Monday, May 19, 2008

Eurovision

I know it can be awful but that is not part of its charm; it is all of its charm. Below are my views on tonight's 'contestants'. 10 countries make it through.



Montenegro
Flag of MontenegroRTCG
Stefan Filipović
Mild rock nonsense

Zauvijek Volim Te
02 Israel
Flag of IsraelIBA
Boaz - quite different and could be a contender
The Fire In Your Eyes
03 Estonia
Flag of EstoniaETV
Kreisiraadio - competing on the joke entry side of things

Leto Svet
04 Moldova
Flag of MoldovaTRM
Geta Burlacu - jazz singer does mild torch song.

A Century Of Love
05 San Marino
Flag of San MarinoSMRTV
Miodio -

Complice
06 Belgium
Flag of BelgiumVRT
Ishtar - singing in a made up language! Again! Quirky but bland

O Julissi
07 Azerbaijan
Flag of Azerbaijanİctimai
Elnur & Samir - there is a emo/goth influence to the look of some of the acts and this is one of them

Day After Day
08 Slovenia
Flag of SloveniaRTVSLO
Rebeka Dremelj - takes too long to get running and is very run of the mill fare.

Vrag Naj Vzame
09 Norway
Flag of NorwayNRK
Maria - power ballady

Hold On Be Strong
10 Poland
Flag of PolandTVP
Isis Gee - she has great teeth as all Americans do and God does she try and show them

For Life
11 Ireland
Flag of IrelandRTÉ
Dustin the Turkey - coming after the Poles might be no bad thing.

Irelande Douze Pointe
12 Andorra
Flag of AndorraRTVA
Gisela - more bland fare

Casanova
13 Bosnia & Herzegovina
Flag of Bosnia & HerzegovinaBHRT
Laka - A bit Hazy Fantazie in look, and the vocal from the chicken is weak, but I liked it.

Pokušaj
14 Armenia
Flag of ArmeniaAMPTV
Sirusho - the start promises but it aims straight for the middle of the road

Qele, Qele
15 The Netherlands
Flag of The NetherlandsNOS
Hind - Ok, the video is playing with some suspect and confused imagery but I like the song.

Your Heart Belongs To Me
16 Finland
Flag of FinlandYLE
Teräsbetoni - Lordy Part Deux.

Missä Miehet Ratsastaa
17 Romania
Flag of RomaniaTVR
Nico & Vlad - God it was dull

Pe-o Margine De Lume
18 Russia
Flag of RussiaRTR
Dima Bilan - Man they really want to win this. And man I don't think they will

Believe
19 Greece
Flag of GreeceERT
Kalomira - At one point she sings that she's not easy, in underpants that are larger than her skirt! Could do well.

Secret Combination


So I'm saying Greece, Israel, Russia, Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Armenia, Finland, Poland

And depending on whether the UK gets to vote or not, Ireland or Norway.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

New Water drink ad featuring Brains from Thunderbirds

More video brilliance, caught this last night and guffawed out loud.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Something good is going to happen - 08

A strange happened over the weekend. I was watching moving picture box and it turns out Utah Saints have made a video based on an experience of my Co-Op in Carlow! Ok only in part and even then it is probably just accidentally similar rather than based on. Read the text and then watch below



I was in Carla as it is known locally back in 1989 and I was only there under a week when the June bank holiday came along. As I didn't know anyone so I thought I would wonder into town relatively early and see what the cool spots were before the crowds gathered. I had a scoop or two in a few places and ended up some disco bar type thing. It was maybe 9 o'clock at this stage and there were a good few people gathering at this point and some nifty tune came on, yet no one dancing and since I wasn't known I felt all touristy and reckoned what the hell. So I got up and danced, by my self. Oddly enough some young ladies who were there decided to join me and the night ended up being quite fun. I didn't have quite the most stylistic of clothes though. The other peculiar thing is that this clip mirrors my experience of the arrival of dance music in Ireland in the late 80s. I was in London in '88 for the 2nd Summer of Love as it became known, not that I partook all that much what with living in Caterham, in fact my own direct experience was pretty much confined to one trip to Heaven then located near Charring Cross station. Excellent night in truth. Bit intimidated by the blokes in lycra cycling shorts on the podiums though. Anyway, back in the old home town disco after that summer those who had been away
got up for the new dance tunes while others were aghast at the silliness of it all.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Charlton Heston has passed on, did someone get the gun?

Charlton Heston has gone on to meet his maker, or should I say meet him again as he was bumping into him so often during Ben-Hur that he was particularly an apostle. So I'm wondering if anyone has tried to take his gun yet.



After all he did urge us to.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Battlestar returns to our screens and SG-1 sneaks back for a last looksee

Kudos to Alexia for alerting me to this.




Strange that the return of SG-1 tonight with "the Ark of Truth" on Sky One hasn't remotely been promoted to the same degree but I guess that's what happens when you get cancelled and have to scrabble about the meejasphere for attention.

Odd coincidence that I had left the old hair quite long up to the middle of last week and then finally decide that spring was here enough for me to cut it. And it would seem such a change may be about to overtake my favourite political figure of the moment, Gaius Baltar. Part of my fascination with the character of Baltar goes back to the original series when I mistook Baltar in the original series for Baltazzar from the Book of Daniel and Plus he had all those cool ship and pointed headed folks had to do things "by your command". Ah the reassurance of old fashioned megalomania. Not that I'm suggesting for one moment that I would sell out the human race for some floozies and the control of the remnants...

The portrayal of the character in the new series is excellent particularly in depicting someone led away from doing what is truly right into doing what is very wrong simply by their own weakness and unwillingness to come clean with a mistake they've made. Fear of consequences. I'm a real sin's of omission kinda guy.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008

Roy Scheider- oh yes she can!

Best known for his part in Jaws Roy Scheider died aged 75. I recall a number of years back when he was on as a guest with Graham Norton on ch4 back when Graham was just starting out and they did a web cam segment with someone called Madam Peepee whose schtick was well, peepeeing while you watched via the webcam. So they contacted her and Graham was talking to her and then she starts to drop her pants and squat over a toilet. Graham seemed not to be expecting this and

Graham "oh she can't do that on television!"
Roy leaning over to get a better view " oh yes she can"

I thought to myself there is salt in the old sailor.

Roy with you gone, we're going to need a smaller boat.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Cork GAA - let them die

I suppose it is just the Kerryman in me, but my personal view is that we should all allow the Cork GAA community their privacy to wallow in the mess they have made for themselves. No more interventions from Kieran Mulvey or folks from GAA HQ. It is a farce of their own making and the rest of us should leave them to it.

Instead of mere protests people should be saying that they will go forwards to replace the existing members of the county board when the next elections are held.

In the words of a great authority on matters GAA - Let them die!

Friday, February 01, 2008

Call of duty 4 moment on RTe news

It might have have been me but I reckon loads of people had a Call of Duty 4 moment with the night sight coverage of the ferry that has run aground off Blackpool.

You can see a movie here

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Bloggy leaks or just plain favouritism

Now, we've been real quiet here in the shop as we were tres business elsewhere in 2007 so we weren't expecting any nominations for the blog awards but we've been following them with considerable interest as they worked their way through the various rounds. There again after recent troubles how could we be sure that any nomination that might have been received by the head of the Lesion of Mary didn't end up in the trash basket. Caesar's wife and all that.

What has caught our attention is that some judges have the full list of nominees while others who offered to judge have yet to even receive an acknowledgment of their offering all of which suggests some unevenness in the judging procedure. Some judges get time to see everything while others may end up being pressured into rushing the job.

Some have referred to this process as building a buzz, but the Oscars manage to build a buzz without leaking the nominees either the long list or the short list to their mates. There again they have been at this a while and are expected to behave in a professional manner. Worse yet though is flagging to contestants that the supremo happens to know that they are nominated in advance of actually posting the list to the rest of the proles so said nominee will revive their blog so it might make the short list. Further suggesting that they should be ready to receive judges only reinforces that impression.