If you've been living in temporary accommodation for two years with no proper furniture, you won't appreciate what a luxury it is to sit on a sofa and watch TV. This weekend I slouched on the sofa and indulged myself in front of the TV. Not that I had planned it in anyway, but it tuned out both evenings had special programmes on that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Saturday - Eurovision Song Contest
If you're not from Europe, then you probably don't know about this contest. The Eurovsion is an annual singing contest in Europe that started back in 1957. UK has entered 63 times, pretty much every year since it started. Along with Germany, Italy, Spain and France, we get automatic entry to the final every year as these 5 countries contribute financially the most. Other countries have to go through a sing off to get to the final 25. Over the years, UK have won 5 times, but we also came last 5 times, 2 of which we scored 0 points. Ouch! Seems like no one loves us, despite us being one of Big Five countries, and the contest being hosted in English ☹️
This year, news was that we had a very strong entry and was tipped as one of the hot favourite to win. The UK media always hype around this time of the year so I wasn't paying much attention to it. I hadn't even heard the song before the contest. If you're interested, here it is, and to be honest, it actually ain't bad!!
Source : Eurovision Song Contest
Another hot favourite tipped to win was Ukraine. Each country has a panel of professional jurys who scores all the entries. They make up 50% of the points. The other 50% comes from public votes. Notwithstanding how good the entry was, it was felt that Ukraine would gain a lot of sentiment votes from the public.
After all the countries had performed, the professional jury votes were announced first. And guess what, UK came first!! That was a far cry from last year when we scored zero points. It truly looked like we had a very good chance of winning. Then the public votes were added for each country, starting from the bottom of the table. That meant UK were the last to know our total score. We kept our top place for a while till Serbia got a massive public vote and took over. Then came Ukraine's score and they got an even bigger public vote taking them way over UK and even Serbia. At that stage, Ukrine had a total of 631, and UK 283 without any public votes. We needed 349 points to win. A mammoth task. Our scores came in .... 183. Not enough to win but we still came second which was miles better than our achievement in the past two decades. Not winning was a bitter disappointment, so near yet so far, but losing to Ukraine? I'm not going to complain at all.
And if you think Ukraine won on sympathy votes rather than by merit, then you're wrong. I think the successfulness of a song of course depends on the lyrics, the melody, the vocals and artist performance. But it also has to evoke emotions, and take listeners through a journey. Ukraine's entry by Kalush Orchestra did just this. I will leave you with the video if you haven't heard the song yet.
Source Kalush Orchestra
Sunday - Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
This is another program that I stumbled upon. This year, our Queen will celebrate 70 years on the throne, the first for a Brtish monarch. The only other Kings that has reigned longer than her is Louis XI from France from the 18th century who was King for 72 years, and the Thai King Rama IX who was on the throne for 70 years and 126 days till he died. Queen Elizabeth will over take that record very soon (according to Wiki, as of today she is 28 days short)
Source https://platinumjubilee.gov.uk
The program on TV was hosted by many UK Dames and OBE (most of them get an honour if they've been around for long enough and made significant contributions to the industry) as well as Tom Cruise - great opportunity for him to promote Top Gun II. The theme of the program was very horse based as the Queen loves horses. There were many equestrian and military performances, not only from our own, but also from France, Norway, Oman, Canada, Azerbaijan, Swtizerland and India. I thought my favourite was Azerbaijan, the performance on and off horseback was just breathtaking, until I saw the percussion performance by The Top Secret Drummers from Switzerland who did a cross over drum performance with our very own Household Cavalry.
Here's more information about the show if you're interested.
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-05-15/queen-receives-standing-ovation-at-jubilee-equestrian-show
Sometimes weekend doesn't have to be jammed packed with activities, the occasional potato couch is just as enjoyable especially when you can indulge in some guilty pleasures.
Time to get ready for a new week.
Hi @livinguktaiwan,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
Your weekend was well spent
I don't stay in Europe so I don't know about most of the events but j enjoyed your videos nevertheless
Thanks for posting
You're welcome, the Eurovision has produced some well artists in the past, Abba being the most famous one
I've never done Eurovision but it makes me happy to think of all you lot that sit and watch that horrorshow with happiness in your hearts. It's not my thing, but I'd never knock what brings joy to others - it makes me actually smile to think of you in heaven on that couch doing your thang.
A lot of you Aussies seem to love it, you guys travel half way round the world to compete every year!!!
And likewise the Brits seem to love Neighbours from you guys (not that I watch it) though I hear it's going to be canned now.
Hah I used to love Neighbours when I lived in the UK as I was homesick, so.it was nice to listen to my own accent..
Most of the little things we enjoy so much are quite easy to be taken for granted. Some times when I complain too much, I pause and remind myself to be grateful for the decent life I’ve got.
You sure had a great weekend watching your favorite shows. I see why Ukraine came first in the Eurovision Song Contest and it’s definite not sympathy votes lol, their entry was really good.
After what we have all been through these few years, we really have to appreciate things in our life, family, friends, health, or even simple things in life like freedom which we take for granted.
I watched Eurovision SC for the first time this year and really enjoyed it. There were a lot of songs I liked. When watching the UK perform all I could think about was the guy looks like Alaxander Skarsgard with long hair haha. We listened to the so g again in the car and it sounds really good on the radio.
I did not watch Eurovision and was pretty convinced that Ukraine would win, so no surprise there, I am surprised that the UK did so well, we know how political the voting is!
God Save Our Queen, now that was a great show and I watched it too. She is a remarkable lady and I am happy that I met her as a youngster:)
I remember the block voting thing always gets on Terry Wogan's nerves when he was presenting so it's not really a surprise.
How did you meet the Queen? That is so cool!!!
Terry Wogan was a star :)
It is funny how for the UK we had Terry Wogan and Graham Norton doing our coverage , both Irish.
Ah Her Majesty, many moons ago she came to our school to celebrate our 150th anniversary in Edinburgh. I was in Primary 6 and our class teacher was the arts and crafts teacher. She was going to come to our class for a little tour and see our projects. I was making a plane out of balsa wood.
Just before she arrived I was using a craft knife to trim some balsa wood, except that I took a slice off of my thumb just below the nail🤣
I actually got introduced to her with a handkerchief wound round my thumb, bless her she noticed the blood on the wood and just said how clever I was for painting the wood red before I assembled the plane.
I got what for from the teacher and sent to the boarding house to get fixed up by matron.
Then in the evening I was part of the school choir that gave a performance for her at the Usher Hall, like a smaller Albert Hall.
A wonderful lady:)
Omg!! That is so funny you poor thing! You certainly made am impression and have a lovely tale to tell your kids!
hehe and I have a little scar on my thumb as a constant reminder of the time I met Her Majesty:)
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 33/53) Liquid rewards.
Congratulations @livinguktaiwan! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):
Your next target is to reach 37000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!