Dustin for Taoiseach!

As I have feared - and predicted earlier - Dustin the Turkey (photo) did win Eurosong 2008 and will now be the official representative of the Republic of Ireland in this year's Eurovision Song Contest on May 24th in the Serbian capital Belgrade.

If there would be any need to prove that the Irish are a mad nation, and that voting is not our strong side, this would be it. Unfortunately we have known that already for quite some time, looking at the results of the last three general elections...

For Irish people the vote for Dustin was probably not more than "a laugh", a bit of craic, and maybe a slight two-finger gesture towards the ever so serious movers and shakers in the music industry. It was a typical action for an insular people who know very little of the rest of Europe, and do not give a hoot for it either. Never mind all the Poles and other foreigners working here. As long as they do their jobs for low wages, we don't care.

So, dear compatriots, be not surprised when we will become the laughing stock of Europe (and perhaps even further afield) for sending the stuffed puppet of a turkey to an international and well-televised contest that we once not only took very seriously, but also used to win. No matter how well or poorly Dustin will perform in Belgrade, the turkey image will stick and become an idea other - and way more serious - nations in Europe will associate with Ireland. Dustin will in future be the companion of the "lazy Paddy" when people think of our country.

In light of his great election success tonight, I propose a further career move for the singing and plain speaking turkey. When he returns from his mission to Belgrade in late May, he should take over the reigns of the country and become the next Taoiseach when Bertie Ahern steps down. If he can win a vote like the one tonight, he should be easily elected with overwhelming majority by the Irish people. He could not be doing things much worse than Bertie, and I am sure he would remember it when someone gives him a large sum of money. And, being a turkey, he would most certainly never vote for Christmas, which could only improve the physical and spiritual health of the nation... Dustin for Taoiseach! Dustin for Taoiseach!

The Emerald Islander

Once again we try... (too hard)

Tonight a large number of Irish people will be watching TV and participating in the futile annual spectacle to select our national entry for the Eurovision Song Contest on RTÉ 1. Gone is the old "You're a Star" format that did not produce the desired international success for years, even though it did give loads of Irish singers and musicians a chance to be discovered (or to be gutted). Now the show is called Eurosong 2008 and will start at 7 p.m., with a separate follow-up at 9.45 p.m., when the results of the public vote will be announced.

This year's contest was also open to songwriters from outside of Ireland, and almost 200 entries were received from both home and abroad. In a change from the last two years of the competition, when composers were invited to write a song for an act chosen by RTÉ, this year entrants were asked to submit the complete package of song and performer.
RTÉ has - presumably in painstaking work, done by highly qualified and even higher paid experts - shortlisted six songs that will be played in tonight's final. The rest is now the responsibility of the Irish people, or at least that portion of the population that cares for useless and senseless gimmicks like the Eurovision Song Contest, this year to be staged at - of all places - Belgrade (capital city of Serbia, which still harbours war criminals and is one of the last places to which any person with common sense would want to go).

But common sense and pop music rarely go together, so one should not be surprised that there are at least five people - and one turkey - keen to be sent there as the musical representative of this country. The six final "acts" (yes, they don't even call them songs anymore) for Eurosong 2008 are:

1. "Double Cross my Heart" performed by Donal Skehan (and composed by Joel Humlén, Oscar Gorres and Charlie Mason)
2. "Irelande Douze Pointe" performed by Dustin the Turkey (and composed by Darren Smith, Simon Fine and Dustin the Turkey)
3. "Time to Rise" performed by Maya (and composed by Maja Slatinsek and Ziga Pirnat)
4. "Not Crazy after all" performed by Leona Daly (and composed by Leona Daly and Steve Booker)
5. "Sometimes" performed by Liam Geddes (and written by Susan Hewitt)
6. "Chances" written and performed Marc Roberts

Having heard all six songs earlier this week on the Mooney Show on RTÉ Radio 1, I have to say I am not impressed. Is this really the best we have to offer to Europe, the best we can find in this country that is filled with music (and musical talents) like no other?

Once again we try to have a "strong" entrance that could win the contest, but once again we try too hard. Having won the Eurovision Song Contest a record seven times and achieved many honourable places in the upper ten positions, Ireland seems under renewed pressure each year to produce another great success. What we seem not to realise is that the structure of the whole contest has changed since the days when Ireland could - and did - win it. Nowadays the annual spectacle is dominated by the new countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, who have burst onto the Eurovision show stage during the past few years, blasting away anything the Western states of "old" Europe had to offer.

Like most Western European countries, Ireland did very badly in recent years. Despite the fact that our very own sage and IRISH TIMES columnist John Waters wrote last year's Irish song and promised repeatedly that it would win in Helsinki, he instead achieved a surprising first of a different kind: the seven-times winner Ireland came last (and John Waters has not yet recovered from that shock).
The only sensible thing after such a humiliation would have been to call it quits for good and retire gracefully from the contest we once dominated, but which has now moved into another dimension into which we cannot follow. But there are still people in RTÉ who believe in the impossible (like they might also believe in the existence of "Santa" in a grotto at the North Pole).

So they keep going and wasting licence-fee-payers' money on yet another national contest. The result will be watched by large crowds of bored and boring people tonight. And they will vote for their song of choice, wasting more money on SMS text messages, and get excited over the whole affair while getting drunk in the meantime.

I have no favourite for tonight, and no idea who will win. In fact, I couldn't care less. But one thing is already certain: Since we leave the Irish people in charge of selecting a great song for Belgrade, the outcome might well be as disastrous as the last three general elections. One can be sure that Irish people voting will create a real mess of mediocre incompetence, as they have done so expertly in 1997, 2002 and 2007 when electing a new Dáil.

Once again we try - way too hard - and once again we will fail to make a great impression in the Eurovision Song Contest, which is now really the political and cultural hobby horse of the newly freed states of Europe. And once again we completely overlook a possible alternative, a really good song which - with some luck - might actually have a chance in Belgrade.

My repeated use of the word "once" in this text might have given you a hint already. The song I would have chosen as Ireland's entry for this years Eurovision Song Contest is called "Falling Slowly", performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, and comes from the soundtrack of the recent Irish film "once", which is already very popular in Ireland and abroad. The song is soft, sensible and original, goes straight to the heart, but also touches the mind. And it has been nominated for an Oscar.
None of the six songs people will hear and vote for tonight has such qualities, so I will not waste any more time talking or writing about them. Just one more point: my neighbour told me today that he is voting for Dustin the Turkey (even though he has not yet heard the song). This is very typical for the Irish mind. Give us a land mine, and we will happily step on it with a laugh...

The Emerald Islander
(going for a long walk tonight)