karldaly81, one of my most favourite YouTubesters, and his tender interpretation of Barry Jackson’s Earth Song…

Yes yes… I know some people have too much time on their hands…

I’ve been listening to a bunch of Eurovision music this morning* and was reminded about the amusement surrounding Norway’s 1995 win.

I don’t know if you’re a Eurovision follower, but by 1995, Ireland had won the contest three times in a row (Why Me by Linda Martin, In Your Eyes by Niamh Kavanagh and Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids by Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan). Was there aynthing that could be done to break the winning run?

Why yes.

Norway’s entry can only just be called a ’song’ with only 43 seconds of singing - or 23 seconds if you ignore repeats. The track was… well, Irish, even featuring a guest violinist from Ireland. It could easily have been an intermezzo in one of Michael Flatley’s productions. Listening to it, you almost expect the drums to come up bonkabonkabonk and all the tappity tap of people who can’t move their arms.

The track is probably available from 24-hour record dealers - it’s called Nocturne and is by Secret Garden.

So, anyway… that’s how you beat Ireland in 1995 Eurovision Song Contest. By playing an Irish song that isn’t really a song.

And possibly by Ireland entering something rubbish because they didn’t want the expense of running the contest again.

* it’s all for a good cause, honest

I love my family to bits, but sometimes I think they’re maybe just a little crackers. For example, my mum’s take on pest control:

That was just a little test. I was recently chatting with someone who blogs but doesn’t receive that many comments. He said that all I had to do was sneeze and I’d attract loads of comments.

Well… I don’t know if you count 8 as loads, but I see the point.

Anyway… about these budgies on rabbits… it’s ALL TRUE, I tell you. And next time I see them, I will have my camera with me, and then you’ll believe me.

Tonight I have had squid, butterfly prawn and rollmop herrings for the first time. They were all lovely.

Also, I saw something which surpassed a goat on a tub… can you believe it? Yes! It’s true… I saw two rabbits… each with a budgie on their head flolloping about with the budgies hanging on for dear life. It’s all true, but no, I didn’t get a photo, sorry. Maybe next time.

When reversing your car into your garage door, make sure you always do so with an audience. Preferably the person who you’ve just asked to move their car out of the way so you can use the garage.

You will notice, however, that the person who moved their car out of the way will move even further away after witnessing the act.

Thankfully, no significant damage to car or garage door.

Experiment

In case you were wondering what the buttons were about the other day, I can now explain. At work we have a predictor-board in one of the rooms. There are usually up to three sporting or other events written up there, and everyone is invited to predict the scores/number of runs/who will be evicted next etc.

I came up with a predictor… given the instructions “Press the Red Button” and two buttons, what proportion of clicks would each button receive.

Well… the reasoning mostly went thus:

“Most people will click the correct button, then afterwards click the wrong button. However, some will click only the correct button. There may be variations, but it’ll be something like that.”

So the predictions went up… 80% red, 60% red, 72% red… and so on.

I had a different line of thinking:

“Knowing my blog readers, I reckon that the green button will receive more clicks than the red.”

I went for 45% red.

Results

You can see the results here.

Any clicks from work were discarded, and 95 unique IP addresses were identified. Most people clicked red, then after around ten seconds would click green.

Some results were interesting: several people clicked green first, then red. Few people clicked only on red and fewer clicked only on green.

But the real saviour for me, and the person who gave me the winning percentage was…. brbrbrbrbrbrrbrbbr*drumroll*….

Mr. Hedgehog (judging by the IP address)

… who clicked red, then green. Then the following day clicked green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green green.

Thanks! I knew I could rely on you!

I’ve just finished watching Evil Dead II. Here’s the review I wrote on 43T…

I was surprised how good this film was… from start to finish I absolutely loved it. Sometimes I was sitting on the edge of my seat, sometimes I was jumping out of my skin, and sometimes laughing at the really over-the-top outfits, puppets, animation and gore.

Some really nice scenes from a composition/lighting point of view, and it certainly pushes the boat out on camera effects.

But overall, just a great splatter/gore/shock movie – really not my style normally, but this one is done with such panache!

Recommended.

If you hear of this playing at your local indy cinema, you’ll let me know, won’t you?

(Yes, it’s a real film)