{"id":46,"date":"2008-05-22T09:42:14","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T08:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/eurovision\/2008\/05\/22\/you-can-see-better-than-that-at-butlins\/"},"modified":"2009-04-28T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T10:06:56","slug":"you-can-see-better-than-that-at-butlins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edgehill.ac.uk\/eurovision\/2008\/05\/22\/you-can-see-better-than-that-at-butlins\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;You can see better than that at Butlins&#8230;&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Day 5 in Belgrade (Wednesday) brought with it the first rehearsal of the second semi-final.\u00a0 Ask anyone in these parts and they\u2019ll tell you that this is more competitive than the first, and the more difficult to call.\u00a0 I was really looking forward to this semi-final as it has a really strong opening, with the first four songs seeming like sure qualifiers &#8211; <strong>Iceland<\/strong>, <strong>Sweden<\/strong>, <strong>Turkey<\/strong>, <strong>Ukraine<\/strong>.\u00a0 Many of my friends know that I\u2019ve been gushing about the Swedish entry since February (as has pretty much every Euro-fan on the planet), before Charlotte Perrelli won the Melodifestivalen to represent her country. Look on my iTunes alone and I\u2019ve listened to it over 150 times!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, with eager anticipation the dress rehearsal got under way at 1500hrs local time (1400hrs UK time). The arena was busier than it was for the previous rehearsals, due perhaps to the added interest in this group of songs. Technically a better rehearsal, and on performance alone the first four songs did not disappoint (although Charlotte wasn\u2019t going at it full throttle \u2013 and why should she, it\u2019s the dress rehearsal).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have no pictures to illuminate the proceedings as I forgot my camera \u2013 so I\u2019ll be sure to get some at the final dress rehearsal on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0As we did for the first semi-final, here are the songs on which Karen, Milija and I all agree should progress to the final:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Iceland<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Sweden<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Turkey<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Ukraine<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Switzerland<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Bulgaria<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Hungary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0On Tuesday night I didn\u2019t post the songs that we agreed would <em>not<\/em> make it, so here are our unanimous songs from our \u2018list of death\u2019:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lithuania<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Czech<\/strong><strong> Republic<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Belarus<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Croatia<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Denmark<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>FYRO Macedonia<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0Our split decisions are as follows:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Karen and Milija <strong>Albania<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>YES!, Phil NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Phil <strong>Latvia <\/strong>YES!, Karen and Milija NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Phil and Karen <strong>Georgia <\/strong>YES!, Milija NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Phil and Karen <strong>Malta <\/strong>YES!, Milija NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Milija <strong>Cyprus<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>YES! Phil and Karen NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Milija <strong>Portugal<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>YES! Phil and Karen NO!\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you can see we\u2019re not aligned as much as we were on Tuesday for the first semi-final, so it makes it all the more interesting.\u00a0Oh, and just to explain the title of this post \u2013 sitting behind me at the dress rehearsal were a couple from the UK whose conversations I could occasionally hear between songs. They compared notes on the styling of the singers, proclaimed various levels of success as they saw it, but the best observation they made (and the funniest thing I heard all day) came after Latvia\u2019s daft pirates performed \u2018Wolves of the Sea\u2019. She turned to he and muttered the prophetic words (which will make sense if you watch the semi-final on BBC3 at 8.00pm on Thursday night) <strong>\u2018you can see better than that at Butlins\u2026\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Day 5 in Belgrade (Wednesday) brought with it the first rehearsal of the second semi-final.\u00a0 Ask anyone in these parts and they\u2019ll tell you that this is more competitive than the first, and the more difficult to call.\u00a0 I was really looking forward to this semi-final as it has a really strong opening, with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1484,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eurovision-2008","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - 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