Eurovision 2012!

[Colly]

To be fair, if we enter a name act with a good song thats also Eurovision friendly we then wouldn't have the 'we don't take it seriously anyway' excuse to fall back on when it still finishes last.

[Katsuya]

The head of the Spanish jury said that while they all respected Engelbert and wanted to give him points, they couldn't after his jury rehearsal. He fluffed notes on every performance he gave, live or in rehearsal.

Ultimately it was a case of a bad draw and an average performance by an artist completely wrong for Eurovision. The BBC approached Hurts at least this year (and rumour has it, Pixie Lott too). They both would have done a much better job, especially Hurts who are pretty damn big in a lot of Northern Europe. That's a fanbase to rely on, not Humperdinck's "legions of fans", most of whom probably weren't going to watch the contest.

[Colly]

I was actually thinking that Hurts would have been a superb choice, just the right sound. Probably while watching Estonia...

[Adam]

Surely you shouldn't be judging it on the rehearsal though? If he doesn't fluff lines and does a good job on the main event, then what's the problem?

[Katsuya]

The juries vote on the jury rehearsal the night before, because if the phone lines went in to meltdown/something happened that meant the contest wasn't shown in a country on the Saturday, they would have the jury's votes anyway. It happened with the Netherlands when there was the fireworks disaster and in Semi Final 1 this year with Albania.

But for someone as seasoned as Humperdinck, asking him not to fuck up on two consecutive nights doesn't seem particularly unfair.

[Katsuya]

So, fun rumour: Azerbaijan rigged the televote!

[Naitch]

Why and to what extent?

[Katsuya]

Apparently, they receive 3500 SMS votes in Cyprus. No phone votes. No jury votes. Just those SMS votes.

They also scored remarkably well in the Israeli televote (possibly winning it) having scored no points in their jury vote.

The idea is that they rigged it in all the countries where the viewership / voting figures are generally quite low, so they could get the most reward.