Lessons From 2009

[Beanie]

A few obvious ones.

First that the juries seemed to be very influential - songs like UK, France, Estonia - all doing well on the back of what was probably high jury support.

Also, that the juries went for the polished, classy songs(like those above, plus iceland etc) instead of the more showy and gimmicky songs like Greece and Ukraine.

Voters appear to be evolving a bit too - the camp entries, the novelty entries, the all style and no substance entries - all did badly. It's the quality songs that get the votes these days - Netherlands weren't even close to qualifying, Hungary, Serbia etc missing out too, and the noisy and brash finalists didnt do well at all.

In contrast, the well sung entries like Norway and Iceland drew support from almost everywhere.

Ballads are still strong - probably getting stronger with the jury vote.

Onto specific countries - the UK can hark on about a 'great result' all they like - the fact is they threw the kitchen sink at this one and rammed it down the throats of every country possible, with ALW grabbing at every jury vote possible, and the scoring was still pretty patchy. No idea how they plan to follow that up but it better be good else we will be back to struggling later.

Greece...mmm...time to rethink.

More later, discuss away folks.

[MickeyPaul]

UK we said from the start though was a very, very, dull, boring song and not actually any good. The only really plus it had was the performance (even though she was below par tonight). So finishing position is quite impressive I think.

[kompressaur]

Nice sum up Beanie.

[Gavster]

never..... ever vote for the Dutch. and mickey's long-odd punts are not always wise hehe

[MickeyPaul]

Whit? Which ones do you refer young man?

[Gavster]

slovakia and cyprus (even though cyprus should have got the juries vote)

[Gavster]

another thought.... must book the night off work next year! i did manage to watch it but was very distracting

[MickeyPaul]

I still think Unibet had those prices wrong although I ended up missing the 7/1 for Slovakia and wasn't interested in less. And to be honest, I continued to slate Cyprus even once I backed the hopeless bint. And I made it clear I considered it extremely dodgy. Not sure I'd call those long odds punts though. Biggest odds I had for anything was Iceland outright @ 35.00 and that wasn't too far off. edit: I tell a lie. I got in early on Lithuania for a quid or two but that was written off even before his semi.

As for lessons. Very pleased to see Greece 'struggle'. Hopefully it was the introduction of juries holding them back which is what I'd been counting on. I'd say in the future we can pretty much concetrate on finding some 'quality' and ruling out woeful, manufactured pop but Azerbaijan's success has thrown me a bit. Can't get my head around that one really. That fella is still shocking.

[Gavster]

I was massively pleased Greece struggled!! I can't believe Norton didn't point out their secret singer like he did with Romania (even though theirs was just a backing singer).

[MickeyPaul]

Yip. Beanie was raging about that too as was I. I think justice was served in the end although he still finished higher than he deserved I think.

[Gavster]

no i think he got the right position there abouts. The performance was ok, it was just the fact it was all a big sham!

was initially a litle surprised about lithuania, but then again, it never made that final jump like the others. Just seemed a bit amature in the end.

[MickeyPaul]

Yeah. I think his backing singers were bloody bad too (wee guy in the middle with the school shirt and trousers ). The whole thing was always far too dated sounding and going off first was a real killer I think.

[Gavster]

the thing to be aware of next year, is that most countries will now go serious. One country however will blow us away with a real quirky number!! I think it'll be one of those long odds winners (hopefully)

[MickeyPaul]

Well it's important to start early as we did this year and attempt to identify the quality. I'm sure Iceland were @ 100/1 or so at one point.

See you in a couple of months.

[Gavster]

yeah i was tempted at one point to bet without Norway for them. Trouble is i forgot! - bugger!

edit: but i did get them as semi 1 winners