on the absolutism of equality (could one say diversity-ridden?) contained in Harriet Harman's Equality Bill, but Telegraph journalist Damien Thomson says in his blog that the situation is far more complex than the Holy See against the British Government.

Virtual prelate Cranmer, in response to a letter published by Richard Dawkins in the Times, gives the waspish theophobe a long and well-thought-out reply. One wonders if Dawkins' response, should he deign to give one, will be equally coherent. (Update: more on Dawkins from Heresy Corner. )

Richard Normington reflects on a spectacular own goal by a Liberal Democrat who appears to have been throwing stones too close to his colleague Killian Bourke's glasshouse.

Here's a post from Republic of Mathematics about Algebra as arithmetic on names. Enjoy.

They're back...do you remember settling down in front of a Hammer film in delighted anticipation of the shivers and the cheese? The Horror Squad announces the director of Hammer redux's production of Susan Hill's short story The Woman in Black.

Life in Gaza is often presented as a struggle of Palestinians against Israelis somehow occupying their own country's territory, but Media Backspin presents a disturbing exposé of the realities for Christians in Hamastan.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts presents yet another reference on an International Panel for Climate Change paper that is somewhat less than peer-reviewed: in this case, an article from the New York Times.

And finally, the old ones are the best...