Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Oh, busy, busy, busy! At the weekend I went to a pal's Eurovision preview night; saw an exhibition at Edinburgh's City Art Gallery on the area's gay heritage; and saw new movie Confetti. The Euro-do was great fun, with 37 entries on display prior to the whittling down to, I think, 24 that comes prior to the final later this month. There weren't that many songs that were immediately memorable - Silvia Night's Congratulations is Iceland's weirdo entry, will she be able to use the F-word on the night, should she get through? That's her with the tongue; LT United's We Are The Winners won't prove a prophetic title for Lithuania; Ireland's Brian Kennedy sings Every Song is a Cry For Love, but I think he means Pain; Lordi's Finnish entry, Hard Rock Hallelujah is a hoot; Cosmos provide a unique bit of acapella for Latvia, I Hear Your Heart - but overall, there were too many dull girlie singers.
I have high hopes for the UK's Daz Sampson with the daft Teenage Life, but I'd like to see Switzerland's Six4One win with their nicely New Seekerish If We All Give A Little. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Slovenia's terifyingly coiffed Anzej Dezan won with the neat Mr Nobody, but Europe being what it is the gong will likely go to the percussive ladies from the Netherlands, Treble, with Arambanda.
If you like Eurovision at all I heartily recommend John Kennedy O'Connor's cleverly titled The Eurovision Song Contest from Carlton Books, a superbly illustrated, nicely written ride through 50 years of songs for Europe.
The gay exhibit is rather fun, with photos of locals past and present, recorded recollections of cruising in the bad old days and more. Plus, there's a terrifically sexy security guard fella who hands out leaflets on gay walks as you arrive. Seriously. And they all finish at my house.
As for Confetti, it's not a bad Britcom, but really would have been improved by having an actual script rather than improvised dialogue arising from workshops. There was one laugh-outloud moment - there could have been many more, with a sharp scenario writer at work.
# posted by Krypto @ 2:15 PM 
