I’m here, the pizza’s here, and the telly’s on. Tonight, the UK’s Eurovision entry will be decided by Terry Wogan and Co, who may or may not manage to announce the right result this year.

So… five minutes to go, and we’ll be underway.

18.59 We’re kicking off early by my watch! Terry and Claudia have entered a cheap-looking studio with a horribly pixellated back screen, surrounding by a possibly drunk crowd.

19.03 The show apparently has a baffling new format this year, in which bizarre categories of acts will compete to be picked to go through to the public vote by John Barrowman, Carrie Grant, and Terry Wogan, followed by another wildcard act being put through. So essentially, the judges are discarding two of six acts in an overly complex way.

19.06 The Beeb don’t quite seem to have decided whether this is a serious search for the best representatives for the UK, or a camp comedy show. But, enough of the introductions, girl groups are up first – Firstly, Love Shy, whoever they might be.

19.11 This girl ‘group’ appears to be what may popularly be known as a ‘duet’. They’re not very good, though that may possibly be more related to the fact that there were two singers but only a single melody line, making the whole thing very karaoke. Or summert. Ooh, have to move on quick, the next act is up now – The Revelations.

19.14 These guys seem to be hindered both by an awful song and the fact that they’re struggling to sing it. All three are wearing identical oddly cut dresses in different colours. Which can also be said for the first act. How odd.

19.18 It seems that neither John nor Carrie liked either of the first acts, which is quite amusing. Terry thinks its a tough decision. Love Shy were clearly better, it would be disappointing if they didn’t go through. Oh. Carrie and John both went for The Revelations. Terry contributed the same joke he had earlier about Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s commode, and mentioned his ‘wildcard’ which was clearly not supposed to be mentioned until later in the show. All going well so far, then.

19.24 We’re now looking at former Song for Europe programmes. What fun. Moving swiftly on, it’s Joseph vs Maria – Joseph being Rob somebody or other and Maria being Simona whatserface. Oh, how far they’ve come. I thought Maria/Simona had shunned music for straight acting now? I’m confused. Now Celine Dion is blasting, presumably because she once did Eurovision. Rob McVities thinks he’s following in her footsteps. I don’t want to shatter that illusion. Is he really named after a biscuit? Apparently not. It’s McVeigh. Disappointing. Time for him to sing now, I think.

19.26 He’s certainly singing like he means it. I don’t especially like his tie, though. That’s a negative. Oh, and the song isn’t great, either.

19.28 There’s a possibility that you’re wondering why something which calls itself a political blog is commenting on Eurovision. Frankly, that’s a question I’m asking myself right now, too. But that’s the situation I’ve got myself in. Simona Armstrong is up now. Can you have somebody from Romania representing England in Eurovision?

19.31 A quick recap: Currently, Romanian Simona is singing in a tutu (as Simona, not Maria) in the Maria/Joseph category to win the support of the judges to represent England in Belgrade. The judges might choose her now, if they don’t then they might choose her later, and then the public have to decide if they want her. I think all that’s right. Saturday night TV is confusing these days. It’s a bizarre song called Changes. I don’t know whether it was good or not. Frankly, I’m no longer sure of my own name.

19.35 John wants to pick Simona based purely on her Romanian heritage, which I’m sure must be against some kind of subclause of a BBC Editorial Guideline. Carrie likes her because she and her song are equally weird. What?! Terry is, once again, not contributing anything other than saying he won’t say who he’d have voted for, but that he really, really liked Simona. Rob looks sad. Awww.

19.38 Now they’re doing ‘The Terrys’ (Terries?), and ill-though out feature in which Terry tells us the top three acts from the history of Eurovision in a number categories, showing clips with dipped sound whilst he commentated. So, for example, we were treated to the ‘best lungs’ in Eurovision without actually being able to hear the singing.

19.41 Next up is Andy from X-Factor. No idea what the category is supposed to be, but given that both contestants are black, and given the comments about Simona, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if it was, actually, the Blacks. The good news is that he’s actually not a bad singer, and the song isn’t terrible either. The same can’t be said for the pelvic gyration, but we’ll forgive him that.

19.44 Michelle, of Grange Hill and Eastenders fame, is now taking to the stage in a grass skirt with a song called Woo.

19.45 Turns out I spoke too soon. It’s not a grass skirt, it’s a grass-skirt style dress. If you’re not near a TV, trust me that it really is as bad as it sounds. This seems to be turning into a Fashion Blog tonight, and that might not be the best idea. After all, it is me writing. This is a truly awful song, with even more bizarrely terrible dance moves apparently based on the Birdie Song. I still haven’t recovered from ‘Something Kinda Ooh’ from Girls Aloud, so a ‘Woo’ is the last thing I need right now.

19.52 Carrie thinks Andy can sing, the song matched his voice, and he was excellent. John thinks much the same. They agree that Michelle’s number was crazy, frantic, and slightly manic. So they’re putting Michelle though. Eh? Terry is being useless again. But now he’s picking a ‘Wildcard’.

19.57 He’s picked Andy. Very good. Now the lines are open for public votes, preceded by a lengthy pre-recorded spiel about how to operate a phone and a long recap of the performances.

19.59 It’s finally over. For now. It and me are back at 9.30pm. See you then!

21.31 Ninety minutes and a costume change later, we’re back. I haven’t changed costume, you understand, rather Claudia has. Into a sparkly number. Ooh. The phone lines are frozen, and we’re about to find out who’s going to go head to head. Again.

21.34 It’s Michelle Gayle and Andy X-Factor. They’re now going to sing again, after which the phone lines will re-open. Terry’s desperately trying to fill, and is failing so badly that he’s now admitted he’s filling. Now there’s another pre-recorded spiel about how to use a phone. And it’s over to Andy.

21.39 Andy’s doing very well. It’s just unfortunate that the song has a similar chord progression to The Disco Inferno, which creates some dodgy moments where you desperately want a ‘Burn, Baby, Burn’ which never materialises. Nevertheless, it’s a good song, and a great performance. I’d quite like to see it win.

21.43 Michelle’s back with the ‘Woo’ one again. The one with the birdie dancing and enthusiastic arm-flinging. I’m concerned that this might win on the ‘weird’ Eurovision ticket, which Scooch won on – much more comprehensively and competently – last year. It’s actually painful to watch and listen to. And what’s going to fill the 15 mins between this performance and the end of the show? Please tell me it’s not anther awful, poorly conceptualised VT.

21.48 The answer appears to be that they’ll spend most of the time explaining how to vote. Oh, they’re squeezing in a poorly conceptualised VT – showing the songs chosen by other countries whilst talking over them so we can’t actually hear the entries. Terry isn’t funny enough to sustain a comedy monologue on primetime TV – he only works as Eurovision commentator in a knowing, ironic way, not at all in the way he thinks he works. And then we get treated to a VT of previous UK winners. Yipee.

21.51 Just to demonstrate how out of touch anybody voting for Michelle Gayle is, they’ve now got Katrina (minus the waves) performing her 1997 winning number.

21.53 Now another Terries/Terrys VT, as poorly thought out as the last.

21.55 The lines are now closed. Carrie thinks Michelle should win, John thinks so too. Grief. The public have chosen…

21.59 Andy Abraham! That was a pleasant surprise. And that’s it. Andy’s singing his song for the third time this evening, which frankly might be pushing it a bit. I know I said I quite liked it, but maybe not that much. Still, all’s well that ends well, I guess, and he was very much the best on the night. Congratulations Andy.

Thanks for joining me tonight, and I hope you enjoyed the LiveBlog. Serious political comment and normal service will be resumed shortly 😉

Photo by chriswatkins, modified under licenceMy thanks to Nick Freestone for pointing out that Dixons are at it again, issuing the sixth iteration of virtually the same press release.

That’s now analogue radios, 35mm cameras, video recorders, the computer game Manhunt, CRT monitors, and now analogue TVs of which the Dixons Group have issued press releases with exaggerated reports of impending demise.

Keep your eyes peeled – if they manage to get national coverage of virtually the same story a seventh time, I’ll have to send their press department some kind of prize. At this rate, I’m going to have to have a regular DixonsWatch feature…

iPod Touch: Joits, modified under licenceI was amused earlier this week to find the Daily Mail in it’s usual shocked state with the screaming headline ‘The iPod A-level’.

It turns out that in a newly redesigned A-Level Media Studies course, pupils will have to engage with new media and submit some coursework in the form of websites, blogs, podcasts, or DVDs – all of which are relatively challenging media, and all of which are highly relevant to the new media world.

The coursework that has to come in this form is an analysis of the bigger coursework project which makes this even more of a challenge: They effectively have to put across a commentary on their work in an engaging, new media way. I’d rate that as a much greater challenge than a simple commentary essay.

As with anything remotely new, though, the Daily Mail doesn’t like it. It claims that such methods fail in certain areas:

Students must be able to concentrate for more than five minutes and produce a piece of work on their own.

They must be able to put arguments together and put a series of linking paragraphs together which express and develop an idea.

Well, certainly such projects will take far more than five minutes’ concentration, and will require the construction of detailed, engaging arguments about their idea. If doing this through a website or blog, then linked paragraphs will be necessary, and if doing it through a podcast or DVD, a clear script will be required – in many ways, more challenging.

The Daily Mail goes on to suggest that this new coursework requirement means that students will no longer need to be literate. Quite how it expects them to pass their written exams if they can’t form comprehensive and detailed written arguments and analyses is not mentioned.

And, as the Daily Mail should know, it’s impossible to produce a podcast using an iPod, so it’s hardly ‘The iPod A-level’. Oh, except, maybe they don’t know that, because unlike the Guardian, Telegraph, or the Times, it doesn’t publish podcasts. And it only launched a proper website in 2004. And in 2005, it’s editor said that giving away free CDs and DVDs was ‘madness’. So maybe the journalists just feel a bit threatened by young talent.

Jeremy Clarkson, publishing his bank details in The Sun after half the country’s bank details went missing:

All you’ll be able to do with them is put money into my account. Not take it out. Honestly, I’ve never known such a palaver about nothing.

Jeremy Clarkson, after someone set up a £500 direct debit on his account using his bank details:

We must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy.

There’s no better way to start the week than with a healthy, juicy, oh-so-lovely dose of schadenfreude.

Leon?! Didn’t see that coming! And I’m not the only one.

Browsing YouTube tonight, I feel an acute sense of loss at the ending of The West Wing. It was a truly great show – and which other would make this kind of point on prime time US telly?

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/bartlett.flv” title=”The West Wing” picture=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/barlett.jpg” ratio=”14:9″ /]

You may remember Dixons, the highstreet electrical retailer that was absurdly rebranded as Currys.digital (their pointless dot and italics, not mine).

You may also remember its wonderful press department which secured it regular free advertising via the national media, by putting out stories about items which it would no longer stock. As I detailed in a post with a remarkably prescient title, it received national coverage when it stopped selling analogue radios, 35mm cameras, video recorders, and the computer game Manhunt.

These stories each generated acres of positive press coverage about the futuristic and ‘ahead of the curve’ style of Dixons, for virtually no cost to the company itself. Now that’s good PR – It wouldn’t make sense to sack people like that just because a brand is disappearing.

And, indeed, it appears that the PRs’ jobs were safe – the Dixons press department appears to have shifted across to a different part of the same group of companies. Earlier this year, PC World received much coverage for its decision to stop selling floppy disks – possibly a little too ahead of the curve, given that 700,000,000 of the things are still sold each year.

And on this morning’s commute, I note yet more press coverage, since PC World have decided to stop stocking CRT monitors. Again, possibly too ahead of the curve, given that CRTs are still preferred by many graphics professionals.

How many times can national media outlets be conned into printing an almost identical story, which is effectively an advert for the same group of companies? Six at least, it would appear.

If that isn’t a depressing commentary on journalism today, then I’m not sure what is.

I note that Vicks are currently running a TV ad with the strapline:

We start with solutions, not problems

Is this a pharmaceutical company admitting that they invent dubious syndromes to fit their drugs? They say that honesty is the best policy, but claiming that their products may form the solution to a non-existent problem might prove to be a little too honest.

Peter Horrocks has written an interesting piece on his BBC blog defending the way the organisation has told the story of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Unfortunately, his defence makes little sense. Some selected extracts…

Often we’re not able to give viewers any new information and that’s one of the things I spend a lot of time talking to my journalists about, to focus on facts … I know that many other TV and radio networks have been absolutely extraordinary, always talking about it in terms of sympathy and their feelings

I am incomplete agreement with Mr Horrocks here: Reportage of the facts, not of feelings, is exactly where BBC News should be focussed in this instance.

Questions have been raised over why we used a helicopter to cover the McCanns’ journey home from East Midlands airport.

An understandable question: Coverage of a car driving from one place to another has apparently little news value, and adds few new ‘facts’. So why did the BBC cover it?

The McCanns’ return was an important emotional moment in this story, and something which we felt we needed to cover for continuous news.

Eh? The BBC, which Mr Horrocks says focuses entirely on facts, and indeed is better than its rivals because of its emotional detachment from the story, felt the need to give continuous coverage to a car journey because it was an “emotional moment in this story”.

I sense a gap in the logic.

Call off of the quangos, cancel the committees, and stop the investigations. I, Simon Howard, have discovered why the UK is so poor at recycling, reducing waste volume, and helping the environment.

It is, it would appear, due to the existence of people like Helen Veale, executive producer of Channel 4’s most recent reality TV show Dumped. From a piece she wrote for Guardian Unlimited:

Before Dumped it had never really occurred to me that when you throw something away it actually goes somewhere.

Wow. An executive producer commissioned to make a programme about rubbish for one of the UK’s biggest TV channels didn’t know that rubbish went somewhere after she’d put it in her bin. Presumably, on par with the scientific knowledge of most TV producers, she thought it disapparated, like things do in Harry Potter.

And just to further exemplify her knowledge of the subject matter on which she’s produced a programme:

[T]he whole point is that everyone seems to think that “the environment” is something that happens far away, in foreign countries, caused by other people.

Who is this “everyone”? I don’t think I know anyone who thinks that. And, frankly, it’s incredibly depressing if anyone does – let alone someone producing a programme about the environment.

The concept of Dumped actually strikes me as rather good, but now I’m worried that it will be spoiled by ‘revelations’ like the fact that my rubbish goes to landfill, and doesn’t simply disappear. With Ms Veale executive producing, I’m not holding out much hope.