Independent.ie > Lifestyle > Independent Woman > Celeb News

I’m gutted by this loss and it just makes you want to slap someone

Javascript is needed to use most of these tools:

Print
Text size

Wednesday May 21 2008

IT’S the end of the road for Dustin and the gang, and I have to say I was absolutely gutted for them last night. Of course, those presenters made it worse by taking ages to open the envelopes. It makes you want to slap somebody. I was so shocked and there really was a sense of "what do we do now Ted?".

Dustin is obviously disappointed and he did seem to feel that it wasn’t about the performance, it was just one of those things. We used to talk about sending grannies to Eurovision because they didwell in previous years. This time we sent a turkey in a trolley so I think Dustin is feeling somewhat surprised. Having said that, neither he nor anyone else was convinced we were going to rule the world. But he had said beforehand that he was nervous about getting out of the semi-final.

This makes no sense and yet somebody has to lose out. Dustin is okay, the band are okay, and they’re all trying to get over it.

There’s no feeling that they didn’t do their best or thatthey went out there and didn’t deliver. People will be analysing everything today, but they still have to go and do their shopping today and get on with things.

MAUDLIN

We all went along to the Irish bar The Three Carrots last night after the show. I think it was important that everybody came together to talk about it. It wasn’t maudlin, but we just wanted to have a conversation about it and then move on. After the competition, we’ll find out exactly how we did in the semifinal, but I suppose there’s not much consolation in finding out we were in 11th place.

Tonight, myself and Dustin will drown our sorrows by watching the Champions League final. I’m a Manchester United fan and I think he is too so we’ll get on okay.

I’m a bit hoarse this morning from all the talking but I’ve a busy day ahead of me. I’ve a commentators’ meeting this morning and then the dress rehearsal for the other semifinal this evening. I’ ll be working right up until Saturday night and then I’ll go home and collapse into bed. But the fun is gone out of it now. It’s soul destroying. There will be other commentators coming up today and commiserating because we didn’t get through.

I had been worried about the block voting but I don’t think that happened last night, because Estonia and Moldova lost out.

Before the semi-final, I met up with Dustin and the lads and they were all happy and definitely up for the performance. They really made the effort. I’m sure everyone will be talking about it back home today but it’s easy to be an “I told you so”. Dustin won after a public vote so we put him in to the competition.

Last night when the results were read out, it was bloody awful. It was such a great shame. But the truth is, with Eurovision, you never know until you know. I’ve said it before, you can’t make sense of this event.

I have to presume the audience just didn’t “get” Dustin. Either that, or the whole joke peaked too soon.

He has definitely been popular, and he has had incredible interest from the press all week. Everyone wanted their pictures taken with him and he’s had more coverage than any other act. He’s a real novelty and he came out here as one of the favourites so there’s no point saying we never had a chance.

There were 31 countries voting last night and there was no pattern. Norway got through and their act was like old Europe, as was Poland’s.

AWFUL

Then we had some completely mad acts, and the rock band from Finland which I thought was awful. We had opera from Romania and a Greek song I’d heard before.

So we’ll have to go back to the drawing board next year. But where do we go from here? Do we send Podge and Rodge? People will say we should go back to the old style and then 15 countries will send all sorts of animals in trolleys and we won’t get through because we’ll be considered old-fashioned.

So what do you do? As they say: “you pays your money, you takes your chance”. Pity it just didn’t work this time.