I've just found out that Rotterdam was chosen as the 2020 host city at the end of August.

Cue a re-release of the Beautiful South song?

And in other news....

Quote :

The BBC is to drop the public vote to select the UK's next Eurovision Song Contest entrant, instead teaming up with a record label for the first time.

It means there will be no Eurovision: You Decide, which has run since 2016.

Entrants were selected internally by the BBC for five years before that, but the broadcaster is seeking a new formula to boost the UK's results after Michael Rice finished bottom last year.

For 2020, music company BMG will choose the entrant and song with BBC Studios.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49715308

Thank flip for that.

I think the whole thing should just be cancelled and scrubbed from collective memory. I once had to sit on a number 9 bus next to a guy playing Gina G's 'Oh Ah Just A Little Bit' on a ghetto blaster on his shoulder. There are no ghettos on that route.

Gina G was robbed.

Did she not win? I don't follow it all that closely. I remember the UK winning in 97 and I must've watched it because I was able to take part in Monday discussions about how strange some of the acts were.

I also declined an invite to a 2002 Eurovision party in favour of applying another few coats of mascara, while drinking a couple of bottles of Piper Heidsieck (my flatmate had successfully shoplifted a box) and having a nice line to myself before I eventually left my flat about 11pm.

I was back (alone but with a bag of weed I'd stolen) by about 3am and slipped off the kitchen chair while drinking another bottle and skinning up.

Those are my Eurovision memories.

Gina G came second in the contest, but the song was popular in the UK itself and got to number one in the charts, something even our 1997 winning song by Katrina and the Waves couldn't achieve the following year!

Katrina won the year before, which is why it was in Birmingham when Gina G didn't win, with a better song.

Actually Birmingham Eurovison was in 98, and Gina G's song was 96, athough I'm sure it was all over Eurovision that year, a lot more than 'Strike a light' ever was.

The UK entry that year was Imaani with "Where Are You?"


No. Too easy.




Came second.

Butterfield wrote:

Gina G came second in the contest, but the song was popular in the UK itself and got to number one in the charts, something even our 1997 winning song by Katrina and the Waves couldn't achieve the following year!

I remember it being #1. What country was she representing? I thought our 97 entry was a bit of a pi** take because the song was already years old. Surely not within the spirit of things?

I enjoyed the first half of 1996. That was before the Spice Girls arrived and made it unsafe to go to parties - I still remember where I was the first time I heard that awful song - in the back of a minicab with one of those spotlights on a tall pole that Argos used to do. The driver was only too pleased to grant my request to change the station, but I had a sense that wouldn't be the end of things.

That was the year Cliff did his Wimbledon thing. We had lost a Memphis style lamp the night before - I'd had to shatter it over an intruders head to get her off my mother. She was a very butch biker and had taken offence to her brother being shared around a group of divorced ladies. My mothers friend actually had the grill of her fire burned into the side of her face, so we got off lightly. I watched the rain on the windows and Cliff on the tv.

Anyway, as I say, it gave us a chance to update our living room lighting. It was a black one.

Sort of like this, but in black, and the wire came from the base...

WhatDoesThisButtonDo? wrote:

The UK entry that year was Imaani with "Where Are You?"


No. Too easy.




Came second.

I bought the CD single.

cosmictanya wrote:

I remember it being #1. What country was she representing?

The UK, although she was Australian.

Quote :

I thought our 97 entry was a bit of a pi** take because the song was already years old. Surely not within the spirit of things?

Citation needed.

Butterfield wrote:

I bought the CD single.

I see a picture in a frame
I see a face without a name
Riding alone on an empty train

Leaves are falling in the park
Every day is a question mark

I would drive through the rain
Walk a desert plain

Lying in my room at night
Silhouettes are dressed in white
Waiting for the morning light

Each day you live and learn
As the wheels of heaven turn
For you my candle burns

Butterfield wrote:

cosmictanya wrote:

I remember it being #1. What country was she representing?

The UK, although she was Australian.

Quote :

I thought our 97 entry was a bit of a pi** take because the song was already years old. Surely not within the spirit of things?

Citation needed.

Wasn't it Walking On Sunshine?

Noooo! That WAS their old song, from 1986 or something. Love Shine a Light was their winning Eurovision song. I think all Eurovision songs have to be new.

Oh yes, I vaguely remember that song now. All these years I thought badly of them for passing off a tried and tested hit.

cosmictanya wrote:

one of those spotlights on a tall pole that Argos used to do

I've got one of those. It's still in service.