Eurovision 2024

[Archied]

6 hours ago, i-Ram said:

I never watched any of it, nor heard a song, but I am off down to BetFred tomorrow to pick up my winnings for predicting it would be won by a bloke in a frock.

Oops , just outed yourself as binary you binophobe😂

[Stive Pesley]

6 minutes ago, Archied said:

Oops , just outed yourself as binary you binophobe😂

You mean you didn't know? 😂

[Jimbo Ram]

That was the worst UK entry in my lifetime…..only could stomach 10 minutes of it last night.

[i-Ram]

9 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Damn, I lost. I didn't have you in the sweepstake as to who would be the first to make a transphobic joke 🤣 

What is a transphobic joke? Is it one that hasn’t got any end?

You really do need to stop taking yourself so seriously Stive.

[Stive Pesley]

39 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

What is a transphobic joke? Is it one that hasn’t got any end?

You really do need to stop taking yourself so seriously Stive.

Chill out babes - I thought you liked it when we did edgy bants 😍

[Crewton]

7 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Yeah, I mean fundamentally it was a really dull ballad. The fact it won the UK audience vote suggests more about the demographic of people in the UK voting than anything else. 

I saw it came second to Croatia in the whole Eurovision public vote as well, which was surprising in the circumstances, so the demographic of people in Eurovisionland voting must have been reasonably similar too. 

I guess it's why some countries don't give people the vote.

 

[therealhantsram]

7 hours ago, Crewton said:

I saw it came second to Croatia in the whole Eurovision public vote as well, which was surprising in the circumstances, so the demographic of people in Eurovisionland voting must have been reasonably similar too. 

I guess it's why some countries don't give people the vote.

 

There was a really big campaign being run across social media telling people they must vote for Israel to stand against the antisemitism their entrant was suffering. They had stories of their entrant being booed in the arena, being locked in her hotel room, facing protesters outside the hotel...

So I suspect what you saw was a Jewish expat vote, not a normal Eurovision vote.

Edited May 13 by therealhantsram

[TigerTedd]

Just now, therealhantsram said:

There was a really big campaign being run across social media telling people they must vote for Israel to stand against the antisemitism their entrant was suffering. They had stories of their entrant being booked, being locked in her hotel room, facing protesters outside the hotel...

So I suspect what you saw was a Jewish expat vote, not a normal Eurovision vote.

I don’t like the term antisemitism being used so much in this context. Antisemitism is not like Jews because they’re Jews. It’s racist. But what was going on there, and what is going on all over the place is not like Israelis because they’re Israeli, there’s a difference.

i suspect most people booing her don’t have a problem with Jews, but they do have a problem with what Isreal are doing.

just like Russia has been banned because countries threatened to boycott if they were let in, until they stop their invasion of Ukraine. That’s not anti-orthodox Christian or anything, that’s just anti-Russian. There’s a difference. 

[therealhantsram]

5 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I don’t like the term antisemitism being used so much in this context. Antisemitism is not like Jews because they’re Jews. It’s racist. But what was going on there, and what is going on all over the place is not like Israelis because they’re Israeli, there’s a difference.

i suspect most people booing her don’t have a problem with Jews, but they do have a problem with what Isreal are doing.

just like Russia has been banned because countries threatened to boycott if they were let in, until they stop their invasion of Ukraine. That’s not anti-orthodox Christian or anything, that’s just anti-Russian. There’s a difference. 

Totally agree. It was the words used in the campaign, not mine. Used deliberately I expect to get an emotional response and more votes.

[Archie]

It suits israel and the msm that the terms anti semitism and anti zionism are conflated. In reality I think very few people are anti semitic - largely people don't know enough about Judaism to dislike it and most Jews that people meet are good people. Most people however, me included, do have many issues with the cruel policies of the state of israel and are rightly anti zionist. 

[TigerTedd]

7 minutes ago, therealhantsram said:

Totally agree. It was the words used in the campaign, not mine. Used deliberately I expect to get an emotional response and more votes.

Totally understand, not your words, I meant to clarify that. Just annoys me that the term is being used all the time for all these anti Isreal protests. One should be allowed to not like Isreal the state, the country, the policies, the regime, without being accused of not liking Jews. Like not liking Saudi Arabian or Iranian policies is not anti-Islamic. Not liking American policies is not anti-Christian. Etc. 

[Crewton]

21 minutes ago, therealhantsram said:

There was a really big campaign being run across social media telling people they must vote for Israel to stand against the antisemitism their entrant was suffering. They had stories of their entrant being booed in the arena, being locked in her hotel room, facing protesters outside the hotel...

So I suspect what you saw was a Jewish expat vote, not a normal Eurovision vote.

That SM campaign must have had an influence, but I'd question the "Jewish expat vote" factor because it got high placements in countries with tiny Jewish populations, whether expat or permanent. The strangest example is Ireland, one of the most strongly pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, and with an official Jewish population of under 3,000, where it came 2nd, receiving 10 points.

Maybe people in those countries that gave it points just liked the song and disregarded the politics? It's certainly unexpected though.

[TigerTedd]

7 minutes ago, Crewton said:

That SM campaign must have had an influence, but I'd question the "Jewish expat vote" factor because it got high placements in countries with tiny Jewish populations, whether expat or permanent. The strangest example is Ireland, one of the most strongly pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, and with an official Jewish population of under 3,000, where it came 2nd, receiving 10 points.

Maybe people in those countries that gave it points just liked the song and disregarded the politics? It's certainly unexpected though.

My wife liked it. And she has less than zero skin in the game. She’s a South American catholic. 

[Van der MoodHoover]

8 minutes ago, Crewton said:

That SM campaign must have had an influence, but I'd question the "Jewish expat vote" factor because it got high placements in countries with tiny Jewish populations, whether expat or permanent. The strangest example is Ireland, one of the most strongly pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, and with an official Jewish population of under 3,000, where it came 2nd, receiving 10 points.

Maybe people in those countries that gave it points just liked the song and disregarded the politics? It's certainly unexpected though.

Perhaps people thought that large numbers of people venting their anger with the actions of a bunch of middle aged Israeli politicians on a 20 year old girl from tel aviv might be a tad unfair and supported the underdog?

 

 

[FindernRam]

Apparently the viewing figures were down 23% on last year. Not a surprise to me. 

[Crewton]

19 minutes ago, Archie said:

It suits israel and the msm that the terms anti semitism and anti zionism are conflated. In reality I think very few people are anti semitic - largely people don't know enough about Judaism to dislike it and most Jews that people meet are good people. Most people however, me included, do have many issues with the cruel policies of the state of israel and are rightly anti zionist. 

Ignorance mostly drives intolerance, not tolerance. People who are completely ignorant about  Islam are often the most Islamophobic, and people who are ignorant about the religious practices of Jews are often the most antisemitic. In both instances, they often conflate separate issues such as race with religion, for example. Israel/Judaism/Jews, Hamas/Palestinians/Islam, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that those forward slashes might as well be = signs unless a person actually educates themselves.

[Crewton]

32 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Perhaps people thought that large numbers of people venting their anger with the actions of a bunch of middle aged Israeli politicians on a 20 year old girl from tel aviv might be a tad unfair and supported the underdog?

 

 

Yes, I think that's plausible. 

[Stive Pesley]

46 minutes ago, Crewton said:

That SM campaign must have had an influence, but I'd question the "Jewish expat vote" factor because it got high placements in countries with tiny Jewish populations, whether expat or permanent. The strangest example is Ireland, one of the most strongly pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, and with an official Jewish population of under 3,000, where it came 2nd, receiving 10 points.

Maybe people in those countries that gave it points just liked the song and disregarded the politics? It's certainly unexpected though.

From what I saw across social media there were a lot of people voting for Israel because "it will really annoy the libtards with their palestinian flags". It was just yet another pathetic culture war skirmish

FFS lads -it's just a song contest

[ramit]

In Iceland we choose the song to represent us through a local song competition, so Eurovision is a long running process.  This year loud voices called for us to withdraw from the competition altogether, some of the planned performers even said publicly that they wouldn't go to Malmö if their song was chosen.

One of the performers is a Palestinian immigrant and his song appeared to have a commanding lead in popularity and then indeed won the competition, but wait, according to our state broadcaster RUV some mistake had apparently taken place and a recount was needed, the conclusion being he didn't win.  Dubious that.

Die hard Eurovision local celebrities withdrew any support this year, the traditional announcer pulled out, even the writer of the "winning" song refused to follow the song to Sweden.  All this because Israel was not removed from this year's competition.

I don't support this reaction.

I understand the people's anger over the horrific brutality of Israeli forces in Gaza, I share their feelings, yet I cannot in good conscience condone any type of cancel culture, to punish and exclude musicians, sportsmen and women, anyone representing their country, on the grounds of what their government is doing, to me that is simply wrong.  I don't believe in discriminating against people based on their origin, religion, sex or their personal opinions on various matters, even if I find those views appalling.

Edited May 13 by ramit
wording

[Stive Pesley]

1 minute ago, ramit said:

I don't support this reaction.

I understand the people's anger over the horrific brutality of Israeli forces in Gaza, I share their feelings, yet I cannot in good conscience condone any type of cancel culture, to punish and exclude musicians, sportsmen and women, anyone representing their country, on the grounds of what their government is doing, to me that is simply wrong.  I don't believe in discriminating against people based on their origin, religion, sex or their personal opinions on various matters, even if I find those views appalling.

I wrestle with this complex issue, as it's just as much an individual's right to choose to make a stand and boycott something as a way of expressing their feelings in a world where we feel increasingly powerless about what our governments do.

Plenty of athletes boycotted the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but then plenty also went along to compete and shook hands with Hitler and did Nazi Salutes. In hindsight - who do we respect more?

So I think I am OK with people choosing not to go/watch/be involved, but it doesn't seem OK to boo and intimidate a young girl just because of her nationality. She is just as powerless to change anything as the rest of us. The direction of protests at her seems pretty shameful