It’s Pop Correctness Gone Mad

After this year I suspect it v. unlikely we’ll get Wogan again.

But we’ll probably have Graham Norton next year which will make us immediately nostalgic for the golden age of Wogan, or indeed anyone, or anything.

Interesting points raised in not-at-all-made-up-by-editors letters page of today’s Metro – Balkans triumph because:

a) they take contest seriously unlike decadent West;
b) they select artists well known and respected in their own countries;
c) each Balkan nation is very careful to do promotional tours of neighbouring countries to spread the word and promote the vote.

I note that the reluctance of Mark S to stand up for Brits-pretending-to-be-Albanians-pretending-to-be-Steps Scooch further underlines their essential post-High Life crapness.

MP complains that voters on The X Factor are not picking the winner solely on the strength of their voices. “Some genuine voters are paying money to participate in the belief that they are voting for the best singer. But their money is being wasted because other nogoodniks are voting for singers on the strength of looks, personality or even which part of the country they are from. It’s gone on long enough and some one ought to put a stop to it. Down with this sort of thing!”

Steps are better looking than Scooch! However I maintain that Scooch didn’t put a foot wrong in their performance (singing and dancing at the same time? Blimey!), it was the rubness of the song that let them down.

The performer really does make a difference though – I would have rated Greece’s entry much higher if the dude hadn’t been so greasy and off-putting.

I thought Scooch were really leaden in their performance Kat! But I think the choreography was a problem – far too much weight on the airplane gimmick which meant far too many visually quite boring shots of people doing choreographed safety movements, and not enough moving about.

Plane arms would have been better, yes. But given the difficulty most of our recent entries have singing/dancing at the same time I thought they did pretty well. Even the Serbian lass managed to time her heart-drawn-on-hand thing to coincide with the end of the song!