Eurovision: Every loser's whinge

With it being Eurovision day, it's time for the now annual disclaiming of responsibility for earlier disasters. Because, naturally, doing a poor performance of a rubbish song is never the reason the UK loses.

Andy Abrahams turned up on BBC Breakfast blaming them pesky Eastern Europeans for his failure to score many points - apparently they colluded to vote against a poor performance of a rubbish song.

And six bloody years on, Jemini are still wailing how their loss wasn't down to them at all:

[Chris Cromby] said: “We were confident about representing the UK, but it all went tits up on the night.

“The hall it was held in wasn’t a music stadium, it was a sports hall, so it wasn’t somewhere which usually holds concerts.

“The monitors weren’t working, Gemma couldn’t hear herself, so she was out of tune.

“The BBC blamed our management and our management blamed the BBC.”

Ah yes. How hard for Jemini, forced to compete in a sports hall. When, erm, everyone else was performing in exactly the same bloody place.

Chris said: “As each country’s votes came in, we had a glass of wine. It was probably a good job we didn’t have to go back on to sing, because we were tipsy.

“About halfway through, we knew we wouldn’t get any votes, but it made us stand out, everyone remembers us.

“It is a talking point and it is going to be on my grave at the end. We get the odd person who gives us a bit of stick but we find the majority of people are great and very supportive.

“It was a brilliant experience, but I would not do it again.”

Chris, sweetheart. I know you might think that "everyone remembers you", but frankly, when people talk of Eurovision, it tends to be Cliff, or Sandie Shaw. Bucks Fizz. I don't think anyone remembers you, except once a year when you pop up to try and deny that you scored no points because you gave a poor performance of a rubbish song.

This year, Jade Ewen is promising to come top five. All that's really up for debate is how poor her performance of the rubbish song will be.

Wogan gets the huff

Curiously, since he's spent the last three decades commentating on Eurovision discussing dresses, hairstyles, body shape, national characteristics and fair dash of whimsy, Wogan's threatening to quit because erm, it's not a proper music contest "any more".

Somehow surprised that a duff song delivered by someone with no charisma came last - a song, let's not forget, that was chosen by his intervention - he's now talking about calling it a day:

Terry said his producer, Kevin Bishop, was stepping down after this year's contest.

"He and I have to decide whether we want to do this again," he said.

"Indeed, western European participants have to decide whether they want to take part from here on in because their prospects are poor."

Apparently, Wogan sees himself as some sort of showbiz Moses, about to lead his children to a brighter future where we're no longer at risk of block votes from the former Balkan nations. Or perhaps to split the union to give England the chance of a generous Celtic vote.

We could, on the other hand, try and enter a half-decent song.

Well done, United Kingdom. That's going to be another year of five points if we're lucky.

You'd have hoped that the bemusing selection process for Song For Europe - sorry, Making Your Mind Up; sorry, Your Eurovision Decision - had been constructed to try and stop the voting public sending a lame donkey into the Eurovision finals this year. A first round of head-to-head matches (presumably inspired by Loaded's Crisps world cup) delivering three finalists, topped up with a single Wogan wildcard, and then the decision thrown across to the public phone vote during Casualty.

And yet we still end up with Andy Abraham beating out Michelle Gayle. Everyone looked surprised - not least Michelle Gayle, who sloped off through a shower of sparks. Of course, Gayle's song was a bit weakly delivered. In fact, it might have been better in the slightly more girl-group hands of The Revelations; the rocky delivery made the "woo woo woo" backings sound like feeding time in Battersea Dogs Home. But at least it sounded like a possible Eurovision winner. Maybe a 1980s winner, but a winner nevertheless.

Instead, for some reason, we're sending a mid-set song from a provincial wine bar act. Abraham only made it into the final because of the bloody Wogan wildcard. When you're sat in the commentary box, downing your fourth glass of the local liqueur and complaining that Latvia hasn't given us any points, remember whose fault it this year, Wogan.

X Factor loses it

Not only is Dannii's single struggling, but further evidence that the X Factor brand isn't a guarantee of gold: Tonight's X Factor now and then live extravaganza has been axed after only 165 tickets were sold for a 3,000 seat venue.

The inaptly named Futureproof, Ben Mills and somebody called Andy Abraham had apparently been going to show up, although had they done so, they'd have been outnumbering the audience.

Wonderfully, the promoter is placing the blame on this year's contest:

Alan Ruck-Nightingale, the event promoter, said: "It's a huge shame and I can't quite grasp why sales haven't gone well.
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"There's been no lack of marketing, in the Advertiser and on radio and a 30,000 leaflet drop to houses.

"I don't think this year's X Factor competition has had such good competitors, so maybe that's been part of it."

Yes, that'd be it. "Shall we go and see this bloke off the telly from a couple of years ago, love?" "Ooh, no, because this year's contestants are a bit rubbish..."

As James P pointed out when he alerted us to this story, the people of Swindon will pay for their inaction:

They'll be kicking themselves though, the people of Swindon; After cancelling this concert, the organisers have also scrapped plans for a follow-up gig with even bigger names. But alas thanks to audience apathy, Swindon will no longer be treated to the double-header pop-monster that would have been Shayne Ward and Chico.