Diaries at the ready

Eurovision 2011 will be the week beginning 9th May according to esctoday.com.I'd heard the rumours but I cannot believe that they're letting Lena represent them again.Satellite was a worthy winner this year,of that there is no doubt,and I'm glad Lena's getting publicity across Europe,but having her sing for Germany again next year is a ridiculous idea.I guess they're doing it because they don't want to stage the contest 2 years in a row (maybe she should sing My Lovely Horse just to make sure of it),but seriously.Germany has a massive wealth of musical talent so to just make the snap decision to have a singer whose "charm" actually wore off pretty much as soon as she won in Oslo is a pointless move which I'd be quite annoyed about if I was a German singer looking for the chance to publicise myself on the world's biggest musical stage.But what do I know.

I try to write some pretty lines

Song of the Day:
Michel van Dyke- She Comes at the End of the Day

Michel is the brains behind Ruben Cossani (who,incidentally are working on a new album- very exciting,I'll need to go back to Germany to buy it) and the writer of Echt's wonderful Du Trägst Keine Liebe in Dir amongst other things.Turns out he's done stuff in English too.I'm loving this one.

Momentous Day!

OK so I'm a few minutes late now,the momentous day was yesterday.Not only did I do my last ever exam (a French speaking exam supposed to be about French energy policy but for some reason that I'm grateful for,my teacher brought up Eurovision),not only did I present the last Sounds of Europe for the foreseeable future,but...it's Work Your Magic's 3rd birthday!

I know I hardly post on here anymore,but I hope that will change now I've got literally nothing to do for...well,the rest of my life as yet.Somehow nearly 10,000 people came and had a look at this blog in the past 12 months despite not much going on,and it's still linked to on esctoday.com which is a great honour and means a lot to me.Thanks to all you 10,000(ish) people,and thanks to everyone who listened to Sounds of Europe too.We had a lot of fun doing it,and actually we're entering ourselves for the Student Radio Awards on the advice of people both at our station and a certain Kevin Hughes,Capital FM's showbiz reporter.To win an award,or even just be shortlisted,would be brilliant,and a great way to end what's been a fab 2 years.

Me and Keira are quite naturally feeling a little bit sad about the end of our show,but we've bought teacakes to cheer us up,and we're watching the videos of the lovely Harel Skaat,which are the perfect Europop pick-me-up.If Harel's beautiful eyes and smile fail to make you smile a little bit,then you probably have a heart of stone.Or you just don't like Harel Skaat...

Peter Nalitch: An Apology

Currently working on my Eurovision review,it should be here by the end of the weekend.

But before I publish that,I feel I should write an overdue apology to the wonderful Peter Nalitch.I wrote off Lost and Forgotten after the Russian National Finals without listening to it properly.Like most of western Europe I failed to get the joke or even realise that there was one.Which is a bit strange for someone who loves the Russian sense of humour as much as I do.In my defence I didn't listen to it all the way through before I wrote my post,and I didn't see the video either.Once I had actually seen and heard it properly at the semi final though,I loved it,and am glad it got into the final in a year where Eastern Europe was a bit too underrepresented for my liking.I was also a bit disappointed that Russia has such a great music scene that they chose not to take it too seriously this year.But actually that's something I like about Russia,they don't care what anyone else thinks,unlike certain other countries at Eurovison.(Naming no names,there's a particular Scandinavian country who faffs around every year trying to come up with something they think everyone in Europe will love,even going to the pretentious extent of using international juries at the national final resulting most years in an embarassing flop...)

Whether Russian humour is your thing or not though,the audience at the Telenor shouldn't have booed every time Russia got points.I know this isn't a new thing,and I don't think Peter really cared,but it annoys me that there's so much anti-Russian feeling at Eurovision.As the great philosopher Michael von der Heide once said- "it's not war,it's just the Eurovision Song Contest" :)

Anyway,here's the song that made Peter famous.The Bahamas line gets me every time.