lanky316

They've done it!

I wonder if part of this is throwing some crumbs to smaller clubs. "Yes okay, so we're abolishing replays without telling you BUT you have an increased chance of getting a bigger club in the League Cup." 

After the third, I will be disappointed if the United fans aren't singing "sacked in the morning".

Next gig booked Lovebites at the Garage, Islington. I was meant to be doing a couple of festivals this year but both have fallen through and I was supposed to go to Alestorm but ended up in hospital instead so hopefully nothing goes wrong this time!

Babymetal are putting on their own festival this week. Alongside them on the bill are Electric Callboy, who have done a collaboration for the occasion.

It's as silly and catchy as you'd expect. Feel good hit of the Summer right there!

5 hours ago, Captain Kirk said:

Well behind Leverkusen tonight, purely for selfish reasons.

Well I think we know who to blame for this.

If Haaland wasn't such a donkey it'd be 8.

Manchester City as well most crucially.

Had a lovely time visiting Southampton when they beat Plymouth in December so would like to see them go up, on the other hand Sunak is there again today so come on you Baggies.

Spurs appear to be taking it seriously. Team sheet has leaked.

GK - Samuel Archer

DF - Yusuf Akhamrich

DF - Archie Baptiste

DF - Jun'ai Byfield

DF - Malachai Hardy

DM - Leo Black

DM - Han Wilhoft-King

LW - Luca Jamie Williams-Barnett

AM - Callum Latif Olusesi

RW - Miracle Adewole

ST - Damola Ajayi

Spurs really need to reorganise their website, it took too much effort to try and find their under 18s line up

22 hours ago, Colly said:

Just seen that, what an odd thing to do. Is the excuse that it's too late to do it after a night game?

It's kind of two fold, while it would have been very late after an evening game. It's much simpler than that though. As of the final whistle on Saturday. There was a chance that Manchester City would be winning the league there midweek (unlikely, relied on Manchester United being competent but possible) which meant that rather than having to rush the champions celebrating off the pitch so they could have Oliver Skipp having a walk around the pitch so people could get home at a sensible time.

Upsetting Arsenal however makes the whole thing brilliant accidental shithousery.

Most surprising part of the Israel public vote thing is that it didn't win. They were aiming to win that one more than anything else and spent millions on publicity and drives to get people to vote all over the place they'd run a stronger PR campaign then the competition and have the bank balance to show for it. When it came to votes there were GBNews types being mobilised to support them and voting without watching, people who are sympathetic to Israel or the performer getting a hard time through no fault of her own - because how many viewers are actually following everything rather than viewing just the final? - and of course it's disingenuous to say there aren't people who genuinely feel it was the best song and performance of the night. As I said the biggest surprise to me was that it didn't win the vote.

Overall, I think it was a deserving winner, I think Nemo performed the song well, it had a catchy chorus and hook that becomes a bit of an ear worm and the visuals were great. It wasn't necessarily my personal favourite but I can see all the reasons why people would like it. There's the standard bit about "the jury deciding the winner and stealing it from the people" from people but it's a no win situation. Make it all about the public vote and it's open to manipulation, especially with people being able to vote at any time which is a decision I don't really like, make it all jury and you've got a bunch of stuffy out of touch suits deciding it. EBU have done quite a bit wrong this year but getting that balance is something I can sympathise with. I don't know the solution to that problem, but I'm not paid to find the solution either.

Rattling through the voting at this point actually fair play to them. Switzerland storming into a great position!

The place was absolutely crazy for Croatia, decent enough song and incredibly catchy chorus that you can't help but "woooooaaaah" along to. Of course, that was the feeling after Finland last year so won't be holding my breath but could absolutely picture that as the ending shot for the event before rolling to the EBU logo. Really good performance. 

After a fairly subdued start, Spain and Estonia getting the place bouncing a bit and waking things up. The party is finally starting thankfully.

It's humiliating at this point. Fair enough if he's been abusive and so on and action needs to be taken due to zero tolerance for that behaviour. Okay, he's disqualified. Meanwhile we have incidents involving delegations (again, on camera and out there) being allowed to continue and while the disclaimer on that is that it's not the performer their message of zero-tolerance and providing a safe working environment rings hollow with it being allowed to continue and get this far. THANKFULLY this incident did not involve that delegation or things could have got even uglier and the bollocks about "people laughing about his dead parents" - presumably Christian has flown over for the event -  were proven to be bollocks. 

This has been a shitshow and I think that Martin Osterdahl (the executive supervisor) will have to step down afterwards regardless. He's allowed a situation to get out of control and while I concede that the big picture isn't one that's easy to manage, at every opportunity they've allowed things to get worse. There has been enough stories about "incidents" involving delegations, media people complaining about censorship and all sorts of things that are out of the ordinary. If, as is being reported by Swedish press, the Dutch performer has hit someone moments before he was due to step on stage I'm not sure what is really going on. That on paper feels fairly open and shut and I'm shocked that ultimately nobody has actually been able to confirm if that is the case as it's not exactly going to have been an empty room where it happened! For what it's worth, at the show this evening they implied that they're hoping he'll be able to perform tomorrow but right now, it's just a load of nothing and that's just taking things further. Regardless, it compromises "the integrity" - I know.... - of the event as they're still expecting people to judge and position people based on hearsay, speculation and doubt and with this going on there's not much likelihood of that being down the middle even allowing for traditional elements of the vote.

As I said earlier, the worst thing is that this years music is generally pretty solid but none of that matters any more.

Footage has emerged of an Isreali journalist getting into an altercation with the Dutch delegation and loads of stories are going around at the moment. I'm sure there'll be some sort of statement but as it stands, he's removed all references to Eurovision on social media so it very much looks like he's on his way home from this whatever exactly has happened. This whole competition has turned into a minefield now with allegations of editing broadcasts, "irregular voting patterns" being cited and all sorts of other ridiculous things which is shit because actually, there weren't really any songs that I hated and musically I think it's one of the stronger fields throughout.

As a side note, I'm sad that San Marino didn't make it, I saw Megara at Download a few years ago, then in Spain supporting Babymetal last year so I like them and was hoping to see them again. There'll be a lot of rumours, speculation and more controversy to come, but for now, I just want to carry on listening to the songs on Spotify and I'll probably pop down to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over.

----- update ----

Netherlands have indeed been removed from the running order for the jury show based on photos from the venue. Whatever has happened, it seems like it was evidently enough for them to completely remove him from the show

There'll naturally be CG stuff doing heavy lifting for the appearance but Ineson is someone I'd happily listen to reading the phone book, he has such a great voice... Throwing a kettle over the pub won't even be the worst finish to an MCU film. 

I'm not the only person who wants to see the Finnish half time show that Sweden stole from us right? I know Ievan Polkka is doing a bit of heavy lifting but frankly that's enough for me.

I'm all aboard the Rim Tim Tagi Dim hype train. Second year running a Rammstein-esque tribute run wild? Can't think of any big anniversaries the judges will want to win to try and hold back so hopefully get over the line.

Only played through one, sent a shit act, with a shit song that I barely bothered to stage and successfully got nil points so I'm obviously doing something right.

As for the real one, I've got early starts tomorrow and on Sunday so not going to be able to follow it all this year but I should at least see the second semi and the performances on Saturday.

I was on a ferry to Denmark to go to Legoland that weekend, I can still remember it as being the first time I ever heard my dad swear when he picked up the morning news sheet they printed out to keep people posted and him just quietly saying "fucking hell not Senna as well". We'd seen the "footnote" about Ratzenberger the day before - and despite being "nobodies" I liked Simtek, my childlike mind conflated that as being run by the SimCity guys - so two in one weekend was just too much regardless of who it had been. I'd heard my grandad talking about how dangerous F1 could be but like many Grandpa Simpson-esque things it was all "a long time ago" as far as I was concerned but it's a weekend I'll remember as a real eye opener. Senna will always be remembered because, well it's Senna and he's one of the all time greats, but at least the timing ensures that Ratzenberger can be remembered as well.

Very professional today. We kept it close so we could throw one in if it looked like Cambridge could be relegated, then when it was obvious they wouldn't drop went up a gear to finish the season with a win. Top 10 finish, get someone in next season and hope we can build rather than start to drop again.

As far as disposable pop goes, I like Taylor Swift, not enough to have gone on a deep dive but a few of the singles have been enjoyable enough. Like many things and at the expense of drifting into Abe Simpson I don't get why she's seen as so special. It's just fine pop music with some catchy stuff, not like she's some sort of extra special talent.

Of course, when it comes to criticism for old farts who clearly aren't her target audience I'm sure she can just... Shake It Off.