Eurovision 2026 - UK finishing last yet AGAIN! Heigh-ho!

 

The 70th anniversary finals - of which I've watched all but a small handful of them - this year's host being last year's winner - Austria. 

And oh dear! My hoping that at last there'll be a contest containing at least a few acts I'd appreciate enough to want them to win - but once again I find myself out of sympathy with virtually all of last night's 25 performances, such that I couldn't have cared less whosoever would be the winner. I can only guess that for me it's a 'generational' thing as I watch, listening, yearning, for a memorable tune - but could hardly find any at all!  

Winner was Bulgaria by quite a margin, and for their first ever time - with Dana singing 'Bangaranga'. (Please don't ask!)

Runner-up, Israel - their third consecutive time in second place. Their involvement caused five of the regular nations, including Spain, Ireland and Iceland, to boycott this year's contest. If I'd bothered to vote (though now by land-line phone not allowed, on-line only for the first time) this is the one for which I'd have reluctantly cast my choice:-

One Noam Bettan singing 'Michelle' (No, not the Beatles 'Rubber Soul' song!)

And third was Rumania, with the most 'controversial' song of all - understandably, perhaps, with a title of 'Choke me!' - sung by someone whose name I can't be bothered to type.......

Australia came 4th and the bookies' favourite, Finland, came in at 6th place.

And the U.K.'s entry to 'gain' yet another last place with a final score of just the one point (awarded by Ukraine) as against the 516 points given to winner Bulgaria - 'Look mum no computer' (that's the name of his act, not the song title - his real name, Sam Battle) performing, yes, 'Eins zwei drei' ........(don't say a word!)

                      "Eins, Zwei, Drei - Darlin' I need something saltAY!"

                      "Eins, Zwiei, Drei - with a slice of pepperonAY!"

Why did we bother? However, I do think last place was a trifle unfair, I reckon that coming in at 20th would have been nearer the mark - there were, in my humble estimation, some even worse songs!

Just a few misc. points.

Boy George made a very brief participating appearance at the end of San Marino's effort - he co-wrote their song - but it couldn't even pass the semi-final stage.

I found Greece's act the most 'fun' to watch - man dressed as a cat(?) though in very un-cat-like costume:-

The two hosts, this year, whose names I shan't bother you with, were as tiresome as Eurovision hosts can usually be:-

As is now the case every year, the programme was so damn bloated, far too much needless 'padding' and taking just a quarter hour under four hours long. It could easily have been cut by a full hour at least -which would even then have made it nearly three hours. The actual first song wasn't even performed until 20 mins in! And then, why oh why, do the presenters always have to yell at the audience "Are you ready? - I can't hear you! - I said are you READY????" Good God! We'd all been ready since last Xmas! Just GET ON with the damn thing!

And the re-visit of last year's (unaccountable?) winner, a youngish guy displaying his 'talent' for stratospheric falsetto in a completely forgettable song, not only re-reprising his victorious entry in the main half-hour interval before voting results were announced - as though we needed yet another song! - as well as returning his persona in at least another of the extended 'pauses'. Oh, more PLEASE! (For gawd's sake, just GO!)

And Graham Norton's  commentary? Nothing special!

And very finally, apart from the usual conspicuously gay-predominating audience, none of the acts themselves demonstrated any gay 'flourishes' or even mild suggestions of - so Russia's Pres. Putrid would have given it a thumbs-up "DA!" (while no doubt ordering 3/4 of the 10,000 audience to be arrested). Among the performers themselves and backing dancers/singers, apart from maybe two or three of the dancers, very little eye-candy for me this year...... 

'nuff said!

So next year, Sofia - though I know that, despite all, I shall be watching ........yawn!

What did an aspiring quiz champion call this type of crossing?

 

Question (an easy-peasy one just to relax the contestant into the general knowledge round) - What equine-type animal gives its name to a pedestrian road crossing with distinctive alternate black and white stripes?  Her answer - "Horse!" LAUGH? Well it's hard not to! 

This was on a broadcast a few days ago in our national 'Mastermind' quiz. Obviously sidetracked by the word 'equine' with which I should have thought that more than half the  population would be familiar. Okay, so we know that going solo under television lights on a nationally transmitted programme can easily cause confusion to a contestant, only this was one where she'd already come first in both her initial heats as well as in the quarter-finals and was now at the semi-final stage (in which she eventually actually finished in joint second-place) so one would think she'd have got the idea how to play it by then. Heigh-ho!

Neil Sedaka dead at 86 - another past shining beacon gone.

 

Composer and performer, his talent loomed large in my life during the 1960s and (slightly) beyond - especially when I myself was aiming at becoming a songwriter, even though I never managed to get any of my own admittedly feeble attempts published.

Above - his appearance 20 years ago at London's Royal Albert Hall.

But I held his creative ability in awe around that time - his hit songs like 'Oh Carol', 'Breaking Up Is Hard To Do' 'Calendar Girl' 'Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen' and so many more. (I only found out this morning that he'd penned the Connie Francis hit 'Stupid Cupid' when  he was still in his teens!)

Then in following decades my respect for him dwindled, starting with his seemingly vehement (to me at that time) denial at rumours that he was gay, as though being so was 'shameful'. He had in fact been married to the same woman all his life since 1962, having with her a son and a daughter - and, though the rumours persisted there's been no significant evidence that he actually is/was gay, those stories perhaps fuelled that he at an early time composed collaborations with an 'out' gay young man, though nothing of substance other than that. So I now accept that he highly likely was hetero after all, despite my then annoyance at his apparent over-reaction to the possibility of his being 'other'.

(Now to follow, a bit of a diversion to a pet peeve of mine which, oddly, I have never heard discussed - on radio, TV or anywhere else at all, though it's bugged me for many decades........)

Perhaps more importantly to me personally than the above, in his composing work later in life Neil Sedaka became an enthusiastic advocate for something which I just CANNOT abide - specifically, putting words to themes written by great classical composers - a practice being utterly devoid of any respect for the intentions of the composer. Foremost is the perpetrators' all-consuming desire to earn money by riding on the backs of the deceased, using the latters' creations to get it, despite the severe mental 'disturbance' to admirers like me of the original, wordless work that its creator had intended. Once heard with words, near impossible to forget. Surely a form of mental 'abuse' for we listeners! Luckily, as far as I know, none of Sedaka's products of this type became well-known, and it's maybe just as well that I cannot name any songs of such - though I most definitely could point to a myriad of songs from other songwriters that do do just that, some of which became popular, both down the last half-century or more as well as even quite recent 'hits'. I suppose one of the most prominent examples of these travesties is the filmed musical (and occasionally still staged) 'Kismet, using the music of Borodin, some of which is so sublime, yet now with added words totally at odds with the (pre-word) music's emotions that poor Alexander B. must yet be turning in his grave!  (They've also done the same thing with Grieg's music in at least two films). And one further illustration - probably the best known of all, the film and stage musical of 'Carmen Jones' where Oscar Hammerstein took whole swathes of Bizet's Carmen (which has been one of my own favourite of all operas) and replaced the original French words by his own (English, of course) so as now to involve the 'sport' of boxing instead of bull-fighting - though admittedly the original opera's subject is hardly any 'better'.

In all such cases, once one hears what may formerly have been incredibly uplifting and inspiring music, after words have been added all its original beauty has been utterly lost! And what's even worse - if such a thing is possible! - it often becomes an earworm! - impossible to listen to the original composition without the words coming back to haunt you. The supernal music of Chopin has been another victim of this practice, as has Rachmaninov's.

I shan't offer further examples because it might well make others unfamiliar with them curious enough to investigate and so to risk having a like experience of what for me, as an avid classical music lover, a bane imposed over a most valuable part of my life.

Anyway, I've gone to town on this subject when I hadn't intended to, but it really is a reflection of the degree of hostility on the subject I've always felt ever since I first became a convert towards classical music way back in my mid-teens. 

So, as a final word, getting back to the late Neil Sedaka - a fond(ish) farewell to someone who absolutely was a giant of talent in my pre-20s years and onwards - and who, in spite of what I've written, I do still look up to. Thank you indeed, Sir!

Did you know of - or do you, like me, suffer from - THIS?

 

I can not abide being in close proximity to someone eating who doesn't have the slightest awareness or care of the sounds emanating from that act. There! I've said it - something I've never in my life put in words to anybody else! Yet it's been an unspoken blight I've carried around ever since I became aware of it around 12-13 years old (possibly something linked to puberty?).

It's not just noisy eating - I think most people find that unpleasant - but making a needless aural assault on other people's sense for what is basically an admittedly natural, though to me, a private/personal activity.

I don't recall having encountered the word 'misophonia' until I read it a few days ago, Xmas Eve, on the BBC News site about a woman who has suffered from this 'disorder' (as it's medically described) for a lifetime, and I thought "That's ME!" And looking it up, although the word covers negative reaction to a wide range of sounds, foremost among them is other people's eating. And all these decades I'd thought that I was if not unique (which would have been silly) but certainly quite rare. Now I find that it's rather more common than I'd assumed to be the case.

My own aversion depends not only on the particular sound being produced but whether or not I know that person, that combination setting up a particular reaction in myself which I find severely hard to tolerate, and I just have to move away outside earshot or I feel I'll go mad!

My most extreme reaction all my life has been to one of my brothers' eating, one who is 18 months younger than me, so he's now 78. We were very close as boys then suddenly, as though overnight, I couldn't help but hear that when he ate anything at all, he thudded his teeth together, top against bottom, whether he had something in his mouth or even after he'd swallowed it - and that sound in particular, that thud-thud-thud, just drove me crackers!. And now he still does it - at least he did when I last saw him 18 years ago at the funeral wake of another of my brothers. But that same in that direction irritation soon extended to every other member of my family, even though they made different sounds, it still sent shivers through me even if nothing like as deeply felt as that of my younger sibling. I've only ever met one other person who eats in that same way, someone I used to see quite regularly, being the boyfriend of one of my own best friends - the latter not seemingly troubled by sharing my difficulty. I could never myself have had a close friend who ate that way, let alone live with one - but, then, I've never been asked! 

Apparently there is (as yet?) no known cure for this malady, though there is what's known as 'cognitive behavioural therapy' to deal with it by reducing the level of negative reaction to this particular stimulus. At my age it's a bit late in the day for me to explore whether something on those lines could make it for me easier to live with, though I don't rule it out entirely.  

Generally, the noisiest of common foods must be apples and crisps ('chips' in U.S.A.) and should the occasion arise, or I was offered such, I would never eat them in company, being ultra-aware of the sounds I myself was making. I'm even still conscious of it having lived alone for 55 years. I do still consume a (small) packet of crisps daily, but I do try to keep the volume down - after all, my pussy-cats may not like it. Don't want them to be giving me disapproving looks! 😊 

I'll end by relating a dreadful experience I had some years back, my coming closer to being an actual murderer than I've ever been before or since......

It was in the 90s, a couple of years after the Channel Tunnel had opened, affording a rail link between London and Paris. I was returning to London - a packed train but I'd got a reserved (window) seat, so no problem there. I'd noticed that the adjacent aisle seat had also been reserved, but settling down with a paperback I didn't give it any more thought. Then she arrived. A what-you-might-call, a 'portly' youngish female, perhaps around 20, carrying a supermarket-type plasic bag full of....well, what I was about to find out. She plonked herself down, spreading herself over both armrests (but she was 'large'!) and straight away reached down and took out a large bag of crisps - the bag being about the same size of those which contain half-a-dozen small individual bags. The train had not started yet so there were no sounds other than people talking, and no buzz or hum from the train's movement itself. I made an inner 'groan' as she began chomping away - crunch, crunch, crunch - completely distracting me from my reading. I was reluctant to escape to somewhere else even if only temporarily, as she being on the 'large' side it would have meant a major upheaval only to be repeated on my return - no other visibly vacant seats to be seen which might be unaccounted for after late-comers had arrived. So anyway, I grinned (though not really) and bore it! By the time she'd finished the train was on the move. She then reached into her bag again and brought out one those giant plastic bottles of Pepsi. "Glug, glug, glug" she went - well, she did have an awful lot to wash down into her gullet.  When that episode I thought must have been over, resuming my reading she was fumbling in her bag again and brought out - (don't laugh) - another giant bag of crisps! OMG! Clearly this creature was one of those who just could not keep still - she simply had to be doing something, and just my luck that her 'thing' happened to be to eat, eat, eat! My indignation was becoming harder and harder to contain, but I couldn't do anything other than continue to suffer in silence, albeit near to bursting. Chomp, crackle, chomp, crackle......it went on and on. I tried to console myself by thinking "Well, at least she's not speaking into a phone!" Coming out of the tunnel, entering England, she'd now finished her second (giant) packet - and what do you think she did? Yes, you guessed right. She got out her PHONE! - and for the next 30 mins at the very least, non-stop jabber, jabber, jabber, yak, yak, yak - making it impossible for me to read. You can't not listen when there's someone a few inches away from your left lug-hole talking as if the whole coach needed to hear - and what's worse, everything she said was so non-urgent - inconsequential - nothing that couldn't have waited. As it so often is on these chats you can't help but over-hearing it when on public transport. By now I was seething, blood pressure doubtlessly stratospheric, feeling like boiling inside I could have exploded out through my ears. As we pulled in to Waterloo station (as was then London's final terminal point - now it's St Pancras station) I was trying to admire myself for restraining from committing a proper murder - a deserved killing by any means possible, only by the most convenient and quickest way possible, anything to bring an end to that prolonged verbal assault on my ears. One thing I do have to be grateful for, though - is that she didn't have an apple! That would really have sent me over the cliff edge, to face a prison life sentence - but it would have been well worth it!

 

And lastly for now - wishing all the very best for 2026 to all you lovely people!

 

Engrossed by 'Celebrity Traitors UK' as is half the country - or more.

Don't often enthuse about TV programmes but have to admit I'm finding our current 'Celebrity Traitors' totally rivetting - this one coming to its doubtlessly gripping finale next Thursday - and, very laudibly, nothing has been leaked though it was filmed months ago.

Before now we've had three U.K. series, but all only with 'unknowns'  as partipants competing for cash to win for themselves. I watched each of them - as well as three American series (using as location the same Scottish castle as our British ones have, though with Alan Cumming as an impeccable 'host'), as well as two Australian and one New Zealand series  - and found them all fiendishly watchable.   

This current B.B.C. one is presided over by the wonderful, and severely-serious Claudia Winkleman - except for when she loses it by getting excitedly involved in the challenges she sets, which I love to see. 

For the first time here, the game features only celebrity participants, several of whom are household names, and playing to win money for their individually favoured charities, the latter bodies being organisations whose names we as yet don't know. Right now we're down to the last five surviving players, among whom (most of) the remaining faithfuls do not know that there are also two uncloaked traitors in there with them -  though ex-rugby-player Joe Marley has, very shrewdly and correctly sussed out the identities of who the traitors are. I do hope he wins. 

  

This series began with eighteen well-knowns - or most of them being so, I familiar with just eight of the nine older ones, but none of the under-30s, not even any of their names ringing any bells. Some of those older ones whom I did know, include:-

Sir Stephen Fry........

........inevitably decribed as (over-used term) a 'national treasure', which indeed he is.

'Veteran' Actor Celia Imrie.......

....films include 'Mamma Mia', 'Bridget Jones' films, 'Calendar Girls' and too many others to mention. Her clearly audible though non-intentional fart in an early episode was considered as the moment in, probably, this entire series.

Btw: why is the word 'actress' not used now? Is it considered as demeaning? - or is it my age showing once more?

Olympic (bronze, silver and GOLD!) Diver - and now renowned knitter'! - Tom Daley......

.........who got 'murdered' way too early, he having quickly raised to others his deep suspicion of the following player as being a traitor..... 

Sports broadcaster (as well as dog-enthusiast) Clare Balding......

..........another earlier-than-deserved banishment.

Hottie, mainly TV daddy-actor (whom I didn't know) Mark Bonner:-

.... and whom I couldn't keep my eyes off. Severally frowned on for what was seen as his histrionic reactions and interventions, though they didn't bother me. Lasted longer than most before being banished.

Then, probably the two most widely recognisable (at least to British audiences) talk-show host and much more, Jonathan Ross......

....... who commands attention like no other just by being there.

.....and, of course, that giggly, camp, very popular comedian Alan Carr......

.......another who only had to be himself to get the attention focussed on himself - though frequently discomited by it, only adding to his being targetted, more often than not, in non-hostile ways.  

An interesting feature of this series is the high incidence of 'out'-LGBTQ participants (of both sexes), whom I shan't list as it really has nothing to do with the programme and I think has hardly even been mentioned - if at all. So I'll say no more.

I'm looking forward enormously to the grand final next Thursday together with millions of others. What a great idea this was - originally thought up by a Dutch guy, I believe. I don't think I've seen one single negative criticism of it. I shall of course be watching all future British series, be it either with more celebrities or equally with unknowns, as well as some from other countries too. Marvellous, compelling stuff!

Btw: In my last posting I wrote about the uncertain future of my blog as I'm unable to access Windows 11 on this ancient laptop of mine  - and this remains the case. However, I do have good (quite expensive)  security which has never let me down so far - and I shall continue to keep an eagle-eye out for anything untoward happening, anything which might endanger my own future use and (most importantly) that of others who read my blog. Should such a situation arise I most certainly promise to let it be known here. Thanks to those of you bearing with me. 

 

And so commences my final year as septuagenarian.

 Wed. 15th Oct.

This photo was taken two weeks ago on the first anniversary of that devastating tripping accident - resulting in broken arm, fractured jaw (though not seriously) and two most prominent upper front central teeth knocked out, the latter explaining the closed-lips smile which would otherwise have revealed an ugly gap. All except the teeth situation reasonably resolved now. I still await appointment with professional dentist who'll tell me whether my request for a pair of falsies to be inserted at front upper is viable, rather than the original dentist's opinion saying "They'll all have to come out!" - whether he meant both upper and lower sets or just the upper, I was too startled for it to register.

Other than that, things are okay, though I'm afraid there'll be a rather large 'downer' at the end of this post - so if you had thoughts of sending me your wishes, though I do know they'd be well-meant, you might prefer to go easy on the 'happy' bit when you read it. 

Both pussies, Bobby and Sloopy, now in late middle-age, are in good health though still as hostile to each other as they ever were. Despite the cooler weather every night they both sleep with me, one on each side (Sloopy nestling in the warmth of an arm-pit) making my turning over quite a business, with an occasional soft warning growl of disapproval. But I'd be truly friendless without them.  

Now for the 'bad' news. 

It's becoming increasingly likely that I'm probably going to have to discontinue this blog, whether just for a time or permanently I can't say. If that time does come I'll do a short post announcing such. 

The reason - finance. Yes, it really has become rather grim. With Windows now having withdrawn support for Windows10, and now Microsoft as well, it's becoming riskier, my primitive laptop becoming more vulnerable to hackers. I do have reliable security in Avast, who have never yet let me down though it would be better to have back-up just in case, all of which is disappearing. I wouldn't like others to be put at risk to hackers through me, let alone anyone finding out my bank details, so I think it would be better all round if I at the very least, go into 'suspense'. Frankly, I do badly need a new laptop (this present one is second-hand, won't take Windows11, and has its other very apparent limits). A much-needed new one is, at the moment, way beyond my means. No point in going to such expense for a 'luxury' when I already can barely find enough to buy food and to pay the heating (and other necessary) bills to keep me going through the Winter. So despite my near-smile in the photo above - taken, as I say a fortnight ago - things are not going so well and could yet turn even grimmer. 

Wish I didn't have to say it, but there it is.

I'll let you know if things turn up....or go further down.
Thanks for any concern you may have.

    

       

Today's annual 'Great North Run'. What fun for them!

 

Playing on TV right now is my annual, occasionally tearful, feast of nostalgia, the annual Great North Run (a half-marathon race, this year being the 44th, with participants now numbering 50,000) starting in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with the course then running south over the river via the iconic Tyne bridge, then eastwards, terminating on the North Sea coast in South Shields. 

I ran it three times in the 1990s - and it's well-known, at least in this country, as the 'friendliest' mass sporting event, a title with which I'd concur. It attracts world-class runners every year, nearly always including Olympic medal winners. It's terrific fun - with a feeling of 'oneness' and camaraderie which I certainly haven't experienced in any of the other running events I've participated in, including (just the once) the London (full) Marathon of 1997, a few years after which I started getting trouble with my feet which necessarily ended my regular morning runs. 

The most famous name, probably, was (now SIR) Mo Farah, winning in 2015, and bowing out year before last with a very creditable finish of fourth place.

The race is located not that far from the part of north-east England I come from, some 50 miles south-east of Newcastle (300 miles from where I now live)  - so when I took part my mum was still around and I could stay with her. 

There was one time about 30 years ago I was attending some counselling training group and I happened to mention that I was travelling up to take part in the Run. One of the young ladies in the group who clearly had no notion of what the event was, at the end of our session said to me "Good luck, Ray. I hope you win!" My rather startled response to her friendly wish being "Win? I'll be lucky to finish in the first 15,000!" (I can't remember if I managed it, the number of participants then being something like 35,000, though most likely not - even then I'd probably have been over 50!).

So, as runners in today's event are now reaching the finishing line I'll return to bathing in nostalgic feelings and watch the closing stages with a wish of 'If only....' going round and round in my head. But I really am so happy for them all!😸