Showing posts with label eurovision song contest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eurovision song contest. Show all posts

Saturday, 14 May 2016

Eurovision 2016


I've just watched all of the twenty six entries of this years Eurovision Song Contest, and we're just now in the break, waiting for the results.

For myself, I particularly like Hungary and their drumming monk, not to mention to three whistlers, but Russia was also pretty good by climbing up a wall whilst singing.  Looking at tweets I wonder if Spain and the epic knee dancing is going to win it, but we'll see.

I must admit the greatest fun has just been to tweet along to it, and communicating with other tweeters, it's been a great time, especially as I've been working on a bottle of rose wine to myself as I do :)

It was a particularly confusing point when Australia took part, but hey, why not :)

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Registrars

(Warning: I slightly touch on some macabre things in this post.  If you don't like reading about mortality, perhaps it might be worth skipping today's post)

We had to pop in to see a registrar today.

For those perhaps not in the UK (I don't know if the term registrar is commonly used globally - the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, seems to indicate that it isn't) I'm talking about a government official who records, for us, births, deaths, and marriages.  Let me say first that the appointment went fine, the registrar was very nice, all is fine, but I did start to think - births, marriages, and deaths (or as they are also known - hatch, match, and dispatch) are all events, and events that society have declared require to be registered - all this is fine.  But how do they decide who does what?

We all know what workplaces are like - some are great, some are... not as great.  Do you get registrars who really enjoy doing funerals?  Or do senior registrars make the deputy ones do all the deaths so they can enjoy the weddings?

Or is it vice versa - marriages are (mostly) always at weekends, so do registrars try to avoid marriages because you have to work a weekend, do they prefer doing births because they can do them Monday to Friday?  What about when you have a wedding at a hotel, is that annoying because they've got to travel out somewhere, they don't know what facilities are going to be available and they're going to have to rely on hotel staff doing things for them?

Don't get me wrong, every time I've had occasion to deal with a registrar I have found them to be nothing but professional, helpful, and friendly individuals (albeit with really weird pens that are hard to write with).  But they are human, and some of them must surely make mistakes, or have biases that they possibly give in to?

Don't be silent, let me know in the comments your experiences of registrars!

In other news, Eurovision is coming up fast - as I type this one of the semi-finals is taking place, with the final contest on Saturday night.  I made this video last year as an potential entry, but for some reason they've gone with a different artist... :)


Finally, as I get closer to my wedding next month I will be depending on the pile of guest posts I've collated (thanks everyone!) to keep the blog populated.  We've got some great bloggers so look out for them, and if you would like to do a guest post yourself, let me know!

Saturday, 10 May 2014

Eurovision Song Contest

I'm typing very quickly because as I write this post, the Eurovision Song Contest is just about to kick off.

For those not familiar with this event (who could that be?!? Americans perhaps) basically for one night, the whole of Europe gets into a massive battle, but instead of using traditional weaponry to fight with, we use songs.

Songs which generally vary in quality.

Instead of featuring the best singers and songwriters we have to offer, typically we (certainly in the UK anyway) feature a new act, who does a good job, but (mainly because song voting is massively swayed by friendly nations - and no one likes us, which to be honest is understandable) doesn't do very well.

To be completely honest I have no idea who is singing for the UK this year, but I do hope that they do well, I understand that the song is pretty good and I am actually looking forward to watching it tonight.  I'm also looking forward to Austria's, I understand that their song is interesting too.

At any rate, I always say that it is never to early to prepare (actually I never say that but who cares), so I've made a video ready for next years Eurovision Song Contest - fingers crossed for the duet of monkey and vibrating pig!

Touching on my last YouTube video, I'm pleased to say that it has gone, well to use Tim Clark's words (thanks for the blog post Tim) bacterial - it's gone over three thousand views, which for one of my videos is absolutely amazing, and it's attracted perhaps ten new subscribers which again is a lot for me.  Hope everyone sticks around, and if there's any particular videos you'd like making do let me know.
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