#124: Nymphs wafting around a stage

Welcome to Blind Guy's Chest, where this guy, Oren o' Neill. Hello.

And this guy, Jan Bloom.

Hello.

And Claudia o' Donovan.

Hello.

Talk about the A to Z of life.

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. You are very welcome to episode 124 of Blind Guys at Woohoo. Now, unfortunately, we don't have Jan this week because he's too busy crying into a tissue because the Netherlands did not win the Eurovision Song Contest over the weekend. It was Austria. So we have flown in at very great expense from his penthouse in West South Norse Dublin, kind of inner city. Mr. Stuart Lawler.

Guys, hello. Good. You know something? I'm. I'm a bit. I came into the blind guys chat office. I went to Jan Bloom's desk, tried to log into the computer. The desk is absolutely estate, by the way. Yeah. Cans everywhere. I don't know what kind of cans there.

I think your username has been deleted from the server, though.

It's funny. Then I tried to log in as myself. You username does not exist.

Yeah, you no longer exist, I'm afraid. Sorry. You've been deleted from this.

It's good to see you both. And Yan, please clean your desk.

Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.

You're the only one who goes into the blind guys chat office.

We don't use it anymore, but I love the office. I was talking to Mags from makeup today.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

New person.

Yeah, we don't bother doing her go months ago.

Still comes in like me.

She likes the biscuits, you know. Yeah.

Well, thanks. Thanks for filling in for Mr. Bloom. No problem this week. You're very good.

Yay.

How are you doing?

I'm doing fine, thank you. Isn't the weather. Because, you know, I know you guys always talk about the weather. Isn't it just unbelievable? It's just so nice. The weekend was gorgeous. As we recorded on Sunday, even the weekend was gorgeous. The last week has been gorgeous.

Don't jinx it.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's just great. So it's great on the. In Ireland. I think in the west coast of Ireland it's even better. Apparently in the Midlands. But these are pretty nice. Yeah.

I think they're getting 18 degrees here right now and it was supposed to.

Be 25 over the weekend. And in the west, I think so.

Yeah.

I hate the idea though, that this could be it.

No, stop it.

The whole summer.

No, I was in. I was in my. I was in my local shop the other day getting something at lunchtime on Friday and so on to the Radio sandwich.

Yeah. Chicken sandwich. Yeah.

I was getting. I was getting a wrap because it's Friday.

You're into wraps now.

It's my little wrap on a Friday, my little treat day. And I said, isn't the weather lovely? And she said, oh, Stuart, this could be our summer. I said, no, no, don't say that.

Why are we so down on the weather?

Yeah.

Even when it's nice, we're, like, being mean to us.

Well, we're gonna. We're gonna talk to. Hopefully we are going to talk to Kevin Sherwin later on about the Eurovision. But Kevin.

Yeah, 30 years ago this weekend, Oren, I was on the jury. I was telling my son about that yesterday.

You know, that makes you sound super.

It's very. And I was. I. And then I. And then I was telling him because he was saying, like, what did you do? And I said, well, I had to be a judge, you know, and I had to say where the song's good or bad. And then I was kind of remembering the whole day when. The fact that they had us in RTE from kind of 10 in the morning, listening to the songs. Then we sat through a dress rehearsal and they were clearly trying to kill time, like, what we do with these 12 people for five hours. So they brought us on a tour of the Fair City set. And I remember, like, soap opera.

Yeah.

I very casually watched Fair City at the time. And it was. Oh, you know, you go into the pub and you went to the. Whatever they had at the time. They brought us to the canteen for chicken and chips, which is very nice.

And that's what you had to have. That was it.

That was it. That was the menu.

That's what I remember having. And funny, I remember there was a lady, I think she was one of the. I don't know, she was a producer, so very nice lady. And they brought over the chicken and it was a big lump of chicken. And I was like, at the time. I was 20 at the time. And I was like, I don't need any help. And I'm thinking, how the hell am I going to eat this? And your one said to me, stuart, if I was you, I'd just pick it up. I was like, thank God she said that. And the interesting thing about 95, I think we probably said this before, and I'm sure that when you talk to Kevin Sherman, Kevin will have a view on this. But the winner was from. From Norway, and it was a group called Secret Garden with a song called Knock. But of course, it was a lot of controversy. Because the main part of it was violin. An Irish violin. There was. There was a bit of. Bit of lyrics at the start and a bit at the end and it was mostly violin. Yeah. And people were saying, this is not a song, it shouldn't have been allowed. But anyway, it won it really.

Yeah. And there was. There's always controversy from the concert orchestra.

Was that's what her name? F. Sweeney.

Oh, Sweeney was the.

From. From Kildare, I think. From somewhere. County Kildare.

Yeah. God help her. Anyway, come here. I have a bit of a gripe and I think you might have a similar one. Eurovision on Saturday night. I was watching it on sky on the Sky Go app, not on the Sky Q box. Even though I know there were some problems with the Sky QBOX earlier in the week. But anyway, here is our gripe and I think. Well, it is our gripe. No, no, it's our gripe because you're a few gripes. Not my gripe is the lack of progress with either with the Sky Go app on your phone or the Sky TV app on your Apple tv, which still does not offer audio description in a. Either in a live format or in a recorded format. By that I mean if you play an on demand piece of content and it had audio description to begin with, it still doesn't have audio description on demand and didn't have audio description when you're playing. And in particular last night or. Yeah, last night with the Eurovision because the BBC had a live ad on the Eurovision. So away you go, Stuart. I pull the cord.

Yeah, I am like, you tuned into the Eurovision now. I didn't watch it all, I have to say, but I did tune in last night, said, oh, it's audio described. That's brilliant. Put on BBC on my Sky Stream. You've heard that my Sky Stream stories in the past. You even heard the Sky Stream song back in the day.

Oh, yeah, might have a blast of that again.

Turned on my audio description. It beeped, you know, to tell me that there was an audio described program. I'm waiting and waiting. Graham Norton. I mean, Graham's great. He's very entertaining. Anyway, chatting away and no audio description. So maybe like it's just a quiet part a song, no audio Description. Left at 3 or 4 and I realized there's no descriptions. Then I went into. There's a menu on the Sky Stream where you can select language and audio and usually in there you can select audio English. Audio described. It just had language English. So I don't think. I don't think they carried it at all on skystream.

Maybe our sky consultant, Dave Nason, might.

Be the one and only Dave Nathan while I'm on Sky. I mean, because. And I do want to say because I think Sky Stream is great, but I've been, as I was saying the other day to Oren that, you know, it just feels to me that the On Demand thing, we've been waiting for it so long, there's programs that I miss and that I say, God, I'd love to be able to watch that. But I won't bother if it's not all you described. And I suppose it's making me question how much value am I getting out of sky and whether or not I will renew it in. In a couple of months? I don't know.

Yeah, exactly. I'm thinking the same. I mean, to be honest, we're not getting as much value from. And I think. I'm not sure, but I've heard that issue. I've had that issue where you change channel and you do hear this little beep 1k tone to indicate that the channel you're switching to does have audio description, but yet the audio description doesn't play. And that's even using the Sky Q box, not necessarily the app or the. Or the TV app. So I'm not sure that there isn't a little bug there that it's maybe just giving you a. What's it called?

A false positive with the beep. Yeah.

Of course, you have a huge advantage over Stuart in that you have a very loquacious wife who is very happy to give you ad very low. Whether. Whether you want it or not.

Exactly.

Who is an AD expert. Expert herself in your own right.

Thank you.

Very lucky.

I don't think he appreciates that skill at all as much as he should.

Well, I don't appreciate it so much where there's already audio description.

Yes. But they miss out important.

Right? So. So I remember years ago going to the Ray Charles movie. I think it was back in the mid 2000s, there was no ad in the cinema with my friend Aidan, who you guys have met once or twice.

Love Aidan.

Yeah, right. Aidan's a great guy. And his wife, who's a lovely lady, Maria, she's very, very nice person, but she's very animated when she's. And she. She wanted to make sure I was included with and to do her best to audio describe.

Good honor. I like her already.

You want to be or not.

Right. And there's a scene in the show where at some point Ray Charles is, you know, he's on a tour and he. Obviously he's married, but he's playing away and he's, he's. He kisses a. One of his, one of the people on the show, one of the dancers, I think. And Maria, without telling me what happening went that. You can imagine what the word was really loud. And I said, maria, what happened? He said, oh, my God, I can't believe he did that.

Oh, no.

Different type of audio description.

Okay. Judgmental or audio description.

Exactly.

But that can be fun, too.

Speaking of ad, we started to watch something last night.

Oh.

A new thing which was really looking forward to with Emma Thompson called Year. Is it called Years and years and Years or just Years and Years?

I think it's years and years. I can't give it up because my phone is downstairs and has no battery.

Dystopian kind of look at England.

It's kind of, it's kind of realistic, but.

Kind of realistic.

But it's. What service is it. Is it streaming on Decide it's on Netflix.

It's on Netflix and it was made in 2019, but it's, it's an imagined future where Trump has got a second term.

My gosh.

I know.

Yeah.

So it's actually, it's actually quite close to the truth, really.

I'm like, what's the what. What's the kind of genre, Claudia? Is it sort of sci fi or is it.

It's just a drama. It's, it's like. Yeah, it's a drama, but it's, it's, it's only a, it a miniseries. It's only six episodes and we only watched the first one. But what was.

But I feel a bus coming on.

Well, what was Orin's gripe, Orin?

Well, there was no idea for a new, for a new, for new content.

Well, it's, in fairness, it's 2019. It was made. So it's not exactly.

I think, I think when we get to. I would, I would argue that when you get to 2017 onwards, everything that is. That has is new content, particularly with TV shows, must have or should have audio description. But backwards maybe is. It's a little bit hit and miss. But Certainly, certainly from 2017 on, everything should have.

But I think it's interesting. And Oren, we, I'm sure we talked about this on the show before. You have programs that are on BBC serious that are audio described and then they get, they go on Netflix with no ad.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I blame a certain company, but I'm not going to mention their Name.

Yeah.

Anyway.

And it's not the BBC.

Those awful people. Well, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. Again, I'll defend them. We won't mention the company. But I offend them in a little way in saying this. I don't think it's a company as such. I think it's Netflix not being inclusive enough to go. And can we have the ad, I wonder, is there an ad file for this program?

But you may bet, you may bet they use their subtitling, they buy the sub. They bet. They don't resubtitle, they just buy it.

Right, I would imagine, yeah.

Yeah. So why would they do the same with ad?

Well, this is the argument is why doesn't the AD and the subtitles and the sign language follow the distribution chain?

Now the sign language is an. Is an issue though, because obviously in the UK they use bsl, which is.

Different to isl, right? Isl, yeah.

You know, it's like ASL is different to bsl. So that's a different issue. That is a translation issue.

The deaf community are very protective, as is Ontario.

And they should be.

As they should be exactly. Of their language. I just wanted to. When you're mentioning ad, and I think Oren would be interested in this, there is a show on Netflix called Cassandra. I don't know if you guys have.

Oh, yes. Not yet, no.

So it's about. I don't know how I describe it, Drama, psychological thriller with a bit of tech thrown in, you know, maybe all those things. So it's set and it's one of these time shifting shows that not everybody likes to. But I found it. Okay, so it's set in the present day, a family move in. And it's set in Germany, so it is dubbed, but there's a lot of German music in it and there's some German singing and it's very nice. So this family move into a house in the country and in the house, it's a smart home that was built in the 70s. So it flashes back and forward between now and the 70s because something happened in the 70s which made this a smart home. And I won't go into what happened because that will spoil it. But I suppose the reason I flagged this was because whatever the audio description, whatever way they've done it, first of all, I think it's AI that's doing it. But secondly, the audio description frequently comes in over the narrow. Over the soundtrack. So some of the phrases get interrupted. And I was watching that going, I must tell Oren about that.

That's unforgivable. In fairness.

It's really bad and it ducks down and. Yeah, it's not great.

Yeah.

But it's. But it is a show worth watching.

Yeah, that's. That's back to my old gripe. That's somebody who's been given the job of audio describing the content and there's nobody reviewing what the. That person has done. Yeah, that's the unforgivable. Quality matters, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, it's not just a matter of just saying, oh, we've done the ad. You have to make sure it's correct and the quality of it is good and the scripting is good and the delivery is good and the placing is good. Yeah, right. I'll get off my. I just do it half a step off my soapbox.

Don't go off completely.

You're very weighed down by all those gripes. Or.

But I will say if you. That is, I would say the ad is. Well, it's okay. It's average, I would say, but it's definitely worth giving a go. Recently, I think it's recently. Mad Men, which was in the mid-2000s starring Jon Hamm, is available on Netflix and has audio Description and it makes it all the better. Even though I've seen every episode and he knows all of us, it is absolutely brilliant. The other thing, I want to talk to you because we were conversing yesterday, or I was conversing with a man from Scotland.

Mr.

Blind Gordon, and we were talking Mrs.

Blind Gordon. You ever hear from her?

I think she's very well. Well, she had banned Blind Gordon to the back room because it was very harsh.

Trying to remember her name.

Is it Bernie Livingston?

Elaine.

It's not Elaine, it's Alain.

Okay, Gordon. My apology books. Bernie. Why do I think Bernie?

Bernie. It's so far from Bernie.

Bernie. Blind Gordon.

Sorry, we'll put that bit out.

I was asking Gordon if there was some questions about Meta because I know just breaking news, ladies and gentlemen. The Meta look and tell or look and Describe feature is now working for me. And I would suspect it's working for most people who have Meta glasses. Meta Ray Bantley glasses in Ireland. I hope.

I hope so too. Let us know.

Pure, absolute pure look. I. I think in the last podcast I was mentioning that Dairy Lawler had his working and mine wasn't. And I just.

Wine, I think, was getting a bottle of wine as only dairy would.

Yeah, yeah.

I was going out for a walk with Larry and saw this notification on my phone, said Meta AI is now available. Is now available. And I said, oh, yeah, we'll see what happens here. And I did it. It did it went through the. The little thing of hitting the continue button and going on and the location, etc. Whatever you had to do. And I asked, said, look and tell me what's in front of me. And then he said, you were holding a smartphone. So, yeah, I'm now the proud owner of a pair of Meta Ray Ban glasses that have smart technology in them and will tell me. Yeah. The funniest thing so far, if I may, is, hey, Meta, look and tell me what's in front of me. To which it responded, there is a guide dog defecating on the grass.

Brilliant, Larry. Good, good man, Larry. Listen, it needs to be done, has to be done.

So.

Or out of interest, can you get it to say to you like, hey, Meta, can you read my. If you're holding a piece of post in front of you.

I checked this with Gordon yesterday and to be frank, when it's worked for me, when I've tried it, the answer is yes. So it'll read the who the letter is the. The envelope is addressed to. Now, I haven't actually tried it, to be honest. I'm. I'm a bit wimpy about actually if, if it's a. If it's a financial document.

Yeah.

You know, going into the. Somewhere. Yeah. So I've just done so far at the address. So we'll read the address. Now, Gordon does say that can be a bit hit and miss.

So maybe, maybe I was wondering actually, was it just stuff that's handwritten? It might struggle with. Because he said ocr, but. But then again, most stuff comes in typed, doesn't it?

Yeah, I suspect. Well, the one I had, the letter I tried it with had one of those little windows, you know, so that would have been typed, but I. Yeah, I wonder how it would work. I wonder how it would work.

Well, maybe we should do a little experiment.

A little experiment. Gordon was saying it because I know you had asked a question to me the other night. Stuart was about, be my AI currently isn't working with the Meta glasses. So you can't say, you know, hey, Meta, open BE my AI and then, you know, tell me what's in front of me. But. And I think Gordon is right in what he says because he's a very clever guy.

Yes.

Meta would probably argue that you're already getting that with their look and feature. But as Gordon, again, quite rightly, because he's a very brainy fella and he knows a lot. He said that.

Are you looking from him, by the way?

Yeah.

I'll tell him later. He said that the. Of course he's right that the Be My AI is much better in detail, giving him more detail than the meta AI look and describe is. Now, I assume the meta AI will get better and better. But actually Gordon was saying that he got a message on his phone the other day to say the live audio description was now available in his region, but it turned out not to be. So this is a. They were experimenting with this or testing it in America and Canada, which is to take a live. They're going to be taking a live video feed from your glasses and be able to describe what is surrounding you as you're effectively walking around.

Live vision or something.

Yeah.

I wonder how much battery that leaves.

Well, yeah, I'd say it would soak up an awful lot of battery.

I saw a video, I don't know, maybe if you guys saw it. But Be My Eyes brought something out last year and said, this is, you know, here is the future. And I think they were saying this will be in the app eventually, because they were talking when they were talking about Be My AI. And it was that exact thing or in the live video. And the guy is in London watching the ducks swimming in a. In a park and he's asking about the ducks and. And then there's this clip where he's waiting for a taxi and the thing is telling him the taxi is just approaching now. The back door is just in front of you. Is incredible.

That's very good.

We were having dinner and Cloda very kindly put the food down on the table for me. And I just said, hey, Mattia, what am I looking at? And it said, you were looking at a quiche with tomato and whatever broccoli and bl.

Beautiful meal that your wife has cooked for you. Say thank you.

Interesting. The most. The most fantastic thing that blew me away because Mo was talking about this with Envision or sorry, with Chat. GPT.

Oh, the video thing. Yeah, yeah.

Was. I was watching. I turn on a tv, maybe it was that same night, and I put on a show on Netflix and I. And I paused it and I said to Meta, tell me what I'm looking at. And it said, it appears to be the movie known as. And then it'll let you know after it said that you get a little boo doo and you can ask another follow up question without saying, hey, Meta. And I said, what's the movie about? And then he Proceeded to give me a summary of what the movie was about.

Wow.

That's.

And that was just from taking a picture of the. Of the TV in front of you. So, anyway, go get a pair of Meta glasses if you haven't got them.

Yeah, well. And I have yet to get one and I was waiting for a look and tell and then obviously last. Last week I saw Orens and I am very interested for all sorts of reasons in looking at them more. It's a funny week, actually, this week, because Site City is on and Site Village in Glasgow is on now. I'm not sure. And I would really. This is a Site Village thing, not Sight City. I mean, Site City kind of. They have that space in May booked every year. Not sure about the wisdom in putting two events on the same week because a lot of exhibitors are really struggling to get to both, I think, or to fill them.

Yeah, but just. You probably find most of the. I presume you find most of the exhibitors will decide, well, they'll go to Sight City because it's bigger.

They might. Especially the big companies. Although saying that our friends at Leidens are going to Site Site Village.

Are they?

They're doing a whole tour of the UK and Ireland, by the way. They're in there for anyone who's interested. They're in at the Wayfinding Centre.

On.

The 7th of June. It's a Saturday, so the Vision Ireland Wayfinding Centre in. In Glasnevin. And there's information on, I think, the Vision Ireland website as well, how you can book that. Very, very, very interesting for people to see it.

Let's do that.

But what I was going to say to you was Site City this year. So they have their Rent, a guide service which has been around for a long time. It's rather controversial because some people feel that it exploits people who are visually impaired. It's €13 an hour. I did it last year for two hours. And I was saying to Claudia, before we came on air, it was some of the best experience of an exhibition. I was with a lady who had been doing it for 10 years. She knew that I'd say to her, I need to go to. You know. Swarovski said, yeah, that's floor five on. Raced up to whatever.

They actually know that.

Well, she was like. And then she said. And she would just stand there. I would talk to the Swarovski guys. And you weren't sort of feeling bad that this person's just standing there? And then I would say, thank you very much. You know, John from Swarovski. Thanks a million. She'd say, you ready to go? Yeah. Thank you. It was amazing.

Wow.

And she just knew the place inside out. And anyway, is it that big that.

It'S across five floors?

Yeah. So it's in a place called Cafe Cafe. Cafe. Cafe Europa. I have. Not pronouncing that right, by the way. Very sorry. To anyone listening who's German. It's in the middle of Frankfurt. But it's a. It's a big place. It's a big. It's like our convention center.

Wow.

In Dublin. So that's on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the. Of this week as people are listening. Thursday, Friday, I suppose people are listening. But the other thing, site Citi has this year is a remote assistance app that they're doing with some social enterprise in Germany. I didn't get to read the whole thing in the background. You can download this app and you can get remote assistance when you're on your way to the event. Now, it says there's two types of remote assistance. You can book assistance in advance, and that will be assistance that will guide you around the exhibition with a trained guide who's on the other end of the app. So you're obviously walking around with your phone. They will bring you to a stand.

So you have to hold your phone up kind of thing.

You have to hold your phone up. But if you don't book the assistance and you just come on spec and open the app, they will give you help up to get to the meal area. Because there is a restaurant in the convention center where you can get food, and they will help you with the menus and help you navigate to the food counters. It'd be very interesting to see how this works.

What if you're desperate for the loo, but they won't bring you.

I'm sure you could ask really nicely and say, please hold on, Claudia, I'll try it. And feedback. Okay.

So in the case of. Okay, we know roughly what the remote service is going to offer. Okay. You're going to have a human at the other end of the line. Something like Aira, I would assume.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah. If you had the choice now, knowing that you've had the service at €13 an hour, with a real human bringing you where you want to go, which would you. I know you haven't used this new remote service, but on the face of it, what do you think you'd prefer.

To use at this point? Not having used it and having limited time at Sight City and Again I have this year human all the way. €13 an hour. I will just do that and take my hope I got that nice lady again because she was. My God, she was fantastic. I think knowing. I suppose if you even know where the exhibits are it's even better because you can map yourself out. But she did that for me and I was very grateful that her knowledge got me around so quickly. And then actually when I did, when I. When I finished my two hours because they bring you down to the desk to pay. You pay at the end of the tour, which is kind of good. And I do a runner. So I needed to go to another meeting room which was up on the third floor and I said look, I'm happy to pay now but I'll need to get up to the third floor to. Because I was meeting somebody at one of my colleagues. And she goes that's no problem, I'll bring you back up. Okay, thank you very much. So yeah, was very impressed.

That's very nice.

I have to say just for people's diaries. Dates for your diaries while we're here. Site Village Birmingham, 7th and 8th of July and site Village London is a bit later this year. It's the. It's the 18th and 19th of November. It's usually the 1st of November.

It's usually Guy Fawkes.

Yeah.

Okay. It's a two day venue.

It's a two day event and the venue has changed and. And I should have done my research and. But I will.

The London venue has changed.

London venue has changed.

So it's not Kensington Town Hall.

No, it's not Kensington Town Hall.

We'll find the information and put it on the.

Because it was nearly too small last time, I have to say.

Very, very full. Very. I would have said it was almost dangerously full at times.

Yeah.

And it was an awful lot of people.

It was hard to get around.

Well listen, will you, will you have a look at one thing when you come back? Maybe if there's, if there are interesting things, would you come back or maybe do a little recording for us for the show? Because I'm very interested to hear one of. One of my friends from the book club said there was some that the pocket dot which I hadn't heard of before.

Right. This device, this Braille which is a.

Mag safe device that, that basically sticks onto your. The back of your phone and is a Braille Braille reader. But I don't know if it's a. I don't know if it has Perkins Braille keys type.

I thought it had both Oren, but I could be wrong. I don't know how many cells it has, but I agree with you. Very interesting to look at. And the other thing just that you'll be interested in, I saw, I just had a quick browse of the catalog earlier today. I saw at least three different companies. Some of them are German, but the word glasses. So I suspect there is some smart glasses out there that might be some yellow vision as well. But I know you guys are waiting for the echo vision from a Giga.

Yeah, yeah.

Whenever that comes to this part of the world would be interesting.

Which if they do. Yeah, hopefully they will. But you know, it's a startup with wheels, see, hopefully. Listen, we're going to let you go because we know you've got to catch a flight and we are going to move on to Eurovision. Review with Mr. Kevin Sherwin.

You can email blind guys chat gmail.com or tweet us at Blind Guys Chat.

If you have any comments or questions.

Kevin Sherwin, how are you? Direct from Basel, My very first question for you is, is this where the. The name for the herb came from? From.

Oh, no.

Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then somebody, somebody misspelled it.

Yeah, that's why.

It's D, A S E L. It's, it's, it's, it's. It's an urban, an urban legend. It's been passed down through the centuries. Yeah.

I have to say, from my perspective, it was a little bit of a damp squib, which means for, for those who don't understand what that means, it wasn't very exciting, would you agree? Oh, of course.

I think it was very exciting.

But I feeling going into it was that it wasn't the strongest year in living memory. And so I was, I was open to like changing my opinion. Just as the songs came out, I was thinking, oh, that's okay. Yeah, that's all right. That's all right. And I, I was doing score sheets on Saturday night and.

Oh, I used to love doing that.

So I do feels for like song and then song out of 10, then staging out of five and performance out of five. Right. So a total of 20.

Very good.

And because, you know, the song is the most important thing, so that should have the most weight.

Yeah.

But as I was going down, looking down the columns, I was just giving everything like a six, six and a half pretty much the whole way. And that kind of sums it up. Like there were a few songs that got a bit higher for me a couple of songs that got a bit lower, but generally everything was in that mid range.

Yeah.

So I found it. I just. There wasn't that much for me to get excited about, unfortunately. Overall, I had a pretty good time watching that. I was a couple of friends, so some of the. Some of the stagings I thought were very cool. And a. A couple of. A couple of songs I loved made it to the final, so I was happy to see them there, particularly Denmark, because it wasn't predicted to make it out of its semi final at all.

Yeah.

And it was a real catchy, real a bop. And she kind of great vocal.

This was the girl with the outfit that looked like it was going to do her some damage without being too drunk.

Like a blue. A blue kind of leotard situation.

Yeah, yeah. And the.

Yeah, yeah.

The, you know, a certain part of the leotard situation looked rather uncomfortable, let's just put it that way.

But still, she got past that and delivered a great vocal. It's such a good song. And I was actually just looking at itunes last night here in Ireland and that song was like number two. So it was the highest out of all the Eurovision songs. No, it was number two on iTunes. But sadly, during the. The. The televoting process where they. They announce every. To everybody their total points from the televote, she only got two points.

Wow.

So there's that kind of humiliating part at the end where people are just told, you go. Got zero points and the camera's on them and they're just like, how do you react to that?

Like, that's awful. Yeah. Like the UK as well. They really.

And then really, shockingly, Switzerland did as well.

Yeah.

So what. What's going on there? What? Like last year. I think it was last year as well, the UK got nothing in the public vote, but that's right.

Yeah.

But for the host country not to get anything weird. What's going on there? Yeah.

This was a song called Voyage. It was in French. It was very classy, it was very delicate. Lovely song. And I think it's the kind of song that, yeah, juries would respond with well, too. But people at home, are they going to pick up their phone and vote for it? I mean, I was surprised that it got zero. I thought it would pick up a few points here and there. But the important thing to remember, I suppose, is, like, if you get zero points from the public, it doesn't mean you got no votes, it just means you weren't in the top 10 countries. Sorry. Yeah. The top 10 entries for any. Any of the countries. So she, in theory could have been 11, 12th with everybody and still got zero from the televote.

Know.

I have to say, I did like the Luxembourg entry.

Oh, I can't remember that one.

Yeah, that was fun. That was cute. There was a really, really cool effect at the beginning where it looked like she was in a doll's house and the. The elements of the doll's house were kind of moving around her and as it went on, you realized she was like lying on the floor and actually all the elements were kind of shown on LED screens around her. So it was just a. It was just a cute little moment. Moment. But that was the fun one. But it was in the death slot, which is what people call second in the running order because nobody has ever won from there. It's just like the theory is you're just so forgettable there because everyone's paying attention to the first song and they're like, oh, that was great. Then they go off and get a drink or whatever and they just forget about the second song. But. But this year you could vote throughout the show. So that was a. I don't know when they introduced that, but certainly quite recently. Usually it was a case where the lines only open at the end after everyone has on, but this year you could vote from the beginning. So that does kind of change it a little bit and it gives. It's a bit more fair to the people who go at the beginning because they're not forgotten about. Yeah.

Can I just go back? Sorry. To. To just to the semi finals because I think there was a bit. There was a bit of mixed reaction about the voting. So for those of you who didn't watch the semi finals, basically at the voting stage, you had. Was it 16 countries for 10 positions going through? Through?

Yeah, 15 the first one. 16 the second.

Yeah, yeah. So you had this ridiculous kind of thing where at the very end of the voting, and it was a public, public vote and. And you would have three countries. Three. Three countries come up at random on screen and only one of those would. Would go through at that particular time. And then the two countries that didn't go through basically went back into the pot and they did this until they got to the very, the very last.

Trying to make it more interesting, are they?

Yeah, trying to make it more interesting. I don't. I don't know why. It's just like, why not?

It's one way of making your performance very, very nervous all the time.

Like, yeah, it was a new. It was a New thing for this year, they actually tried a couple of years ago to do in Liverpool. They tried to have them, all the artists on the stage and it was like strictly, you know, where you go, you're through and then people celebrate and the other ones are just left standing on the stage. And the artists kind of really, really reacted badly to that, so they cancelled it. So this was another way of. I suppose one element of it is I was thinking if you have like 15 delegations and you only have say six camera crews or six cameras and you're waiting for the next country to be announced, you have to scramble to film them. Whereas if you're saying these are the three who might. One of these three is getting through, through, at least your cameras are on them. This is just what I was thinking from a practical level. So at least you can film them straight away. They're celebrations. And what I liked about it was at least you didn't see the disappointment. So as soon as the country that was going through was announced, you didn't see the other two again. It was a bit kinder to people, but yeah, I think it was just. I think they were just thinking of ways to make it a bit more exciting. So you see the three countries and you say to yourself, oh, I bet you it's going to be Austria. Instead of just sitting there and waiting for the names to be called out, which is what I usually do.

What was your favorite?

Good question, because I. Yeah, I marked them all and then we kind of. My friends and I came up with our top fives. My favorite was. My favorite did come out as Sweden actually, because. Because I've been to see the Melody Festival in final and because I've been listening to it for months. Yeah, I really like it. It kind of did. It came out as my favorite, but Latvia was one that really came through for me in terms of just the last week it was like the six kind of nymphs wafting around the stage, but it was, it was really, really good. And. And Denmark as well. So Denmark, Latvia, Sweden. But I was up for Sweden and it was like they went into it with like, according to the bookies, a 41% chance of winning and like, so really, really strong favorites and ended up only in fourth place place, which is like grand for any country, but for Sweden it's a bit of a disappointment.

Yeah.

Going in as. As the favorites.

I blame the brand suits.

Oh, do you? Well, I blame. I blame that awful man from Estonia who sang about espresso macchiato. Could not Abide them. It was so. It was nauseating, honestly. Yeah.

And I think.

But it was funny, though, really.

I, I can't absolutely imagine some people found it funny. I could not find it funny, but, like, I would imagine I' he split the vote for the people who kind of like, for the luckier side of Eurovision entries. Yeah. So had he not been there, I think Sweden would have done much better. Had Sweden up in there, he probably would have done much better. He came third in the end. Did he? So. Yeah, so he did. He did very well. But I really took against that one. Yeah.

Yeah. The bendy legs. I, I did laugh, I have to admit.

It would have been a big hit at the Eurovision parties. You know, when people just get together.

Yeah.

They're kind of casual, have a casual interest. The people would have been, would have definitely enjoyed that because there is entertainment value there, however much I personally didn't like looking at it. Yeah, there were some of them, like, for example, Spain. I loved Spain, but there was a certain, like, she just looked a bit like she was, like, thinking about things too much. You know, when you can just see in someone's eyes that they're not completely comfortable, they're not completely owning it.

Yeah.

Whereas this fella from Armenia, even though the song wasn't really to my taste, just looked so comfortable and so calm and collected up there, which I kind of responded to. But the song itself, not amazing, but I kind liked it. What were your favorites, anyway? Yeah, it was good.

Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I loved the SAO one. That was, I think that was probably my favorite.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

I think I was prepared, like a lot of people, I think, or I'll just speak for myself, I was prepared to kind of turn a blind eye to the fact that that country were involved. And I didn't watch the song. I left the room while the song was on. I just chose not to engage with that country's participation.

Yeah.

And now we're talking about Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, just in case you don't wear. And I, and I'm. And I'm putting my foot, not pumping my foot forward. I'm saying I could not believe on. It was a Thursday night or Tuesday night in the semi final that they basically got through. You know, it was the public who put them through. And I, I couldn't, I could not understand how with everything that's going on in Gaza, that the public would put through this, this country. Now, I appreciate, Yeah, I absolutely appreciate it's. Not about the country. It's about the singing.

And it's not about politics.

But, like. But you pick it, Kevin. Like, okay, so Israel were in. Israel had no chance of winning except.

Well, except they got the huge public vote. They got a massive public vote. It puts them right up to the first position. And then we have this tense wait to see if anybody can overtake them.

Yeah.

And it was literally, and some people have said it, and it kind of felt like that to me, like, watching potentially the end of the contest in the sense that, like, had they won, I don't know what the implications of that would have been in terms of. Of delegations withdrawing and would it even go ahead and whatever else. And it's funny you say about, you know, the public putting them through, and on the face of it, they did. But this song is not in itunes, charts anywhere. Like people are. To my way of thinking, whoever voted for it, I don't think we're voting because they loved the song. Because, no, it's not showing up in the charts anywhere.

No, I think it was. I think it was a campaign.

Me, my housemate, my friends have seen ads, targeted ads on YouTube online over the past week running up to the show specifically for that song, for no other songs, but specifically for that song. So I think there was. There was. There was a real campaign there. Definitely. I think there's a lot of people online who are boasting about the fact that they voted 20 times, then use a different credit card another 20 times. And for the average person watching, they like a song, they might vote two or three times. But if somebody has an agenda or if somebody really feels strongly about this particular country doing well, they're going to vote in the tens of times. I think that then creates the sense that, oh, Europe is behind us, Europe supports us and all that. I was really surprised to see the Irish jury give it seven points because that's just five individuals who decided to rank all the songs, and three of them ranked Israel very high. I was really surprised to see that. I think Ireland, overall, between jury and televote, Ireland gave Israel the most points, which, when you think about the general feeling about the whole situation in Ireland, or as I perceive it, is really surprising.

It's kind of hypocritical, to be honest. I have my conspiracy theory hat on at the moment, and I'm just wondering, was there something. I mean, they jumped.

Shenanigans face.

Basically, they jumped from nowhere to being in the lead and ended up second in the competition.

Yeah.

And the song might have been. Yeah, a little bit twee or whatever. It wasn't going to be a Eurovision.

Winner and the lyrics were a bit.

So was there a bit of shenanigans, as you say, Kevin, going on?

I mean, that's the other aspect. There is talk of people wanting an investigation into whether all the votes were legitimate and obviously there's no real sense of that now, whether that's the case or not. But people obviously are, put it this way, like, have raised eyebrows over the sheer volume of votes because the jury didn't respond that well to the juries. Didn't respond that well to the song. It got about 60 points from the jury juries and then it got 200 and something from the public. If there is an investigation, if it's possible to investigate, it would be great to find out if they were legitimate. Maybe people did just want to show their support for that country, I don't know. And it just. It just casts. It just casts the shadow over the whole thing.

Spool forward to. So Austria have won. What do you think we need to do now to really get, you know, not only give. No, Stop worrying about getting through to the semi finals, but. Or through the final. But what have we got to do.

In terms of Ireland? Like, I was disappointed a bit in. In country being chosen, just in the sense that it did not feel in any way Irish. And that's the thing I always keep coming back to. I think a lot of times countries do well when there is just a little bit of a sense of the culture there. Obviously Austria didn't feel Austrian particularly, I guess, but I would. I would just love whether it's Irish language, whether it's just a bit of an Irish essence. I would love that. Although if you look at Bambi Tog last year, I suppose there were pagan elements to that, which you could say were Irishy. I would just love. Love more artists to consider it because obviously the delegation can only consider the songs that they receive. So I was really hoping when Bambi Thug did so well, that it would open the floodgates to people who before would never consider Eurovision to go. Actually, you know what? We'll try it. I just felt like this year was a little bit of a step back in terms of the overall quality of the entry. But as I say, the public still don't promoted that song. Like they gave it their. Their top points on the night.

Yeah.

At Euro Song. So it was the right song to go. This is the thing, though, after all the controversy and the. The negative side to it all. I think if anything, it's just going to put people off participating and that's a real shame.

Okay.

I think so. I think, I think a lot of people are like, I'm not getting involved in all that. First of all, I don't want to be sitting there when they say zero points. And second of all, I just don't want to get involved in, in the whole, you know, know, elephant in the room situation. So a lot of people that I've just seen anecdotally online are saying, like, this is the worst I felt after a Eurovision final. You have to put it into perspective. And if people are feeling bad because they didn't enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest as much as they usually do, it's minuscule in, in comparison to what people are going through and obviously Gaza and around the world. So you have to kind of put it into perspective.

I know, exactly.

Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, this final question then. Given, given what's happened and given that it was a bit of a lackluster and given, you know, it wasn't the Greatest show and there was this controversy really, about Israel, do you see that the EBU will now decide fairly quickly to ban, like they did with Russia, ban Israel from the competition for the foreseeable.

I think it's a different situation to Russia in the sense that when Russia were excluded from the contest, you know, embassies had been withdrawn from there, the whole, like, international community had kind of turned, or a lot of the international community had turned their backs on them. And that hasn't happened here. And I just think it's odd, it's a bit strange to think that, like, a song contest will be the first one of the main people to do that, to actually make that stand. I would love that to happen. What's interesting is the, the, the contest's main sponsor is Moroccan Oil, which is an Israeli company, I believe.

Yeah, it is.

And I think, think that deal has come to like, it was up to 20, 25. So there's some people have suggested because of the involvement of Moroccan Oil, it will be more difficult to exclude the country. However, now, if they get another sponsor and that element isn't there, it might be, it might be possible. I know they have said they are willing to have conversations about their involvement. So, you know, best case scenario for me would obviously be for them to, to be removed from the contest and I guess we'll just see over the next, the coming months. It is encouraging, though, that sponsorship is coming to an end.

Yeah.

Good. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, Kevin, thanks so much for giving us the time. Really appreciated you coming on a few weeks ago to give us the preview and your what was going to go through. And yeah, let's look forward to Austria in 2026. But that is it for this week, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for listening. We will see you in two weeks time.

Bye. By.