to think that we have a chance in Eurovision this year

[Polyanthus2]

news.sky.com/story/eurovision-tiktok-singing-sensation-sam-ryder-will-perform-for-uk-with-track-space-man-12562140

Good looking and a good voice - I'm not on tiktok so this singer is new to me!
Even the song seems ok!

Let me think.

Brexit.
A ridiculously pathetic response to the refugee crisis affecting the people of Ukraine.

Yeah, I think we stand a chance of getting no points

We haven't won it since 1997. Don't think it's just the EU hating/despising us, no matter how desperately you want that to be the case.

More likely, it's a mixture of certain countries voting for certain other countries or the fact we keep sending absolutely dire, boring songs. Name five entries from the last twenty years. Now name three of the five winning songs. There you go.

We need to go full Finland and just go with the most preposterous song we can dream up.

Has anyone said it's just the EU?

That's just one of the most recent strikes against us.

But yeah, we do send du'll songs. And from the bit I could be bothered to listen to, this year is no exception.

@Pazuzu

We haven't won it since 1997. Don't think it's just the EU hating/despising us, no matter how desperately you want that to be the case.

More likely, it's a mixture of certain countries voting for certain other countries or the fact we keep sending absolutely dire, boring songs. Name five entries from the last twenty years. Now name three of the five winning songs. There you go.

We need to go full Finland and just go with the most preposterous song we can dream up.

Going with the ‘most preposterous’ song possible is nonsense.

Songs that do well are songs that make an impression but rarely the most quirky or ‘preposterous’ songs. Most songs make an impression by the quality of song, performance and staging not by being preposterous.

We need to go full Finland and just go with the most preposterous song we can dream up

To be fair, we have tried that tactic. There was the song with the air stewards and the one with the guy singing about school with a load of dancers dressed as school kids. The novelty stuff doesn’t work for us.

It’s a shite song and as someone else has already said we keep going for the same boring ‘one man sings song whilst stationary’ set up.

Yes, there’s a political element to it. But compare our entries with the likes of Italy last year- Maneskin….it’s no wonder we do so dismally!

Gimmicks sometimes pay off, but they just as often don't (do you remember the Australian singers on the super-high swingy poles?). Public voters sometimes like gimmicks but the juries normally hate them.

The only thing that is 100% guaranteed is that your singer's voice needs to be absolutely bulletproof live, because the juries in particular are completely unforgiving when it comes to flat notes. The juries vote based on a rehearsal, so often when a song seems to get bafflingly low scores it's because they performed poorly in the jury show. Blue had an absolute shocker in the jury rehearsal which is why they didn't do nearly as well as you'd have hoped - although the telly voters loved their performance in the final. And that's a classic example of why being in the semi-final can play to your advantage. With those extra two performances then maybe Blue would have got it right when it counted.

I keep saying we never send a really awesome song band but yet complain whenever other counties don’t vote.

UK has excellent talent yet we never send our best. Just some half assed boring plinky plonks song that tries to emulate something that might have won in the 90s

We are the reason we don’t win… not the other counties

And the reason we keep getting it wrong is that the UK doesn’t have to compete to enter. It is guaranteed a place due to being a big sponsor so it’s song hasn’t stood the test of the other counties in the first round. Then we enter it and it’s always such a dire song compared to other countries who have had to fight for a place.

@CharacterForming

Gimmicks sometimes pay off, but they just as often don't (do you remember the Australian singers on the super-high swingy poles?). Public voters sometimes like gimmicks but the juries normally hate them.

The only thing that is 100% guaranteed is that your singer's voice needs to be absolutely bulletproof live, because the juries in particular are completely unforgiving when it comes to flat notes. The juries vote based on a rehearsal, so often when a song seems to get bafflingly low scores it's because they performed poorly in the jury show. Blue had an absolute shocker in the jury rehearsal which is why they didn't do nearly as well as you'd have hoped - although the telly voters loved their performance in the final. And that's a classic example of why being in the semi-final can play to your advantage. With those extra two performances then maybe Blue would have got it right when it counted.

Blimey, I knew there was a split but had forgotten it. We'd be overjoyed to come 11th now though.

Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that the United Kingdom had placed fifth with the public televote and twenty-second with the jury vote. In the public vote, the United Kingdom scored 166 points and in the jury vote the nation scored 57 points.[54]

And that's a classic example of why being in the semi-final can play to your advantage. With those extra two performances then maybe Blue would have got it right when it counted.

I firmly believe this is also a reason the Big 5* often do so badly as their song will literally have had just half an airing (on TV) by the time of the final. So many Eurovision songs sound horrendous first time out but are often "growers" and I think this gives all the semi-finalists a sort of unfair advantage.

I actually wrote to the EBU suggesting the Big 5 perform their songs live and in full as the semi-final interval acts. I was roundly ignored

• a good French song can usually rise above though

@StCharlotte I love that you wrote that letter!

I absolutely love Sam Ryder, he has a phenomenal talent, but euro vision is political, and everyone hates us.

@Electriq

I absolutely love Sam Ryder, he has a phenomenal talent, but euro vision is political, and everyone hates us.

Never realised this. Thanks for being the first to point that out.

@Electriq

I absolutely love Sam Ryder, he has a phenomenal talent, but euro vision is political, and everyone hates us.

So why are bookies cutting the odds?

Gimmicks sometimes pay off, but they just as often don't (do you remember the Australian singers on the super-high swingy poles?)
She came 9th. This was a better result than all but eight other countries.

The novelty stuff doesn’t work for us.
UK novelty in the Eurovision always looks as if it missed a crucial memo about Eurovision novelty.

Going with the ‘most preposterous’ song possible is nonsense.

Songs that do well are songs that make an impression but rarely the most quirky or ‘preposterous’ songs. Most songs make an impression by the quality of song, performance and staging not by being preposterous.

Precisely.

So many people here clearly are not listening to the music.

'Hard Rock Halleluia' was a great song behind all that 'full Finland'.

🤷🏽‍♀️ I don't know anything about bookies so your guess is as good as mine!

So why are bookies cutting the odds?

Probably because Sam Ryder has a lot of fans out there that are willing to bet on him. Bookies base their odds on maths, so that no matter the outcome, they are likely to win. More money placed on a certain outcome means the odds will shorten. They don't have magical insider knowledge.

It doesn’t matter who gets chosen or which is sung. Never gonna win. Surely everyone knows this. It’s so boring how people seem to be so surprised about poor placement. Every. Single. Year.
Yes yabu

@HikingforScenery

It doesn’t matter who gets chosen or which is sung. Never gonna win. Surely everyone knows this. It’s so boring how people seem to be so surprised about poor placement. Every. Single. Year. Yes yabu

What makes you think the UK fate is so predetermined in a way that isn’t the case for, say, Austria or Portugal (countries with a long record of doing badly but recently winning) or France or Netherlands (countries with a good record decades ago but a low point since then - but winning or doing well recently) or Israel (a country with much higher levels of political unpopularity than the UK but a recent winner).

The single transferable response to OP doesn’t actually deal with the facts of who does well at Eurovision.

@Electriq

I absolutely love Sam Ryder, he has a phenomenal talent, but euro vision is political, and everyone hates us.

I love the fact we have 10 pages of people giving reasoned arguments as to why it's not because "they hate us and it's sooo unfair" and yet we're still getting "we don't win because they hate us" (or even better because "they're jealous" which we had a few pages back!)

I don't understand why people think that (for example) the Armenians, Turks, Russians, Moldovans, Israelis and Azerbaijanis hate us? It speaks to poor self-image.

@CharacterForming

I don't understand why people think that (for example) the Armenians, Turks, Russians, Moldovans, Israelis and Azerbaijanis hate us? It speaks to poor self-image.

And a degree of unjustified self-centred attitudes that remind me of the paranoia that the rest of Europe was out to ‘punish’ the UK for leaving the EU.

The reality is much more mundane but hard for a country still brought up learning about the greatness of bygone imperial days - the reality is most other countries just don’t give much thought to the UK good, bad or indifferent.

Think about how often you think about your views on random mid-size countries - say Italy for example. Not very often right?

Collective British paranoia is a real problem.

@MNHQ can we have an instant ban for anybody who comes into the thread saying "IT'S ALL POLITICAL THEY ALL HATE US!!!111" at this stage?