United Kingdom 2008

A Little Bit of History...

The UK are one of Eurovision's most successful nations, winning 5 times (1967, 1969, 1976, 1981 and 1997) and coming second a massive and rather uncanny 15 times. The latest of our wins was of course in 1997 with the wonderful Katrina & The Waves singing the brilliant 'Love Shine A Light'. This was one of Eurovision's biggest wins, securing no less that ten 'douze points' and five 'dix points', meaning it was some time before the end of the voting that their victory was assured. Immanni then finished 2nd in 1998, but since the free language rule was introduced in 1999, the UKs fortunes took a severe turn - coming 12th, then saw our worst position ever in 2000 when the rest of Europe agreed with Nicki French's 'Don't Play That Song Again', placing her 16th of 24. 2001 saw nothing new, the same amount of points, but one position higher in 15th. 2002 was our last ray of light at Eurovision when Jessica Garlick sang her way to joint 3rd with an impressive 111 points. Unfortunately 2003 saw the UK received the ultimate in bad placings - not only did we come last, but we gained the elusive 'nul points'. maybe we should look on the bright side - at least we can't do any worse - but on the other hand, even France haven't fared quite so badly. 2004 didn't see much change when James Fox secured 16th place with 29 points - surely he deserved more. We had very high hopes for Javine last year, but with what I thought was one of the most disappointing vocal performances of 2005 we only managed 18 points and 22nd place. Hopes were high for Daz in 2006, but his gimmicks seemed timid when performing between Finland and Lithuania, we only managed 19th place. Again, our gimmicks from Scooch failed, coming 23rd out of 24 with just 19 points. I still think that we've yet to send a song deserving of much better than what we've been getting - Eurovision's a much harder game to play now, especially with so many countries taking part, and we can't rely on friendly neighbours, or previous experience to notch up the points - what the UK needs is darn good song - when we eventually do send one, I'm sure we'll do well.

Singer & Song

Andy Abraham Even If

When watching the UK’s National Final, I was really impressed with the judge’s choices of Michelle Gayle, the Revelations and Simona Armstrong – any of whom would have been worthy contenders at Eurovision, and brought us a half decent result somewhere in the better end of the teens. It was to my huge dismay that Terry Wogan was allowed a Wild Card, where he then proceeded to choose the worst entry of the three remaining artists to go to the Final Public vote. Furthermore, I was horrified when Andy Abraham won the title with his cheap, tacky version of something that sounds like it belongs in the 1980’s, somewhere far from where Eurovision is at the minute. The Revelations, Simona and Michelle all had contemporary sounding tracks, even though the Revelations had a 1960’s flavoured tune (which is quite popular nowadays). Instead, the public in the UK made the wrong decision once again, as did Terry Wogan (no surprises there), choosing the ‘dad at disco’ option; tragically dated soul-funk. In a contest with 25 songs, you need to have an entry that will be remembered, and this just won’t be – I don’t see it appealing anywhere other than maybe Ireland, so I envisage last place for the UK, maybe 24^th, saved only by France. Any of the other entries in our National Final would have been more respectable than this, and the fact that we have a terrible draw just scuppers all our chances. Hopefully this will be the end of Andy Abraham’s career, I have no sympathy for an ‘artist’ who feels they can attempt to represent his country at a song contest with this tripe - and I'd like to add that I'm still glad I voted for Shane Ward in the X Factor - if only he would represent us.

Prediction

Semi-Final:

Grand Final:

An initial prediction will appear here soon.

Prediction after Semi-Finals

A prediction will appear here when all 25 songs in the Grand Final are known.