Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Wow ... eat my words. Dustin is a turkey after all.

I'm astounded.

Image of Dustin the Turkey from RTE.ie

A quick flick over to the RTE website to see how well the Irish entry did in tonight's qualifying semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest brought shock news.

Dustin the Turkey has failed to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest Final in Belgrade on Saturday night.

Wow! When was the last time that novelty failed to attract votes in the Eurovision?

The Irish hopeful's rendition of 'Irelande Douze Pointe' in the Belgrade Arena was greeted with some boos, but he still put in an energetic performance.

Earlier today, Dustin was described as "ultra-confident" ahead of the show.

Writing in his blog on RTÉ.ie, RTÉ News' reporter at the Eurovision, Gareth O'Connor, said: "The bird is ultra-confident and believes his mission is to restore Ireland's rightful place at the Eurovision top table."

But no more Eurovision feathers will be ruffled - by Ireland anyway.

The scores on the doors at the end of the first semi-final ended up with the announcement that the top ten acts getting through to Saturday's showdown will be

  • Greece, Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Finland, Russia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Poland, Norway

leaving ten disappointed countries

  • Montenegro, Estonia, Moldova, San Marino, Belgium, Slovenia, Ireland, Andorra, Netherlands.

Update - thinking a little more about after reading Slugger's take on the turkey stuffing ... I wonder whether Ireland’s problem stems from the voting in the semi-finals being taken a lot more seriously, because a place in the final is at stake.

Once in the final, maybe everyone loosens up and is a lot more relaxed.

Dustin might have worked in the final. But in the luxury of hindsight, a massive gimmick wasn’t going to win in an actual competition where 10 of the 19 participants had a chance of getting through to the next round.

The “look” of the Irish song - in terms of camera work and angles etc - felt a lot less engaging that other entries. Probably down to the fact that Dustin’s wings had been clipped and he wasn’t able to fly around the stage!

While feathers may have been ruffled, at least Dustin’s now available to help the RTE commentary team on Saturday night!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was once a show to be enjoyed but now we find ourselves laughing at what was once serious business. Johnny Logan was the man.

Anonymous said...

Eejit that I am, I backed Dustin to win Eurovision and what's worse, I had Man Utd and a couple of other bets tangled up in it, so Dustin ruined the lot! I thought he would deffo reach the final at least. You're right about the performance - it looked a lot more budget and low key than the few others I saw. Plus, I still find it hard to catch half the lyrics, but maybe that's just me :)