Eurovision 2018: Stage Invasion take two!

[acatcalledjohn]

As you were.

Just saw that a couple of plonkers who follow the stage invader on Twitter are Russell Brand and Owen Jones. Might have guessed.

Olivia Newton John was apparently cross that she was forced to bang out a cheesy up-tempo number, “Long Live Love” rather than a ballad

But this is surely a case of choosing a singer, and then choosing an appalling song, rather than allowing individual acts with their song through. It's Eurovision by numbers.

Look at Netta's previous output on Youtube for an example of someone who has a genuine and unique schtick and brought that fully intact to Eurovision (and I realise the Israeli selection process is not all popular voting either).

eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2018

Points breakdown including the televote.

The UK got 10 points FROM Ireland on the televote. We also gave 10 points TO Ireland.

We also got points from Australia, Germany, Poland, Albania, San Marino and Denmark on the televote.

We gave our points on the televote as follows:
12 - Lithuania
10 - Ireland
8 - Cyprus
7 - Israel
6 - Bulgaria
5 - Czech Republic
4 - Moldova
3 - Germany
2 - Denmark
1 - Australia

Thanks for the summary @red

Remind me which one Lithuania was where we gave douze points

Lithuania: girl in a long pink dress sings a ballad whilst sitting on the floor, before wandering slowly onto a bridge to meet her husband.

I think it was called something like ‘when we’re old’

Lithuania was the girl in pink singing “When we’re old”. Not a bad song, but I think the televote may have been influenced by the surprisingly large Lithuanian-born population of the UK.

Ah, the big pink dress and the ballady thing - thanks

I don't think we will ever understand voting for "pals" however it is explained. It is more than appreciation of language or familiarity with the song and its type. This might have been somewhat true in the past, but not now when nearly everyone sings in English and music is more pan-European (not including UK, though). The Nordic countries, for example, traditionally vote for each other, no matter what kind of song, in whatever language, they enter.

In England, say, most people wouldn't dream of voting for Scotland "just because" (if we all competed as individual nations and not UK) and certainly not vice versa! If I moved to San Marino I would never vote for the UK just because it was the UK.

I think people here are quietly patriotic and don't need to make a point of it, certainly not in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Anyone else having withdrawal symptoms?

The Irish televote also gave Lithuania 12 points.

No troodie cos my other half keeps blasting tracks at me - mainly camel-boy, catsuit girl and cesar flipping sampon as well as giving me extraneous info like the latter was Pepsi from Pepsi and Shirley's nephew!
He still plays Swedish entry from last year bless him. DD has also been doing a Best of Eurovision medley for her American penpal who had never heard of it so I have been subjected to both Stefan Raab and a Ukrainian bloke in tinfoil (Verka) this week.
How many Lithuanians are ex-pats in the UK and Ireland then? I didn't think that many. That song sucked. Lyrics about being happy to croak one day iirc! The only redeeming feature was Graham's best wisecrack of the night that it was Take Your Husband To Work Day.

2011 census - 144 000 so not that many. I was surprised that was the no. 1 choice. It certainly wasn't on here.

@NotMyFirstRodeo sounds like your house is the place to be

I know a couple of Lithuanians

It is nothing against ex pats voting for their home country - I vote for the UK every year!! I was just surprised as the Lithuanian entry wasn't that strong for me - maybe there was multiple votes; same as I did for SuRie!

I could have the demographic wrong of course - maybe lots of voters went for the Love you til we're old - never let you go titanic vibe 2, 3, 4...oops, or the Ed Sheeranesque when our legs don't work message.

I thought main voters were gay men, ex-pats and middle-aged women stereotyping much, moi?

144,000 is quite a lot. If you look at the list of people born overseas, and exclude places outside Eurovision (India), places who didn’t qualify (Poland), people who don’t actually give a toss about Eurovision (France) and Germany because those people are almost all army children, then Lithuania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Ireland are pretty much the top four and we gave them all big votes. Lithuania wasn’t a terrible song, but honestly, can you think of any other reason why we’d have voted for Bulgaria?

And Irma may not be able to relate to partisan voting, but if I was on holiday/working elsewhere in Europe on Eurovision Saturday and found myself in front of the telly then I would definitely throw a vote or two to the UK’s entry - unless it was really really terrible or sung by someone I hated.

NotMyFirstRodeo [hearts]

We listen to the Eurovision songs again and again. They honestly do sound a lot better on the 20th listen!

Loved the Swedish entry from last year - was it called Frickin’ Beautiful or something? Also the Italian one was great.

My all-time favourite is Thomas Forster from Austria in 1989... “Ich singe nur ein lied ein nach...”. Aahhhhh....

The Lithuanian population in Ireland is 36,552 so maybe every single one of them voted for it

Just catching up with this - love post-Eurovision analysis. It's made me watch Blue's entry again - love it!

What's weird about the votes - or maybe not - is that Portugal, as host, came bottom. And how the UK's votes seemed to be from either the televote or the jury - we didn't get any from both.

Yes, Lithuanians are the third largest immigrant group in Ireland behind the UK and Poland. 36,000 doesn’t sound like a lot but obviously as a percentage of the Irish population it’s much bigger than 144,000 is as a percentage of the UK population. Definitely enough to skew the Irish vote.

Portugal last year, and Germany with Satellite, and the Czech Republic and Moldova this year are classic examples of how a good song and/or an appealing gimmick will drive the voting across the continent regardless of national prejudice, because there are so many neutral voters out there who’ll vote for their favourite on the night (maybe in addition to votes for a partisan choice).

And people vote positively in Eurovision. So the "they don't like us" doesn't really hold. There's no reason to vote for us if our songs aren't good enough.

Outside - agree with that. The votes for Italy were bizarre - 59 from the jury and then 249 from the public. Think they were 3rd. Also showed the advantage of performing last.