Notes from National Finals: Melodifestivalen 2016 - Week 1

Back in November, after weeks of rumours and revelations, when SVT revealed its line-up of songs and artists for Melodifestivalen 2016, my immediate thoughts were - "it's deja vu all over again"; an incredibly high number of returning artists and very little in the way of surprises.

Although some artists in recent years have used Melodifestivalen for the sole purpose of promoting new material and reaching out to a wider audience, rather than focusing on the actual competition element, Melfest has become a "bubble" for a number of Swedish artists.  You're a big fish in a small pond - you may not enjoy any kind of commercial success outwith that bubble, but inside the bubble there's the name-recognition among the Swedish and international Melfest fan community, and one one more chance to wow that TV and internet audience with your latest song. But in these days of fleeting fame and the throwaway nature of listening to music it's unlikely that a Melfest appearance would be the launchpad for career longevity.

My other thought when I saw the line up was that returning artists = diminishing returns.  Coming back for a second/third time, you can bet that the song will never be as good as the first one.  So I wasn't building up my hopes too highly for Ace Wilder, Isa, Oscar Zia, Panetoz, Molly Pettersson Hammar, Swingfly, Pernilla Andersson or Dolly Style, all "second-timers" at the contest and most of whom, it could be argued, have not really enjoyed any significant success since their Melfest participation - I exclude Samir and Viktor from this list though, as they followed up "Groupie" with "Saxof*****gfon" which was also a big hit in Sweden, and they (or at least Samir anyway) never seem to be too far from the Swedish tabloids.

In a previous post from last summer  http://europecrazy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/summer-rewind-2015-allsang-remains.html I had predicted Dinah Nah, Ida Lafontaine, David Lindgren and Bruno Mitsogiannis to make an appearance in this year's line-up.  Of these artists I thought Dinah was the most likely to make a quick reappearance - I definitely think we'll see her back at some point.

2016 marks the 15th anniversary of the current Melfest format and to celebrate, SVT gave us a new opening title sequence.  Have to say I miss the map of Sweden :(

As well as returning artists, there was a returning main presenter too: Gina Dirawi, accompanied by a different co-host every week.

Week 1: Gothenburg, 06.02.16

Gina's co-host was none other than soon-to-be-returning ESC host Petra Mede, and she completely stole the show.  Something else stole the show in week 1 - well, there's nothing like a good old schlager-skandal to keep Melodifestivalen in the headlines and the first week delivered that.

Anna Book would have been celebrating the 30th anniversary of her debut appearance at Melodifestivalen in 1986 with "ABC", by returning with a song called "Himmel för två", with lyrics by the very successful Swedish author Camilla Läckberg.  That was until the clips of week 1's songs went online, and it was quickly spotted that "Himmel för två" was not as original a song as first thought.  For the tune had a past life: it was previously been submitted to the 2014 Moldovan contest and sung by a Moldovan singer Felicia Dunaf.  Although the song didn't progress beyond the early stages of the contest, it found its way online.

So "Himmel för två" was disqualified immediately.  Poor Anna was completely left in the dark and didn't know anything about the song's past life as "Taking Care of A Broken Heart".  Needless to say she was devastated, but SVT did the decent thing and allowed Anna to perform her song as interval act in week 1.  IMHO I prefer Felicia's English language version of the song to Anna's version, and I don't think "Himmel..." would have qualified to either the final or to Andra Chansen.

The other interval act in week 1 also took us back to 2002: none other than Las Ketchup with "Asereje" which I will always remember as the big holiday hit from our summer holiday in France that year.

A music contest or....a musical?

I've had this major gripe over recent years about Melfest and what it really wants to be.  A song contest?  A comedy/sketch show?  Or....a musical?

Melfest 2016 opened with a song by Gina and Petra - "Hela Sveriges Fest" and by the time that was over, we were onto the convoluted introduction which seems to get longer with every passing year, and the time-wasting, padding and repetition gets more tiring by the year.  But I guess that Melodifestivalen (and a number of other national finals) and indeed the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals and final have been affected by what I call the "X Factorisation" of TV.  Repeats, recaps, repeats of recaps, 'coming soon'/'previously on...' etc.

In week 1 of Melodifestivalen, it felt like the "musical" numbers took precedence over the actual songs in the contest.  OK so they put the lyrics on the screen which help those of us with a decent enough knowledge of written Swedish to "get" the comedy, but I found the whole thing tiresome.   "Allt är Eurovisions fel" (performed by Gina and Petra pictured above) basically referenced SVT having to host the contest again and cut back on all the other programme budgets including "Doobidoo"; cue a guest appearance by host Lasse Kroner.  (Note to SVT: I know you're only having a laugh with this one but please don't axe Doobidoo!!)

There was one very funny sketch in this year's Melfest though: the running gag of "proper" Swedish acting talent, giving some almost Shakespearian renditions of Melfest lyrics.  Week 1 gave us "Groupie" as interpreted by Stina Ekblad; subsequent weeks would see the likes of Krister Henriksson, Lena Endre and Mikael Nyqvist (all familiar faces to us Nordic Noir fans) bringing some gravitas to Melfest golden oldies by Kikki, Bettan and Lotta, Linda Bengtzing and Timoteij.

Direkt till Friends:
"Don't Worry" - Ace Wilder (aka "Get Get Down" by Paul Johnson)
"Constellation Prize" - Robin Bengtsson. (aka "Stole The Show" by Kygo)

Yes, it appeared very quickly that Melfest 2016 was going to be a "sounds like" contest.  But I would agree with week 1's finalists: although "Don't Worry" was no "Busy Doin' Nothin'" the staging, choreography and production values were streets ahead.  As for "Constellation Prize", I'd previously written it off as a song with a ridiculously stupid title.  (Indeed, there were many songs in this year's Melfest with ridiculously stupid titles).  But then Robin took to the stage and all was forgiven. The simple but effective lighting - either that or I want the name of the detergent Robin washes his shirts with! - was just perfect; and Robin himself was just perfect too.

Andra Chancers:
"Rik" - Albin and Mattias (aka "Din Soldat" by.....Albin)
"Bada Nakna" - Samir and Viktor.  (the natural Melfest successors to Sean Banan)

Readers of this blog may remember that I loved "Din Soldat" so much that it was my favourite song of 2014.  So much was expected of "Rik" but all I felt was disappointment; this was basically, "right guys... we want another song which sounds just like the big hit!" in other words, an inferior soundalike.

A big shock as Samir and Viktor were expected to go direkt, but I was relieved that they didn't. They are now occupying that Sean Banan-sized slot in Melfest, you know the one - a novelty act with a huge fanbase, and inevitably denying a qualifying place to a more deserving artist/song.  Yet I can't hate S and V - they bring some much-needed fun. but "Bada Nakna" was just too over-egged and if I'm honest, I preferred "Groupie"!

Going home:
"Mitt Guld" - Pernilla Andersson
"You're No Good" - Mimi Werner

With only 6 songs left in week 1's line-up, it was just a bit more embarrassing for the losers as only 2 were eliminated.  I don't think Pernilla Andersson will be hurrying back to Melfest any time soon, although I could see Mimi Werner returning at some point, preferably with something more original than 2016's Jolene rip-off.

By the end of week 1, all I felt was let down.  Perhaps I need to lower my expectations of "Europe's biggest and best national final"?

Eurovision Memories Part 7: vibrating bras and a Norwegian miracle

Can't believe it's been over a year since my last Eurovision Memories post.  We left the story at 1984 - the contest I couldn't remember - so let's move on to the following year, before I fast-forward to my 2016 posts!

By the time 1985 came round, I had fallen back in love with Eurovision again, because Sweden was going to host it.  After the shambles of 1984, SVT took up the challenge of producing a contest to remember.  Most of that was down to its charismatic presenter.  Long before Petra Mede was wisecracking her way to ESC notoriety, we had Lill Lindfors, who kicked off the show with the maximum cheese overload of "My joy is building bricks of music".  What an impression she made on the TV audience later that night with her (very deliberate) skirt rip/'wardrobe malfunction'.  It was pretty daring in those days though!

Gothenburg's Scandinavium was the venue for the 1985 contest.  Unusually, Terry Wogan was commentating from London rather than Gbg as he was unwell at the time, but was still in good form back in those days.

I wasn't too thrilled by the stage set at the time - random climbing frames and mesh - which was obviously going for a Nordic minimalist look.  It still doesn't thrill me, and reminds me of a variation on the Melodifestivalen 1984 set.  But what about the songs and singers?

Well, we were still slap-bang in the middle of the 80s so there was lots of big hair, big frocks, big shoulder pads and big orchestral arrangements.  For the younger fans of the 21st century contest, they may be surprised to see the postcards showcasing the songwriters, rather than the singers, in various locations in Gothenburg.  But that's no surprise really - back in those days it really was just a "song contest", the focus was more on the songwriters and the winner's trophy always went to the songwriters rather than the singers.

When looking back now at ESC 1985, there are very few songs from that contest which I would listen to today.  So in retrospect I guess it wasn't really that different from the preceding year, the ESC "annus horribilis" of 1984, but at least you could always rely on SVT to put on a better show.  80s Eurovision was certainly a different world.  In 1985 I was listening to mainly indie/alternative music which was very different from anything in ESC, but I always had room for all kinds of music.

Back then I didn't know what "schlager" was, but my favourite song from 1985 had a definite schlagery tone.  As with many winning songs, I often prefer the host country's song from the following year to the previous year's winning song.  (I'll cover this in more detail in a future Eurovision Memories post). So it was in 1985.  After watching the annual preview show on BBC1, "Bra Vibrationer" - which is not a song about vibrating bras, as Lill explained! - became my pre-contest favourite.  Kikki Danielsson gave a confident performance of the song, although it was sadly accompanied by two irritating backing dancers who were probably a prototype for Carola's equally irritating dancers in 1991 and in various other incarnations of Melodifestivalen.  It was interesting of course to see Kikki competing in 1985 against her former Chips colleague Elisabeth Andreassen; the two singers would later reunite in Melodifestivalen 2002 along with Sweden's ESC 1987 representative Lotta Engberg as Kikki, Bettan & Lotta.

My other favourite song was the Italian entry, "Magic Oh Magic" which saw the return of Romina Power and Al Bano to the contest after 9 years.  Romina looked better than she sounded. although Al being Al, he made sure that he would be heard above everyone else anyway.

By 1985, the UK was still achieving top 10 placings at ESC, although back in those days 6th and 7th were looked upon as a bit of a failure.  How times change!  Imagine if the UK got a 6th or 7th place now - it would feel as if we'd won it.

As usual, the Song for Europe line-up featured a number of unknown singers as well as 70s hitmaker Alvin Stardust with "The Clock On The Wall" which let's just say was very influenced by "Green Door" which was a no.1 hit for Shakin' Stevens.  After the numerous manufactured groups put together to represent the UK, it was a big change to send a solo singer again for the first time since 1974.

Vikki Watson looked like she'd walked straight off the set of Dynasty.  But she was, and probably still is, a rarity for the UK at Eurovision, as she co-wrote her own song "Love Is...".  She also performed it very well and achieved an excellent result of 4th place, ahead of more fancied entries from Israel, Italy, Spain and Denmark.  However, like many of the other songs in the 1985 contest, it was very old-fashioned and out of touch with contemporary pop music, and didn't make the top 40.  Listening back now to "Love Is....", well yes it's old-fashioned, but it is actually better than I remembered.  It's one of the UK's most underrated entries from that time.

But no-one was to match the exuberance of Bobbysocks!  A duo so exuberant that their name ends in an exclamation mark!  (But I still don't know to this day why Hanne was wearing a parachute for a skirt).  Anyway they performed the hell out of "La Det Swinge" with bags of charm, charisma and above all - fun!  A quality sadly missing from most of today's ESC entries (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm old and all that, but just sayin').

Even now, their sheer joy at winning is a joy to watch.  Who would ever have believed that the country renowned for "nul points" or low placings on the scoreboard in the 70s and early 80s would actually go on to win Eurovision?

Hanne and Bettan continue to be a vision in purple lurex; they stole the show at the Eurovision's Greatest Hits last year and regularly pop up in Melodi Grand Prix to provide a nostalgic interlude.

The London Diaries: Day 3 - Sunday 13th March 2016

Our final day in London before returning home.  As our flight wasn't until the evening, what would we do between checking-out of the hotel and going to the airport?

The answer: a sightseeing bus tour, but rather than hopping-on and hopping-off, we would just stay on the bus.  A wise decision, thanks to the city's very congested and gridlocked traffic.  This on a Sunday too!  I wouldn't like to see how bad it gets in morning and evening rush-hour.  No wonder why everyone uses the Tube.

The bus set off from the gigantic Madame Tussauds wax museum - that's one for a future visit, I think - and proceeded to head on an epic 3 and a half hour journey covering a number of different areas and landmarks. It's a great way to pack in the tourist attractions without wearing yourself out and also gives you a great idea of just where everything is in the city.  I particularly enjoyed crossing Tower Bridge, seeing the Shard and the Tower of London and brief glimpses of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, as well as seeing "how the other half live" in Knightsbridge and Kensington.  Here are a few of my photos taken from inside the sightseeing bus.

 Above: a classic British telephone box, outside the Waldorf Hotel.

 Above: Tower Bridge in the distance. 

 Above: the Tower of London and a little bit of the Gherkin peeking out!

Above: The Shard. 

 Above: a very fleeting glimpse of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

 Above: an unusual bus tour on a classic London red bus.

Above: Harrods. 

Our tour eventually came to an end and we had just enough time to grab a quick lunch before getting a packed Stansted Express train back to the airport for our flight home.  

Although we only had a very short break, we achieved a lot over three days and I can honestly say that London exceeded my expectations.  We had a great time, thoroughly enjoyed going to see Fulham (despite the final score), the Sherlock Holmes Museum was very enjoyable, and the Big Bus Tour was a relaxing way to see many of the main attractions without having to explore on foot.  

The only minus point is that London is a very expensive city.  Entrance fees for attractions are high, the cost of public transport is pretty steep and drinks prices are on a par with Scandinavia! So please bear this in mind if you are planning a holiday in the city.  

We are definitely planning to return to London again, possibly next year all being well, and hoping to make a return visit to our newly adopted football team as well.  Come on Fulham!

So we will soon be off on our travels again, this time to another capital city, Madrid.  Tapas and flamenco await!

The London Diaries: Day 2 - Saturday 12th March 2016

Winding our way down to.....

On Saturday morning we returned to Baker Street for our first planned activity of the day. Now we are not "museum people" and usually avoid conventional museums on holiday unless it is something specific or unusual which has sparked our interest.  In previous years for example we've visited the Museum of Communism (Prague), the Chocolate Museum (Cologne), the DDR museum (Berlin) and the particularly harrowing Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (Riga).  So this time we were off to a museum dedicated to the world's most famous fictional detective.

Of course everything about this place is fictional - it's not really situated at 221b Baker Street, but it is all very well done and very authentic.  You enter through the well-stocked gift shop, packed with some very pricey souvenirs, then upstairs to the actual museum which is spread across separate floors.  You get to see Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Mrs Hudson's living quarters, as well as some scary scenarios from the books.  I also enjoyed reading the letters sent from all over the world.

 

Faithful travelling companion is a big Sherlock Holmes fan (the old-school version, none of this Cumberbatched modernisation) however I've never read the books or watched the films or TV shows. After visiting this museum it has definitely got me interested in reading the stories.  More to add to my backlog....!

I would definitely recommend a visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum but if you are planning to visit, get there early or you will have to join a very long queue to enter.  It is a very small museum and only a very limited number of people can be admitted at one time.  The queue was stretching down Baker Street by the time we left the museum just before lunchtime. By the way, wasn't the "policeman" on the door a very "arresting" sight????

Next it was off to the Tube station to head for this afternoon's main event.

Here is the very rare sight of an empty Tube carriage.  It wouldn't be empty for long as it would quickly fill up.  The train was Wimbledon-bound, but our destination today was Putney Bridge station.

The journey from Edgware Road to Putney Bridge took just under 15 minutes.  Why Putney Bridge? Well, you will remember that I mentioned that we were going to a football match.  As it was impossible to get Premiership tickets, we then looked at the Championship and after some research we chose the match between Fulham FC and Bristol City.

After a pub lunch in Fulham High Street we made our way to Fulham's ground, Craven Cottage which is situated in a very upmarket and civilised area, down by the Thames.  I wonder if this rowing crew were in training for the Boat Race or the Olympics?

We were seated in the Johnny Haynes Stand, which is named after the club's most famous footballer. There is also a statue of him outside the ground.

We were seated just a few rows back from the pitch with a very good view.  Bristol City brought a large and very vocal travelling support.  They chanted and sang all through the match whereas Fulham's fans were a very quiet bunch!  The weather over the past couple of days has been dry and cold, and we thought it may be a lot colder down at the riverside however the sun came out today and it turned out to be a very pleasant spring day.  Pity the full-time score wasn't so pleasant for Fulham...

It was looking very good to start with.  Fulham scored just a couple of minutes into the match and dominated the first half.  Unfortunately as the old cliche goes it really was a game of two halves and Fulham completely lost their way in the second half.  Bristol City equalised and then scored in the last minute of the match.  Yet despite our newly adopted London team losing their match, we both really enjoyed the experience and would definitely do it again if/when we return to London.

After that long walk back to the Tube station through Bishops Park (where we'd spotted a squirrel earlier!), we eventually headed back to the city centre.  There was another big event going on tonight, none other than the Melodifestivalen final.  Now I know that there are certain locations in London where you can watch the big event, but due to our other commitments today, there just wasn't the time to fit that in.  Instead I had to settle for the first hour of the contest on my tablet, with a lot of stop-start buffering and I managed a catch-up viewing on my return home anyway.  This is probably the first time I haven't been at home for a Melodifestivalen final, but I'm not sorry, no (!)

Besides there was the small matter of our Saturday night dinner date.  We didn't go too far away and visited a small local Indian restaurant which provided some tasty food and a very relaxed atmosphere. After dinner, it was pub crawl time again.  Well, if you could call two pubs a "crawl".  Firstly to a surprisingly empty Metropolitan Bar (Wetherspoons) where I checked the Melfest result on my tablet.

We later ended up back in The Globe on Marylebone Road (above) which had good music - bonus points to them for playing New Order's Tutti Frutti by the way! - and a good atmosphere, and the perfect way to end our Saturday night.

The London Diaries: Day 1 - Friday 11th March 2016

Over the past 20 years I've visited a number of different cities and resorts in countries all over Europe - and even been to Canada - but believe it or not, I've never been to the capital city of the UK until March 2016.  For some reason, London never really interested me before, and I always thought I'd be overwhelmed by the size of the huge city.  So the years passed, other places interested me more, and London passed me by.

Our trip arose out of a grand plan by faithful travelling companion to go to a particular football match; I won't go into all the details but our original plan later fell apart.  However by that time the seeds of a city break in London had been sown and we couldn't imagine not going, so we came up with a plan B!

As usual, I'm an obsessive pre-holiday researcher so this involved weeks of research for me, as London was a mystery to start with.  Despite some well-known landmarks I couldn't have told you anything about the different neighbourhoods and where they were located in the city so the first few weeks of 2016 were a learning process, and I was much more familiar with the city's layout after doing my "homework".

We eventually settled on the Marylebone area as our base; it's a well-located area, (and a well-heeled one too: flats costing over £1 million here!) with Baker Street Underground (Tube) station nearby. This station has a number of intersecting Tube lines so it's easy to reach a number of different parts of London from this station.

We flew to London Stansted airport and had pre-booked our tickets for the Stansted Express train. The train leaves from the station in the airport's basement and it's a scenic 45 minute journey from the airport into the city, passing through some interesting marshland landscape and colourful narrowboats on the River Stort.  (Thanks Google Maps, I wondered what that was!)

The train arrived into Liverpool Street Station, then a quick transfer to the Liverpool Street Tube station and our first time using our Oyster cards.  We purchased our visitor Oyster cards prior to the holiday, topped up with enough credit for the weekend.  They are smart cards which you 'touch in' and 'touch out' before and after your Tube journey, similar to the way the Scotrail ticket gates operate in stations in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

So our first experience of the Tube wasn't too scary!  After arriving at our hotel we decided to familiarise ourselves with the local area and then get a mid-afternoon pizza at Pizza Hut in Baker Street.

We will be back in Baker Street tomorrow for a planned event but we decided to check out the street in advance.  There are some very interesting shops here - for example, the Beatles Store - yeah, yeah, yeah!

After our stroll around the local vicinity it was time to get back to the hotel and get ready for our evening meal which we had pre-booked online.  After our dinner it was time to hit the bars in the vicinity of James Street.  Faithful travelling companion of course had to get into the spirit and try a London beer.

Surprisingly though, many of the bars were closing earlier than expected but we found ourselves back on Marylebone Road for a nightcap before heading back to our hotel.  Saturday was going to be a very busy day ahead...

Our next holiday destination....we're "Mad" for it :)

Yes it's finally time to announce another new holiday destination for faithful travelling companion and myself to add to our very long list - it's none other than the Spanish capital, Madrid.

We'll be heading there in a few weeks and of course will indulge in some tapas, flamenco and the great Spanish tradition of turning night into day (energy permitting, although sadly we don't have too much of that these days - but will do the best we can!).

And of course you can look forward to the appearance of the Madrid Diaries on here in the next few weeks - but that's not the only holiday diary on the way as I also have another recent trip report to post, hopefully over the next week or so.

The Square-Eyed Couch Potato: January-March 2016

Firstly, you will not be surprised to learn that over recent months, the queen of the TV backlog has had many, many more series to add to the TV backlog mountain, or should that now be a mountain range??

With this in mind I'm changing the focus of my TV reviews from what was on telly in a particular month, to what I watched that month.  I always chuckle to myself when everyone talks about catch-up and on-demand TV, or recording things to watch later.  I have been doing that for years!

The first three months of 2016 have been a combination of home improvement, exhaustion and Eurovision national finals - what a combination eh! - so I haven't had time to post my monthly TV reviews so I'm wrapping up Q1 into a bumper review here.

It would appear that the foreign telly love-in which began with "The Killing" and "Borgen" and went on to give us numerous other cracking subtitled programmes from the continent shows no sign of slowing down.  2016 has brought us a deluge of European subtitled drama: Channel 4 launched its online "Walter Presents" strand showcasing lots of different international drama.

Sadly, many people are still sceptical of watching anything with subtitles, which probably explains why these shows are often tucked away on BBC4 or More 4 or Sky Arts.  So what happens when you take the risk of putting a German import in a prime-time TV slot?  Well, you only end up with the highest-rating foreign-language TV show in UK TV history.  

Yes, that's right...that honour goes to my favourite programme of 2016 so far, "DEUTSCHLAND 83" (Channel 4), a fast-moving and consistently watchable weekly drama which was a rarity these days....it was genuinely 'appointment to view' TV and I counted the days until the next episode.  But it's now over and there's a great big Martin/Moritz-sized void in our viewing schedule.

I think the reason it did so well is that it worked on many different levels - whether you had an interest in the history and politics of that period (my reason for watching), or if you liked pacy spy thrillers, or if you were just fangirling/fanboying over leading man Jonas Nay - it had something for everyone.

Good characters, good acting, edge-of-seat cliffhangers and areat soundtrack too, and I forgot just how much I liked its theme song, "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling.  I remember when the song was out in the 80s but never fully appreciated it until it turned up as the theme song (although strangely enough, it was actually New Order's "Blue Monday" which was the theme to the show when it aired on German TV). Go check "Major Tom" out on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt-R5hj_lWM  All together...."4, 3, 2, 1, earth below us.....".  It looks as if there will be a follow-up series - I'd particularly love a "Deutschland 89" with the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Another Walter Presents pick aired over on More 4.  I wasn't originally going to watch French-language drama "SPIN" as I was just concerned it would be a third-rate version of Borgen - the show to which every political-related drama must be compared!! - however I quickly changed my mind when I saw that Gregory Fitoussi was in it.  #shallowalert

So we've had two series so far: the first one focused on the battle for the French presidency and the rival spin doctors Simon Kapita (Bruno Wolkowitch) and Ludovic Desmeuze (Gregory Fitoussi, pictured above) manipulating everything behind the scenes, with some other storylines on the side. Series 2 focused on a new president and his wife, secrets, lies and a hostage drama.  Unfortunately it falls short of the greatness of Borgen, and the writers could have created stronger female characters. Despite actresses with such presence as Nathalie Baye and Carole Bouquet, the women have been very much the secondary characters here, with les hommes ("Les Hommes de L'Ombre" is the original title of the show) having the bulk of the action.  Series 2 has just ended (I still have the final episode to watch) but I believe that there will be a third series so it's not all over yet.

After bringing us a few series of "Dag", Sky Arts has gone back to Norway with "OCCUPIED", a big-budget drama from an idea by top thriller writer Jo Nesbo.  This series has been must-see viewing for me over recent weeks, although I initially didn't think I'd keep watching beyond the first episode, and also because I found Jesper Berg (prime minister) such an irritating character.  The series is set in a climate-change future where the Green Party is in power and cuts off fuel production in favour of alternative energies, leading to a major energy crisis and an "intervention" by Russia, at the EU's request.  Eventually everyone has to decide which side they're on, and it's this moral question which, I think, elevates this drama and keeps it interesting and exciting.  Series 1 has just ended here, I still have two episodes to watch.

Let's go back in time now.  Back in the 'old days' January would mean the arrival of BBC1's "Holiday" and ITV's "Wish You Were Here".  But those days are long gone, however there are a couple of modern-day replacements worth watching.

Firstly, the second series of "TRAVEL MAN" (Channel 4) where the highly intelligent and rather amusing Richard Ayoade teamed up with a different comedy colleague every week for a 48 hour jaunt around various European cities.  Now I'm always up for a travel show and whilst I do enjoy this, it can be a little frustrating with that "ironic" style which seems to characterise a lot of modern day television.  Although there are many funny moments, it has to be said.

Thankfully, the 'irony' was missing from BBC Northern Ireland's excellent "GETAWAYS" which always reminds me of the much-missed holiday show "You Call The Shots" where they acted on viewers' suggestions.  Joe Lindsay and Angela Scanlon are appealing, approachable hosts whose style is inclusive rather than ironic.  This travel series deserves a prime-time slot on the BBC network rather than being stuck in the Monday night 7.30 pm 'regional programming' slot.

As well as the lightweight travel shows I also enjoy a good travel documentary.  I'd never seen any of Simon Reeve's documentaries before but tuned into "GREECE WITH SIMON REEVE" (BBC2). This two-part documentary was pretty heartbreaking at times, delving into various aspects of a country which has not had its problems to seek over recent years and is now faced with a massive influx of refugees.  At times it was hard to comprehend that we were actually watching daily life in a modern European country rather than a struggling developing country, left to rot, in another part of the world.  Simon Reeve also brought a very high level of empathy and humanity into his reporting,  My overwhelming feeling at the end of it all was sadness, but I can only share Reeve's hope that the Greek people's survival instinct will see them through the dark times.

 
Channel 4 screened the critically-acclaimed documentary film "AMY".  This was a compelling portrait of the life of the incredibly talented artist and songwriter Amy Winehouse, who like many others in the music world, died too young.  There was no overblown narration but her story was told by those who knew her best.  What struck me throughout this film was that Amy was a very humble person, which didn't always come across in the tabloid press fascination with her in her later years,

For everyone who's been following the Top of the Pops re-runs on BBC4 over the last few years, it was good news that these are set to continue although these will no longer run in real-time but instead there are now two editions every week, on Thursdays and Fridays (missing Yewtree-related editions) - this means that there will be two years covered over the course of one calendar year.  At the beginning of this year, "TOP OF THE POPS: THE STORY OF 1981" set the scene very nicely for what's to come. The programme had moved on from its 1970s middle of the road style of presentation to a brash party.  In a previous post on this blog I'd highlighted how 1981 introduced me to a whole new style of music (indie/alternative/guitar bands) but the beginning of 1981 was also a cracking time for pop music and a very diverse one too.  Although that wasn't always a good thing: all I will say is, Joe Dolce, Tony Capstick and Red Sovine.....

Most of the stories on BBC4's "MUSIC MOGULS" series have been told time and time again, but they're well worth one more airing.  I love this channel's music documentaries and this was no different - this time focusing on music managers, producers and PR.

There's been a lot of stuff on telly lately which makes you think, "Why tell us this?  We already know!".  Last year's "Eat Well For Less" (beyond irritating thanks to the presence of Gregg Wallace) has been followed up with the slightly less-irritating filler of "SHOP WELL FOR LESS" (BBC1). Same format: middle-class home-owning family who spend too much on big brands and designer labels are shown the error of their ways. "We'd like to save money so that we can take the children on holiday" they usually say, Oh, my heart bleeds.  Go on, live dangerously, buy some supermarket clothes or something from Primark. You'll live, I can assure you.  And you'll get that holiday.  This type of show would be more useful if they featured a wider variety of families from different economic backgrounds. Unfortunately British television is only interested in the "working class" if they are "single immigrant mums on benefits and proud".

Next up in the what's-the-point filler category was "WHAT TO BUY AND WHY" (BBC2) which compared a number of products, all of which - even the cheapest option - was always too expensive for us. Why bother?

"SUGAR FREE FARM" (ITV) was another messy idea which screamed "what's the point?".  Put a load of celebrities on a farm, on a sugar-free diet and make them do tasks on the farm.  *Horrific flashbacks of Rebecca Loos on The Farm* But of course this is family-viewing on ITV which means fulfilling their celebrity-quota.  And is there a compulsory requirement for someone from TOWIE (a programme which I have never seen) to appear on every reality show going?  This time it was someone called Arg playing the class clown.  But this was worth watching solely for the appearance of The Chase's "Beastie Boy" Mark Labbett.  Deprived of sugar, he took grumpiness to new levels that his fellow Chaser Shaun Wallace could only envy.  By the way, I love it when Shaun sings on The Chase - just brilliant.  But back to the farm - just what was the point of it all?  Sugar is bad for you.  We know that.  Perhaps ITV should follow this up with a hard-hitting documentary about hidden sugars and the big food industry's reluctance to remove these from certain foods....no, scrap that one. It's ITV after all....

Channel 5 is raiding the old clips cupboard again with "THE BEST OF BAD TV".  You know how it all works by now: let's have a laugh at bad telly from the 70s and 80s - the 80s was a goldmine for bad telly wasn't it!  However I'm fast-forwarding into the future.....when they remake this kind of thing in 30 years I'm sure they'll have something to say about what Channel 5 was broadcasting in the 2010s....

Now let's rewind back to June 1994.  That was the month when we finally joined the multi-channel world and got satellite TV here at EuropeCrazy HQ.  I'd taken a couple of days off work so that mum and I could totally immerse ourselves in this new world.  Before I completely go off on a reminiscing tangent (which is probably worth a separate post of its own) you are probably wondering what that has to do with current telly.  Well, the day after our satellite dish was installed, the OJ Simpson Bronco chase happened....and so began our obsession with that trial.   It may be over 20 years old but for some reason the whole OJ Simpson trial/circus still feels incredibly fresh in my mind.

So it's a very surreal experience watching "THE PEOPLE VS OJ SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY" (BBC2).  And it has turned out to be almost as addictive as that whole trial circus, although it's worth noting that Cuba Gooding in the lead role looks nothing like OJ Simpson, and as for John Travolta's transformation into Robert Shapiro - creepy prosthetics or what? The major issue I had with the show in its early episodes was the clumsy shoe-horning of Robert Kardashian's ex-wife and children into the storyline: we know who they are, even people on freakin' Mars know who they are, so we don't need reminding.

But all that aside, the cast deliver some cracking performances - special mentions to Sarah Paulson (as Marcia Clark), Courtney B Vance (as Johnnie Cochran), Sterling K Brown (as Christopher Darden) and of course Travolta's terrific turn as Robert Shapiro; Cuba Gooding Jr makes less of an impact as OJ Simpson.  I guess that in this series, as in the trial, the main characters in the opposing law teams have a much greater role to play than the accused....

9 years and counting

This blog has been going for 9 years now.  And as I say every year, where's the time gone?

In recent months I was very close to walking away from blogging, purely due to the frustration that I didn't have the time or energy to devote to it any more.  But I really want to continue and get to that 10-year anniversary so I'm going to keep things going for another year and see how it goes.

Things have been very busy at home since the start of the year as I've been revamping my surroundings, painting, decorating, making big changes - all very time-consuming.  As usual I have a huge backlog of unpublished posts but please bear with me, they will be posted on here eventually! So you can expect my thoughts on 2016's Eurovision national finals season, and a trip report from a new (and surprising) destination.

Doing this blog has brought me many happy times and good friends.  Once again, I just want to thank all of you for reading and supporting this blog over the past 9 years. Onwards to the 10th year :))

Notes from National Finals 2016: Eurosong Belgium

For the uninitiated, Belgium's broadcasters in Flanders and Wallonia take turns, year-about, to choose the country's Eurovision entry.  This year it was the turn of the Flemish broadcaster VRT to choose Belgium's song for Stockholm.  

In recent years of course, it's the Wallonian broadcaster which has chosen Belgium's better entries. RTBF gave us "Love Kills" and "Rhythm Inside".  VRT gave us..."Mother".  I rest my case.

This year's Eurosong national final process was spread over three weeks, with the first week introducing the five relatively unknown artists doing cover versions of Eurovision songs; the second week had the finalists performing their songs without the distraction of staging, costumes, choreography etc - and the third Sunday (17.01.16) brought the final where the artists were able to give it their full stage presentation.  

Unfortunately Eurosong had a bit of a low-budget feel, coming from a TV studio rather than a large Melodifestivalen-style arena but Éen were thinking big and taking a couple of Melfest elements: 1) having Christer Bjorkman as a guest expert (!) in the final, and 2) using international juries and adding their votes to the televote.  But there the similarity ended I'm afraid :(  

Due to other commitments I'd missed the first week, with the ESC cover versions, but tuned into the second week and was distinctly underwhelmed by the songs.  I didn't hate any of them, but they were all just too mediocre for me.  The real highlight of week 2 was guest expert Beverly Jo Scott who brought some refreshing honesty to the proceedings.  And as for her fellow 'expert' - well there was some very surreal conversation going on that week and suffice to say if that had happened over here the censors would have pulled the plug!

Of course you can always expect lots of old ESC nostalgia clips during national finals shows, but VRT also decided to combine two anniversaries: commemorating 25 years since Clouseau represented Belgium in 1991 in Rome with "Geef Het Op", probably my most favourite song of that year and the introduction to my Clouseau-fandom which reached its height in the mid-90s.  Of course time moves on and Koen Wauters is no longer the dreamy teen idol from 1991, but Clouseau still remain very popular in Belgium.   The other anniversary was that of Sandra Kim winning 30 years ago in 1986 with "J'aime la vie".  So what did we get?  Clouseau doing a "John Lewis ad" version of that song.  Now you know that one of my pet hates is when cover versions of songs are slowed right down to acoustic or piano versions of an uptempo song, so I wasn't too keen on this.

By the time the final rolled round on Sunday 17th January, the five songs were ready to go with full stage presentation.

But firstly, an energetic, if not always tuneful, medley by Hadise who has gone on to have a successful career in Turkey in the years following "Dum Tek Tek". Readers of this blog with long memories will know that I was initially very scathing about that song, which was known as "Dum Tack Tack" at EuropeCrazy HQ.  But then the impossible happened: the song grew on me during a period of a couple of years when we holidayed in Turkey and I became rather obsessed with Turkish music.  But I digress.  Hadise was the other 'expert' on the panel in the final along with Christer Bjorkman.

Adil Araab: "In Our Nature".

In week 2 he started off the song lying on the floor, Loic Nottet-style,  The song started promisingly, but unfortunately the chorus just wasn't strong enough as the verses  Perhaps a stronger chorus would have made it a more serious contender.  By the time of the final, there were some minor adjustments made to both the song and presentation, and Adil was upright and accompanied by dancers in eyecatching, colourful neon catsuits.  I rather liked this, just a shame that it fell short of being the really impressive song it promised to be.  

Laura Tesoro: "What's The Pressure".  

From what I've read, Laura would appear to be the most famous - or at least familiar - of the five finalists: after appearing on a TV soap she went on to The Voice van Vlaanderen.

This song is co-written by Sanne Putseys, better known as Selah Sue, who's had a lot of success in her native Belgium as well as in France and the Netherlands in recent years.

Laura was dressed in a glitter/leather combination and backed by some funky backing singers. Unfortunately this is the type of song which requires a stronger and funkier voice than what Laura has; her voice is just too lightweight for this song.  And my main issue with "What's The Pressure"...well check out the final paragraph of this blog post for the answer.  

Tom Frantzis: "I'm Not Lost".  

In week 1 Tom performed a rocked-up version of "Rhythm Inside".  A lot of the fans weren't too happy with that but I rather enjoyed it!  So I had a lot of hope riding on "I'm Not Lost".

Unfortunately, as with Adil's song, this fell short of its full potential.  The studio version is very impressive and the anthemic chorus comes over well.  However, in the live version, Tom just wasn't strong or convincing enough; I thought his vocals were just a bit too quiet and unconvincing.  I'd say that the anthemic nature of the song also demands more confident stagecraft, which was lacking here. And sorry Tom, but that jacket was just too tight for you.

Astrid Destuyver: "Everybody Aches"

Probably my least favourite of the 5 final songs, if only because it lacked a real hook.  Astrid seems a good enough singer and deserved a better song.  Points also deducted for this one for the background 'contemporary dancing' which I absolutely detest.

Time for a random selection of some ESC nostalgia clips, including Belgium's 1980 entry "Euro-Vision" by Telex which is one of the greatest Eurovision entries EVER!

Amaryllis Uitterlinden: "Kick The Habit".

A.K.A. "Just how irritating can a chorus be?"  Although in its favour it did have a memorably irritating hookline, but the rest of it was disjointed and forgettable.  And I can't listen to this without remembering people on Twitter referring to it as "Kick The Rabbit"!  What it did have in its favour though, was pretty spectacular (by this programme's standards anyway) everything-but-the-kitchen sink staging, including flying lampshades and a giant spider web.  But all that just left me wondering "WTF??" and none of that could make this song any better.

After a break for voting the show returned with the international jury votes being awarded.  Laura topped the international jury vote, with Tom in 2nd place.

On to the super final then with Laura v Tom battling it out in the televote.  After what seemed like an eternity, Laura was finally announced as the winner and she will represent Belgium in Stockholm.  

"What's The Pressure" could best be summed up in a traffic report: "follow the Uptown Funk road and take the next exit at Sax".  For that's the problem with this song: it's just too derivative of the Mark Ronson and Fleur East hits - especially "Sax" - to work on its own merits.  However, as the weeks have gone on and week after week has brought crushing disappointment as I struggle to find any songs which appeal to me in the various heats, semi-finals and national finals of recent weeks, "What's The Pressure" suddenly doesn't sound so bad after all.  And little did I know when this song was selected all those weeks ago, that it would mark the beginning of a very derivative national finals season indeed.  I'm particularly looking at you, Melodifestivalen...

(pictures above courtesy of www.een.be)