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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 14:46:23 GMT
The UK is part of Europe and UK residents are Europeans, whether they like it or not.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:02:37 GMT
The UK is part of Europe and UK residents are Europeans, whether they like it or not. Very true |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 15:02:45 GMT
Every country has its share of racists and xenophobes. It's not a UK thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:04:49 GMT
Every country has its share of racists and xenophobes and carrot cake deniers. |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:04:59 GMT
Every country has its share of racists and xenophobes. It's not a UK thing. True, I never intended to claim it was a UK thing. But based on the Eurovision results many British people seem think the rest of Europe hates them, while to me it seems that there's more British people who hate the rest of Europe than the other way around |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:06:32 GMT
Well this thread got deep.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:08:08 GMT
Well this thread got deep. Let's lighten up the mood. How about those chicks from Austria and Malta, eh  |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:09:30 GMT
Let's lighten up the mood. How about those chicks from Austria and Malta, eh  Maltesers are very popular with the Brits. |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:09:46 GMT
Funnily enough, my two favourites were the two that don't come from Europe...  |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 15:17:56 GMT
Every country has its share of racists and xenophobes. It's not a UK thing. True, I never intended to claim it was a UK thing. But based on the Eurovision results many British people seem think the rest of Europe hates them, while to me it seems that there's more British people who hate the rest of Europe than the other way aroundI don't really understand how you've arrived at either of these conclusions. One person here posted "Europe hates us" and you have a rather vague anecdote about college students being abused while in London which even you seem to doubt is genuine. We should be allowed to discuss and question our future in the EU (not Europe) without being accused of xenophobia I think. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 15:20:23 GMT
My favourite. Yes it IS a teeny bit before my time but I once dated a Eurovision nut who forced me to listen to all the older stuff. For which I am now grateful!
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:22:34 GMT
True, I never intended to claim it was a UK thing. But based on the Eurovision results many British people seem think the rest of Europe hates them, while to me it seems that there's more British people who hate the rest of Europe than the other way aroundI don't really understand how you've arrived at either of these conclusions. One person here posted "Europe hates us" and you have a rather vague anecdote about college students being abused while in London which even you seem to doubt is genuine. We should be allowed to discuss and question our future in the EU (not Europe) without being accused of xenophobia I think. I never accused anyone. I didn't actually base this on one comment. I based it on lots of different comments from all over the internet of people bashing Europe and others last night saying Europe hates us. But I shouldn't have let myself be tempted to discuss this on a theatre forum. For that I apologize. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 15:34:02 GMT
No need to apologise. You can discuss any subject in the General section, and Europe is a very pertinent topic at the moment. I just think we have to be careful about making what may be rather sweeping generalisations about people.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:55:28 GMT
Countries can now sing in any language they link - until the late 90s they had to sing in an official language of their nation. Therefore it's not a surprise Ireland and United Kingdom did so well during that era. As soon as everyone could, broadly, understand all the songs, the vague monopoly was disappearing. Having read translations of some of my favourite non-English songs from past contests, I'd say that being able to understand the lyrics is a definite disadvantage. There have been several cases where I've been quite disappointed by how inane some of the sentiments turn out to be. The UK seems to hate Europe. I've never met any European who hates the UK. That's my impression. The attitude I've experienced is mainly a bafflement that Britons actually believe the ridiculous stories that are never out of the tabloids here. (The Express recently ran a story about how the EU is going to ban our kettles. They said the same thing a few years ago, so I presume they're hoping their readers won't have noticed that kettles haven't actually been banned.) |
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 15:55:31 GMT
Severine, yes... Those were the days when Eurovision songs were... songs. You know the sort of thing. A tune you could remember after hearing it on the Saturday night, if you had been allowed to stay up late enough. Your mum might even bump up your pocket money that week (all right, your nan if mum wasn't playing ball) to buy the 45rpm record when it came out. I actually had that record. No word of a lie. And I taught myself all the words just by playing it over and over again. The fact that no-one in France would have been able to understand a word of my version is completely beside the point. I used to buy lots of Eurovision song records, France topping the list. (Possibly as I was so proficient in the language by now.) I also had L'Oiseau et L'Enfant and Apres Toi (I know she was Greek and singing for Luxembourg but it was all about the lingo you see...) Later on my linguistic skills improved and I mastered Italian so I bought Gigliola Cinquetti's Si. I was slightly better at singing along to the B side of this, a free translation into English entiltled Go. (You see why my mastery of European languages was stunted, to say the least...) I confess to buying Ding-a-Dong too, and was quite relieved that this marvellous Dutch group performed and recorded the song in English. It goes without saying that I had all the UK entries. (I knew something was up when I didn't fancy Clodagh Rodgers in her hot pants, but I was a little bit excited when Marty Kristian from the New Seekers appeared in his (very tight) trousers.) Everyone bought Waterloo, didn't they? Now I tend to buy the Competition CD if I like a particular song. I'm still in love with France, and adored Natasha St-Pier's Je N'ai Que Mon Ame and Patricia Kaas' Et S'il Fallait Le Faire. Didn't go much on the little Napolean chap a few years back singing an operatic number completely off key. Oh, and I'm off to see Il Volo in a couple of weeks. So I'll be putting the finishing touches to my Italian. Anyone else going?
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 16:40:12 GMT
Ah yes Apres Toi by the fabulous Vicky Leandros.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 16:56:34 GMT
She wore a nice black velvet dress, I think, and when Kate Bush appeared on TOTP wearing something very similar a few years later, I was strangely drawn and hooked from then and evermore. (There were no other similarities...)
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2016 17:07:05 GMT
No need to apologise. You can discuss any subject in the General section, and Europe is a very pertinent topic at the moment. I just think we have to be careful about making what may be rather sweeping generalisations about people. I never meant to make any generalisations. I now realise my wording was a bit unfortunate. Anyway, I love the UK and hope to one day work there in the theatre industry. In my opinion it would be a shame if Britain left the EU. There definitely are problems, mostly because the EU is a relatively young project that is experiencing some growing pains. If we all work together I'm sure we can make the system more democratic and hopefully achieve economic stability |
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Post by Phantom of London on May 15, 2016 18:42:16 GMT
What was that song, where you had the artist zipping around a video wall?
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 19:17:33 GMT
What was that song, where you had the artist zipping around a video wall? That was Russia |
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Post by Phantom of London on May 15, 2016 19:18:57 GMT
Really.
The special effects were great, however the song was..........
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 15, 2016 19:23:03 GMT
Indeed. It was favourite to win though I think.
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Post by Stasia on May 17, 2016 13:18:58 GMT
Speaking of politics, jury and "normal people" votes.
Russian voters for Ukraine: 10
Russian jury for Ukraine: 0
Ukrainian voters for Russia: 12
Ukrainian jury for Russia: 0
I haven't seen a single song from the contest, so I have no idea whether they are good or bad. But I guess these numbers help to get to some interesting conclusions...
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2016 13:26:39 GMT
Speaking of politics, jury and "normal people" votes. Russian voters for Ukraine: 10 Russian jury for Ukraine: 0 Ukrainian voters for Russia: 12 Ukrainian jury for Russia: 0 I haven't seen a single song from the contest, so I have no idea whether they are good or bad. But I guess these numbers help to get to some interesting conclusions... Yeah, regular people always get pulled into conflicts by their "leaders" |
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