Eurovision 2012 - Worst 5 - #1 Montenegro

With a population similar to that of Glasgow, Montenegro could have sent its version of Franz Ferdinand, Primal Scream or Travis, but it has instead elected to find the nearest homeless person on Podgorica's High Street, and offer to wash his vest top and wooley hat for free if he agrees to represent them in the Eurovision Song Contest.

What they didn't offer him, however, were shaving facilities. Luckily, said homeless person speaks English. But I still don't think he would have got much money busking with this song. Or is it a rap? I'm not sure. In any case...le Monténégro, nul points.

Eurovision 2012 - Worst 5 - #2 Georgia

There seems to be a trend this year with countries who have sent good entries in previous years sending poorly thought-through comedy songs...and Georgia is one of them.

Its title "I'm a Joker" is quite fitting, because this song is simply a joke, no matter how many fireworks or how much 70s style disco lighting you use to distract people from this Joker.

Eurovision 2012 - Worst 5 - #3 Russia

Russia has gone for a song with a more traditional dance this year, albeit to up-beat disco music, and having it performed by six 80-year-olds may seem cute to them, but this was not to my taste at all. 

There's always one completely ridiculous song that does well and this will be it.

Eurovision 2012 - Worst 5 - #4 Austria

Austria has long been known for sending atrociously bad entries leaning towards comedy acts rather than musical ones. This year is certainly no exception. It features two young gentlemen, who seem to have tumbled out of Topshop's smart department - which means a suit, but unironed, untucked and with an ironic tie - shouting into a microphone and punching the air angrily.

There is one aspect that I do like, and that is the fact that the song, "Woki mit deim Popo", is sung in a dialect of Austrian German called Mühlviertelerisch, which equates to the UK sending an act singing in Westcountry. Regardless, no Eurovision song should translate as "Shake your ass".

Eurovision 2012 - Worst 5 - #5 San Marino

San Marino, a country enclosed by Italy with a population of 30,000, can be forgiven for not having a large pool of talent. But, there was still no need to send a song about social networking by a singer that requires autotune. The melody sounds cheap and as if it has been taken from the public domain, the lyrics are few and far between, most of which consist of "uh oh oh oh ah", and twenty seconds into the song, you just sigh and think what's the point?

Why is it so hard to get the name of a country right?

A new TV reality singing show starts tonight called The Voice. Now, I thought this competition sounded familiar, and it was because I had heard of the original show, The Voice of Holland. But wait...don't they mean The Voice of the Netherlands?

Well yes, that should be correct, but it seems that the Dutch, in their acceptance of everything that is English (see blog post below titled Dutch: The Lost Culture), have widely adopted an erroneous name for their own country, with even the website of their national tourism agency being holland.com.

Holland is merely one region of the Netherlands, consisting of two of the country's twelve provinces, so to refer to the whole country as Holland equates to referring to the UK as England (which some do). This can be hugely offensive to people in the other three constituent countries: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. So, why the Dutch aren't offended by this is something I can't understand.

It is understandable as to how this error arose. Holland contains most of the Netherlands' major cities - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Leiden. Equally, England contains 21 out of 25 of the UK's largest cities - the exceptions being Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast.

Nevertheless, it is puzzling as to why the Dutch are effectively patronising their own country, and whereas the UK is keen to deter others from referring to it as England, the Dutch seem to be paradoxically encouraging people to call it Holland.

Links

Links have now been updated. Language Man only approves the most worthy of websites and blogs, so check them out:

• A Sprinkle of Sarah : A lover of Latin America on feminism and world issues
• The Further Adventures of Bennett : An English teacher galavanting around the Far East
• Cheryl Roussel - Globetrotting : Fellow Spanish-speaker gathering photos and anecdotes around the world
• Larisa Brown - Journalist : Recently graduated and starting a career in journalism
• Omniglot - Linguistic Musings : Musings on language, linguistics and related topics
• Loopy Loo's Facepainting : A North East facepainting business
• Espiritu de Salsa : A North East salsa dancing business

And remember, next week sees a series of posts on the Top 5 Worst entries of this year's Eurovision!

Eurovision 2012 - Top 5 - #1 France

Not many songs fulfilled all the criteria for the song I'd choose as my favourite:

• Up-beat dance song with predictable lyrics
• Sung mostly in the country's native language (and one that I can understand)
• Not an atrocious singing voice
• A sufficient amount of colourful flashing lights to keep me entertained 

In fact, this was the only one that met all four points. At first, it sounded like a horrible RnB song, but quickly transformed itself into a celestial-like sound reminding us why we love Eurovision. This is the kind of song that will either do quite well, or very badly.

It certainly won't win, but I'm glad that France have prevented this year's competition from turning into a dismal display.   

Eurovision 2012 - Top 5 - #2 Denmark

Denmark have chosen a cross between Sergeant Pepper and a submarine captain, unsurprisingly singing a soft rock song. There's someone with an acoustic guitar in their act every year. It won them the 2000 contest, but it's ballads that do the trick these days.

It's not too far-fetched to imagine this song in the Top 10 of the UK chart, outside of the Eurovision context, as it's beautifully sung, regardless of how ridiculous she looks. 

Eurovision 2012 - Top 5 - #3 Ukraine

Everything I like about this song, I also hate: the mesmerising lighting, the fast-moving purple trumpeteers and the ambiguity as to whether the singer is male.

What's more, I can't decide if this woman can sing or not, but she does have a pair of lungs on her. But, this ensemble does make for a more entertaining three minutes than most of he line-up.

Eurovision 2012 - Top 5 - #4 Netherlands

A refreshing alternative with this Native American-themed song. The Netherlands often don't make it past the semi-final because they usually send out-of-tune badly written pop entries sung in Dutch English.

This singer's pronunciation isn't perfect - you can hear Dutch diphthong sounds quite clearly - and this is always a danger when non-English speaking countries sing in English. But as one the few songs that isn't a repetitive pop song or a boring ballad, this song is very listenable.

Eurovision 2012 - Top 5 - #5 Greece

Greece has done consistently well in recent years, including coming 3rd in 2001, 2004 and 2008, and winning the competition in 2005, all by choosing songs that are...well, Greek.

A high-powered dance routine to a rapid pop tempo dominated by that Greek guitar sound with a handful of young men who look like waiters dancing around a scarcely-dressed female in a sparkly dress always does the trick. This year is no different, albeit slightly more bland. Nevertheless, it should guarantee the usual maximum points from Cyprus and Albania, and minimal points from Turkey and Macedonia.

Eurovision 2012: Top 5 and Worst 5

9 weeks to go until my favourite time of year...Eurovision 2012. And to celebrate the release of all the entries, I will be posting the Top 5 and the Worst 5 over the next two weeks starting on Monday 19th March.

There seem to be a disproportionately high number of ballads and a lack of cheesy pop numbers, much to my dissatisfaction. But there is no shortage of weirdness as usual, including a song about Facebook, and Jedward are back.

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Language Man Relaunch

Welcome to the relaunch of the Language Man website.

The website has switched to a new host to allow for better blogging features. I have moved over most of the content and some of last year's featured blog posts.

Blog posts to come will be focusing on: 

• Portmanteaus, The rise of - What the kids are coming up with these days (one of my favourites being bromance)
• Denglisch  - Is "der Shitstorm" really necessary as a German word?
• Toulouse - La Ville Rose - A reminiscent tale of one of Europe's most beautiful cities

And with just over two months until EUROVISION 2012, you can expect many posts on that.