So Ireland, despite still being the most successful country with the most wins in the contest, have failed to qualify for the Eurovision final – yet again.
Fans felt Brooke deserved to go through, and tweeted in their droves to show how raging they were that she didn’t. And it certainly didn’t help to hear one of the commentators describe her as a Dua Lipa wannabe on an Irish budget…
There’s no doubt Brooke performed brilliantly, it was a strong song, and deserved to be in the top ten last night (especially considering some of the other bizarre entries who did qualify!)
They included a Bond type theme singing boyband from Belgium, an Estonian act who also got voted the sexiest man of the year (a highly prestigious honour no doubt), and an act from Finland reminiscent of the evil clown in the Stephen King novel, helium balloon and all, and a dead bird in his hair (as Marty pointed out, wondering if the singer knew it was there!)
There was also Romania whose lead singer was quite possibly wearing THE shiniest leather pants ever made (and who also happens to be a dancer from The Voice Of Romania – a bit of a contradiction in itself as Marty noted.) But most baffling of all those who qualified had to be Serbia, whose song was literally all about their healthcare system and included lyrics such as ‘an enlarged spleen is not good’ and ‘I don’t have health insurance.’ Hmmm…
Among the more sense making entries included a good dance number from Czech Republic (that was not a million miles away from Euphoria), some strong ballads by Poland and Azerbaijan, and a belter from Sweden. There was also a fairly bland song from Australia - let’s just not mention the fact that they are not just a country outside of Europe but an ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONTINENT, how on earth can they enter this competition?!
Unfortunately along with Ireland those who failed to qualify included a Freddy Mercury tribute act from Israel, a bucking bronco bondage song from San Marino, and Georgia’s Circus Mircus who sang about wanting to be taken to a spacecraft (‘another odd bunch’ as Marty called them.)
As always there were over the top cheesy Eurotastic presenters, including singer Mika dressed head to toe in acid yellow, even his runners. Female presenter Laura looked like she was going to fancy dress party as a cross between Morticia Adams and the pink Teletubby in Tuesday’s semi, while last night she seemed to be going more for the look of one of the Shakespears Sisters (the scary one that’s trying to kill the guy in the video.) She also clearly didn’t have time to dry her hair properly (you think someone in production might have pointed this out to her but no.)
Ireland have only progressed to final once in the last seven years (in 2018 with Ryan O’Shaughnessy) so what’s another year… As to why we keep failing to qualify, maybe all the other countries are jealous of our record and want to keep us in our place. Or more likely, that even though we attempted to apologise by sending Jedward (TWICE!) they will never EVER forgive us for Dustin!
As for the final on Saturday, while the Ukraine song is not particularly strong (and would be unlikely to win another year), it’s looking like a shoo-in for first place, and deservedly so for obvious reasons.
So the race for second place will be the more interesting one. Of all the contenders, there is one that certainly stands out as the country who Ireland should award douze points to – it has to be Norway!
The lyrical geniuses that wrote this song include such lines as ‘before that wolf eats my grandma give him a banana’ and ‘not sure you have a name so I’ll call you Keith.’ Completely bonkers but a hell of a lot more entertaining than Serbian’s complaining about the cost of health insurance….
