Summer at last!

Today is the first day  when the cold wind has vanished and I felt too hot!  I often never quite believe the colour of that sea - I haven't 'enhanced' this photo in any way.  You can almost see a couple of insects on the white flower.

Rant coming.  At 19.45 tonight I had a 'Breaking News' flash on my phone - to tell me that Eurovision was starting on tv at 8pm!  It's become totally ridiculous.  I thought BBC News was supposed to be balanced and not biased.  First headline this morning was Eurovision, (how can it be 'news' when it hasn't actually happened?) and again on the early evening news, where it took almost half the time of the whole broadcast.

I accept it's a 'bit of fun', entertaining, and full of colour and drama.  BUT is it really about music?  Isn't it about theatre, wild extreme acts, and variety?  The 'songs', if heard just on radio, would be nothing to write home about.  It's the whole PERFORMANCE that people like and vote for. Is the 'contest' fair?  The five countries who pay in the most money towards staging it are automatically given a place in the final, without having to go through the semi finals.  The voting is notoriously unfair, with countries who are 'friends' voting together, all based on politics and 'friendships', with no regard for the quality of the 'songs'.  And why are people in the UK expected to 'support' their own entry when they had totally nothing to do with the choice of singer and song?  Apparently two influential individuals working for the BBC chose 'our' singer and song.

I did some googling, and can't guarantee that everything I discovered is correct, but it seems that this year's effort is being mostly funded and put on by the BBC!  That explains why they have been going on and on about it on all their news programmes.  They have spent £17 million so far but say they won't know the total cost until its all over.  So that's £17 million from our licence fee - and they have cut LOTS from the BBC News channel because the Govt wouldn't let them raise the licence fee!  One morning last week I put on the BBC news channel and got TWO HOURS of Nicky Campbell doing a live phone in alongside Radio 5!  NOT what I wanted to hear!   But it's a result of cuts to the BBC News channel.  So how can they afford to pay for Eurovision?  Apparently a few countries dropped out this year because they couldn't afford it.  I note that though the Eurovision news has been giving us lots of tiny details and tedious stories about people getting tickets and queuing etc, they haven't told us about the BBC funding most of Eurovision!  And of course our Govt have 'pledged' £10 million to Liverpool to help pay some of the costs of Eurovision.  Meanwhile we have the highest use of food banks than ever before, and those of us NOT millionaires like Sunak are not doing well  during this cost of living crisis.  But Govt seems to have a Money Tree after all, to help fund Eurovision.  My tv is OFF and staying off for the rest of today. I'm sure I will have to hear all about it on tomorrow's news.

Update:  Blip is very quiet tonight.  Everyone apart from me must be watching Eurovision!