“Don’t forget that we are talking about the Eurovision”

I mostly managed to avoid last year’s Eurovision, when Graham Norton took over Sir Terry Wogan’s duties with the mic and Ireland’s RTÉ’s entry failed to progress to the finals. Not that the BBC entry did much better. Still, at least they weren’t actual turkeys. Or even stuffed ones. But since it’s a quiet news day, so far… RTÉ have announced the five Eurosong 2010 finalists, as selected by the RTÉ panel. From the list the official Eurovision site leads with previous winner Niamh Kavanagh (1993), while the BBC picks out Boyzone member Mikey Graham (and gets the date of Niamh Kavanagh’s win wrong Now corrected). The Irish Times, on the other hand, notes the return to the fray of their columnist John Waters – despite having his flowers crushed in 2007. Is he still not taking it “all that seriously”? From the Irish Times report

Waters’s first foray into the field of Eurovision songwriting occurred in 2007, when he co-wrote Ireland’s entry, They Can’t Stop the Spring , with Moran. It finished last, with five points. Waters said it was always his intention to return to song- writing. While he had previously described his Eurovision experience in negative terms, he added: “One can’t be imprisoned by one’s fast emotions.” He described the song, which he and Moran have been working on since September, as “a dance number”.

Hmm…

Pete Baker