To think the UK should not fund the Eurovision Song Contest?

[NowIsTheSpringOfOurDiscontent]

Or bother entering obviously.

It’s a humiliation and everyone hates us so we hardly get any votes. None this year due to Brexit and the Covid vaccine probably.

Poor James . He certainly didn’t deserve NIL points!

We left the EU, and we have vaccinated tens of millions more citizens than them, with the covid vaccine. They need to deal with it and get over it, and stop being so mean and petty towards us.
This is hilarious. I don't think anyone voting thought about vaccinations. By the way, a few weeks ago Italy had actually administered more individual vaccines than the UK!

Scooch - 'Flying the Flag' (2007) should have definitely won, it got 19pts and came 22nd.

I read recently America is to do a 'Statesvision' singing competition, perhaps we should exit Eurovision and ask if we can join that.

The conniptions being had by some here would be hilarious if they weren't true. Bitter and jealous? Suuuuuuure we are. Dún an doras nuair a bhfuil tú amach, GRMA.

Our next song needs to be straight up death metal.

@FatCatThinCat Sun 23-May-21 11:59:50
I think it's also important to remember that countries vote for their neighbours because they often have similar tastes in music. Claiming it's all political stinks of sour grapes.

Very much this.

I remember one year one year the UK host claiming 'politics' when Sweden gave Norway 12 points. But the Norwegian song was genuinely the favourite here. It was on the radio all the time and number 1 in the charts. They claimed the same over a balkan state giving its neighbour 12 points when the song did seem a bit crap. But my friend from the neighbouring state understood the lyrics and said they were absolutey hilarious and that's why her country voted for it.

I remember one year we could use the red button and get subtitles, they should do that again. (My then primary age youngest DC used that as their daily reading for school. )

@AmyDudley

If we stopped the funding we'd never get into the contest, ( could be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view). Our entry was rubbish - a boring song, a bad singer and a truly criminal coat. there's a reason some people write songs for other people but don't sing them themselves. I personally think Ukraine should have won, but Italy's lead singer grabbed a few votes by going commando under leather dungarees.

truly criminal coat

The Italian lead man split his pants afterwards. Luckily, he wasn't going commando!

Agreed. I've been saying the same thing for years. Even prior to Brexit, the hostility towards the UK meant that we could never win, even if we had the best song by a mile

Most of Europe pities the UK, Brexit & Johnson are more likely to get us a few sympathy votes.

Some countries are clueless when it comes to music, hence why the best songs in the music industry come from the USA or the UK.

That’s rather xenophobic and not a little arrogant, denouncing all other international musical cultures as inferior. The whole point of voting is that everybody in dozens of countries gets to choose THEIR favourite, not the one they believe somebody on MN will feel the most independently worthy and to their personal taste.

£500k just for the privilege of entering is obscene, so I'd bin the current approach and try to genuinely qualify with a decent entry!

The £500K (or whatever) is for our membership of the EBU, of which a very tiny part is Eurovision. We pay the same percentage of our national broadcaster's turnover as anybody else, but we have a large population and a broadcaster with huge international influence and reach. The CEO of a massive company might be paid millions, but it doesn’t mean the company don’t have to pay them should they decide never to attend the works Christmas party.

Because in telly addicts there are 4 threads criticising every single participant's appearance? Because Graham Norton and Terry Wogan did it?

There’s a big difference between criticising somebody’s actual appearance and the ridiculous clothes or staging that they/their team might have chosen. That Australian one from the other year where they were dressed/moved like windscreen wipers is a case in point. Sometimes we mention if somebody reminds us of somebody else well-known – I said I thought the Latvian woman looked quite like Anneka Rice – but it’s just a neutral comment. I would never have said “Look at that nasty fat old minger”, even if she hadn’t been very attractive.

Time to say goodbye to Eurovision I think (and, no, I didn't watch it).

I never watch the football, Wimbledon, Eastenders, Strictly etc., so maybe the BBC should scrap those just on my say-so, eh?

I’m amazed at how many people seem unable to see a programme on a single channel that doesn’t interest them and not simply ignore it and find something else on the other 500 channels and endless online content that they do like, without having to deliberately tell the world how much they don't like it.

Oh, and for the poster who thinks everyone who voted YABU also voted remain in the EU referendum, nope, Leave and YABU here.

Eurovision is fun, entertaining, and despite the lack of languages in this country it means we have something we share with our European neighbours. We really shouldn't sack it off.

But whilst those of us watching it can take the piss out of it, we really should show the competition some respect and take entering it seriously but submitting something memorable rather than just ok.

The trouble with the whole contest is that it has become a parody of itself. Why can't we go back to a singer/band performing on a stage with a backing group, etc. without all the flashing lights, fireworks, ridiculously camp individuals, women with moustaches, people covered in tattoos, etc.? It should be about the song and the performer, not all the extra bits which are, quite honestly, boring.

The song was shit. It did not even do well in the UK charts. Why would other countries vote for a song the majority of the UK public did not like?

Italy won singing in Italian. France came second singing in French. Maybe we should enter a song in Welsh? (Not joking- it might be the edge we need!)

Melassa "No one is jealous, the U.K. song was beyond crap. You need to understand the no one except for the Brits gives a flying fuck about Brexit so there is no bitterness. The only bitterness seems to be coming out of the UK from the very people who “won”."

This .

He absolutely deserved no points. I enjoy watching - we just need a decent ring a ding a ding song

It was awful and he did look like he was dressed in a bin bag

My first impression was he looked like Toadfish on the way to a fetish party

Some countries are clueless when it comes to music, hence why the best songs in the music industry come from the USA or the UK

Ah there’s the great British mentality of “everyone is inferior to us” Why not just invade them and teach them how music or language should sound like. You know, like you did in Ireland during the good old days of the empire….

People seem to be really confused about how the scoring works.

People vote for the top ten. There's no way it was anywhere close to the top ten, so it's no surprise that it got no points. The fact that other countries that had arguable worse songs getting points doesn't take away from that. So if nobody thought it was in the top ten, it won't get points.

It's instantly forgettable. I have heard it quite a few times and still can't remember how it goes.

I think our entry didn’t win because he was not wearing Lycra or glitter .

Why did you say that @sandgrown? Now I am picturing him on the stage, in lycra and glitter.🙈

If I'd voted, it would have been for France, not UK. I haven't watched it for 30 odd years, and before that I was just indignant that we entered such rubbish songs that we didn't deserve a vote anyway. That's true of this year too, so I doubt I'll bother watching it for another 30 years.

DH wanted to see it because he like Graham Norton and thought it'd be fun, but even GN seemed stumped last night.

God bless him, he looked like a minicab driver who'd had a few too many pints and a big curry that was about to run right through him, after a very long night shift.

I would definitely watch Bill Bailey do it and wouldn't care if the song was crap and scored nil points. Agree with everyone that it wasn't a good song, but I don't think we could get anyone decent or well known to do it now. Even years ago we saw it as a bit of a joke and it's got even worse. We should send Katie Price next, she was up for it at one point.

I agree the UK entry was rubbish. The singer sounded like one of the rejects on I Can See Your Voice.

Having said that even if we had submitted an entry like Italy's I don't think it would have made.much of a difference, the way Europe feels about us....

Jesus are people really suggesting that we didn't win EuroVision because they are all jealous of our vaccines?

We didn't win because we had easily (one of ) the worse songs. I got up and got another drink while he was one - and during the absolutely dire German crap.

I actually voted for Malta - a lovely song, and NOT sung by a tiny thin girl in a sparkly leotard. I am so sick of the stick-thin, walks-like-on-a-tightrope model-like singers, all in skin-tight sparkles.

Most of the blokes (not including the Italians, lol) wore comfortable, normal top-end clothes, not swimsuits. Woman need sparkles and SO MUCH HAIR! Can we move on from this totally unattainable image?

(Although our entry in a leather full length coat - either he was really hot, or the girls in tiny swimsuits were really cold?)

I think if we're going to be in it and paying for the privilege then we should pay some extra to ensure we get a point or two. but frankly I think that a lot of countries do really daft songs/costumes/routines to ensure they don't win to avoid hosting the following year.

And why is Australia voting? Weird concept of geography perhaps??