Originally Posted by Macy
The McCauls are a bunch of hypocrites for whinging about the voting system, after our similiar voting system got them the ticket to Kiev. Whinging about the voting system didn't stop Mickey Harte getting 13th in 2003, which qualified us directly for the 2004 Eurovision final.
We create our own problems in Eurovision. We still haven't learned the lessons we recieved from last year's thrashing in Turkey. We knew that Eastern countries were going to vote for each other, we knew that our song had to be decent this year, and we knew that our Eurovision representatives had to be able to sing, dance, dress appropriately for the occasion, and have a stage presence in order for us to do well, considering that we don't have the benefit of many neighbours to vote for us.
The McCauls appearance on stage was, in a word, awful. In Eurovision, you don't dress as if you are going to the local shop to buy milk. You are performing for a massive worldwide tv audience. Therefore you dress accordingly. You don't wear trainers, and as for Donna, I accept she's no oil painting, but when I saw her on stage, I thought, "Christ, where's the dress?" Even though the dress looked like it had been cut out of a magazine catalogue, it would have looked way, way better than trousers. (They always do). Almost all of the female singers wear skirts/dresses while performing in Eurovision, so why can't she? What's the point of bringing a dress to Eurovision, if you're not going to wear it? If she doesn't want to wear it, she shouldn't have entered the competition at all. You must make some effort when it comes to your appearance in Eurovision, female artists especially. In the final, we're going to see many, many, gorgeous, glamourous girls from around Europe who will show the RTE Eurovision Wardrobe Department, how you should dress for such a stage, in front of such a vast audience.
Our ESC representatives, couldn't dance. More worringly, Joseph couldn't sing! If that's the case, what's he there for? How many lyrics of the song did he sing alone? Not more than a couple, at most. If he can't sing, then he's effectively just a backing singer. If he can't dance to a pop song, he shouldn't be on the stage, period! Not good enough!
Last year's winner, was a professional composer, performer, and dancer, selected internally by the the Ukrainian state broadcaster NTU, who went on an extensive promotional campaign around Europe getting herself recognized, gaining publicity in order to gain votes and points. NTU put together an eye-catching performance on the night for the Eurovision viewers, and hey presto, they won! In contrast RTE use a corrupt selection process, which sends a bunch of time-wasters who have never performed in public before, to sing a crap song in front of a massive European TV audience, don't promote them or their song elsewhere, mess up the performance on the night, then stare in amazement when it all goes pear-shaped as the votes received for Ireland from other countries, are not enough to earn us enough points on the night.
The post-mortem regarding our disasterous Eurovision performance will continue long after the 2005 show is over. The Irish, and the Dutch are vehemently whinging about the voting system used. But that's the way it is, and as the state broadcasters around Europe need the money that the televoting system generates, that's the way it's going to stay.
Ultimately, whinging about the voting system used, even though it's crap, is a cop out. The truth is, if you don't do your homework beforehand, and don't prepare properly for the contest when you know what you're up against, then you can't complain when the result doesn't go your way. Until RTE learn their lessons from other Irish failures in recent contests, and take the contest seriously, it may be some time before we see Ireland in a Eurovision Grand Final again.
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