#dublin 1997
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Dublin 1997: Televoting
It was only natural for Eurovision countries to try to select the meta if they wanted to do well. A stubborn, conservative and stagnant consensus had formed. The ballad-schlager axis.
Occasionally a new strand would emerge accidentally (traditional Celtic/Irish music), and there was a rush to exploit it. It did not last long, and once again Balladageddon re-established itself. In the real world, these songs were not selling.
There was a push to encourage national selections to be braver and some were, but nothing managed to challenge Eurovision orthodoxy. It was time for the EBU to take action.
The juries were the problem. Not only did they consistently fail to vote for the new or experimental, they also tended to favour neighbouring countries or countries with similar musical cultures to their own. Block voting had been an issue as far back as 1963 when there were accusations that the Norwegian jury changed their results to favour Denmark. It had never really gone away, and now it was discriminating against the newcomers.
The juries needs a shake-up.
Luckily there was a solution. Telecommunications technology had recently begun being able to handle televoting. Short phones calls to exchanges that could record numbers and could cope with a sudden burst of incoming calls. It had been used in several national finals for some years, even if there were some teething problems like those that afflicted the Finnish national selection final in 1996.
In 1997 the EBU took the plunge. Five countries with the most experience at running televotes were selected to replace their juries with 100% televoted results. These could be gathered and verified during the interval act. There was only a short time for voting, but it was enough. It had the additional benefit in that those televotes cost the callers money, so there was income to be generated, although at first that reward was taken by the telecommunications companies themselves.
Even in 1997, the results were there to be seen. Some counties that scored reasonably highly with juries, did not with the televote:
Slovenia got 60 points and finished 10th, but it didn't get a single point from the televoting countries.
Spain got 96 points and finished 6th, with 17 counties giving them points. Among those that gave them nothing were three of the televoting countries.
Malta, the perennial English-language boosted nation got 66 points, finishing 9th, but no points came from the televote.
Other countries were more favoured by the televote but not at all by the juries.
Iceland got all but 2 of its 18 points from the televote
Denmark got 10 of its 25 points from just three televoting countries
Bosnia & Herzegovina got 13 of its 22 points from four televoting countries in possibly the first case of televoting sympathy for a country recently at war (although I know it's hard not to vote for Alma)
There were still some oddities, and there was some neighbourly voting clearly remaining. The German televote gave Türkiye 12 points which could be the first instance diasporic voting, but Türkiye's song finished with 121 points and finished 3rd overall, so possibly not.
Was it a success? Well more data would be needed, but there were some shifts in the direction the EBU wanted to go. That data would start rushing in during the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest. The first one to be 100% televote. Well except for the three countries that still had juries. What would the brave new jury-less world look like?
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An Invitation to Dinner…
If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?
In response to the above prompt, here is who I would invite to dinner…
1. The operator of the US Navy ‘existing secret system designed to pick up audio’… I have many, many questions…
2. Mr Revenue Commissioner, so he can explain to me why we still pay Universal Social Charge.
3. Whoever is replacing the…
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#cybi fitzgerald#cybi nic gearailt#dailyprompt#dailyprompt-1997#dublin#ireland#Irish writer#toffee mouth#toffeemouth
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Famine (1997) by Rowan Gillespie. Bronze. Dublin, Ireland.
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Happy Birthday Mark McLachlan aka Marti Pellow, born March 23rd 1965, the same year as myself.
Picture the scene, a teenage Mark chatting to his dad in Clydebank, and telling him he was going to be a musician, according to Pellow the reply went something like this....'Are you on a hallucinogenic substance or something? What's wrong with getting out there and getting an apprenticeship? I'm a builder, your grandfather was a builder, your great-grandfather was a shipbuilder. What do you want to be a musician for?'
And so it was, Mark became Marti and Mclachlan, became Pellow.
In 1982, at the age of seventeen, Marti formed the band Vortex Motion, with three friends from Clydebank High School in his hometown, the bands name was later changed to Wet, Wet, Wet who went on to have numerous hit singles and albums.
PolyGram signed the group in 1985 and spent a fortune fine tuning them in, the group scored a hit two years later with "Wishing I Was Lucky," which reached number 6 in the charts, the album Popped In Souled Out was a huge success scoring them a debut number one, two more would follow.
The Wets, as they became known had more single success in 1988 with their first number one, a cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" cut for the charity ChildLine.
Hit singles including Sweet Surrender and Goodnight Girl preceded a 1994 cover of the Troggs' "Love Is All Around" which spent an astounding 14 consecutive weeks atop the charts and was their third chart topper; however, in the wake of 1997's album, 10, the Wets began splintering amid copyright squabbles, and in May 1999 Pellow left the group.
Marti had a few minor hits as a solo artist but soon found fame in London's' West End in the hit stage musical Chicago.
Marti's mother passed away in 2003 and he was touched that all his ex band members attended the funeral, he recalled his mum saying that maybe Wet Wet Wet would get back together sometime and Marti later said in an interview "Moments like that put things into perspective - it wasn't all about music, it was more about a kinship between us." The band reformed the following year.
While the group haven't officially split the earlier success has eluded them, they still attract fans to their sell out concerts, Marti is still playing to audiences in London, his last role being Che Guevara in Evita aside from music he was the narrator in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers in 2015.
Pellow is currently touring singing some of his best-known songs on a UK-wide tour. He'll be playing former band Wet Wet Wet's debut album, Popped in Souled Out, in full - plus a string of other hits. The first night was at in Dublin and he played Glasgow's OVO Hydro last Saturday, he is in Leeds tonight, followed by Newcastle, London, Bournemouth and Birmingham.
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“You can't wash the blood from your hands as you can't wash the shame from the war.” Balkan Baroque (1997): Marina Abramović spent four days at @la_Biennale scrubbing cow bones and singing Serbian folksongs. She dedicated it to victims of the Yugoslav war. It also won the Golden Lion.
Imponderabilia (1977) by Abramović and Ulay, For this performance, members of the public had to squeeze between them in order to pass (and decide which one of them to face).
Rest Energy by Marina Abramović and Ulay was first performed in Dublin at ROSC in 1980.
Abramović’s early work was with sound. Aged 17, she hung speakers all around the building her family lived in and played the sound of a building falling down - everyone thought they were being bombed.
“It was a huge scandal.”
Rhythm 0.
Sinead Gleeson interviewed Marina Abramovic here:
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/marina-abramovic-interview
Rhythm 5, 1974
The Hero, 2001.
The Artist is Present, 2010.
Marina Abramović,
The House with the Ocean View, 2002.
Performance; 12 days.
Naked with Skeleton, 2005.
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Eurovision Fact #446:
Over the 67 years of Eurovision, quite a few American contestants have taken part, one American even won the contest.
To begin, non-qualifying artists include:
Cyprus' 2006 representative and former backup singer for Brittany Spears, Annet Artani; both Austria and Slovenia's 2013 representatives, Natália Kelly and Hannah, respectively; finally Jimmie Wilson, who represented San Marino as part of a duo with Valentina Monetta in 2017.
Next, there were many qualifying American artists. Many of which made it into the top 10. For starters, artists that did not make the top 10 include:
1979's representative for Luxembourg, Jeane Manson; Denmark's 1981 representative Debbie Cameron, who took part as a duo with Tommy Seebach; Kim Cooper of The Rounder Girls, who represented Austria in 2000; Poland's 2008 representative Isis Gee; Oscar Loya of Alex Swings Oscar Sings, who represented Germany in 2009; Tamar Kaprelian of Genealogy, who represented Armenia in 2015; Bulgaria's 2018 contestants Trey Campbell and Johnny Manuel of the group Equinox; in 2021, Flo Rida featured in Senhit's performance for San Marino; and Poland's 2022 contestant Ochman.
Finally, a total of 6 American contestants have made the top 10. In order of placing, they are:
Rhonda Heath of the Silver Convention, who represented Germany in 1977, earning 8th place; Romina Power, who represented Italy twice with her then husband, Al Bano, once in 1976 and 1985 -- earning 7th place both times; Hungary's 2014 representative András Kállay-Saunders, who placed 5th; Wess, who performed with Dori Ghezzi in 1975 for Italy, placing 3rd; also placing 3rd was Greece's Kalomira, who took part in 2008; finally, taking home first place in 1997 was Katrina Leskanich of Katrina and the Waves, who represented the United Kingdom.
[Sources]
'Made in the USA - Americans who have competed at the Eurovision Song Contest,' Aussievision.net.
Participants of Athens 2006: Annet Artani, Eurovision.tv.
Annet Artani Biography, IMDb.com.
Participants of Malmö 2013: Natália Kelly, Eurovision.tv.
Natália Kelly, Wikipedia.org.
Participants of Malmö 2013: Hannah, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Kyiv 2017: Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Jerusalem 1979: Jeane Manson, Eurovision.tv.
Biografie, JeaneManson.com.
Debbie Cameron, IMDb.com.
Theroundergirls.at.
Participants of Belgrade 2009: Isis Gee, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Stockholm 2000: The Rounder Girls, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Moscow 2009: Alex Swings Oscar Sings!, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Vienna 2015: Genealogy, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Lisbon 2018: EQUINOX, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Turin 2022: Ochman, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of London 1977: Silver Convention, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of The Hague 1976: Romina and Al Bano, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Gothenburg 1986: Al Bano and Romina Power, Eurovision.tv.
Romina Power, IMDb.com.
Participants of Copenhagen 2014: András Kállay-Saunders, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Stockholm 1975: Wess and Dori Ghezzi, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Belgrade 2008: Kalomira, Eurovision.tv.
Dublin 1997, Eurovision.tv.
Participants of Rotterdam 2021: Senhit, Eurovision.tv.
#esc facts oc#eurovision#eurovision facts oc#eurovision song contest#esc#Annet Artani#Natália Kelly#Hannah#Jimmie Wilson#Jeane Manson#Debbie Cameron#kim cooper#isis gee#oscar loya#Tamar Kaprelian#Trey Campbell#Johnny Manuel#Ochman#Rhonda Heath#András Kállay-Saunders#wess#Kalomira#Katrina Leskanich#flo rida
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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … February 9
1923 – The Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright Brendan Behan was born on this date (d.1964). He is best known for this autobiography Borstal Boy. In his book, In Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality in Irish History, Brian Lacey writes that the noted playwright, poet, and novelist, who spent three years in a British reformatory (where he discovered his "Hellenism," as he himself put it) for a 1939 IRA bombing, was Bisexual throughout his life.
At the time of his death, he was working on an unfinished novel, called "The Catacombs" after its setting in a real-life drinking place of that name in a number of interconnected basements in Dublin's Fitzwilliam Place that was a notorious homosexual hangout.
1944 – Nicholas F. Benton is the founder, owner, and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, a weekly newspaper distributed in Falls Church, Virginia, and in parts of Fairfax County, Arlington County, and Washington D.C.
Born in Ross, California, Benton earned a degree in English from Westmont College (a Christian college) in 1965. After college he was a reporter and sports writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press. He obtained a master of divinity degree in 1969 from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He became a contributor to the underground newspaper Berkeley Barb, helped found the Berkeley Gay Liberation Front and wrote the first editorial for the newspaper Gay Sunshine.
In 1970, Benton was involved in to get the White Horse Inn (a gay bar a mile south of UC Berkeley) to loosen its restrictive policies toward expression of gay identity.
Also in 1970, Benton became the first Gay Liberation spokesman to address a major anti-war demonstration.
Benton worked for the Lyndon LaRouche organization from 1974 until the late 1980s, first as a political organizer, and later as the Washington D.C. bureau chief and White House Correspondent for LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review.[10] In 2007, Benton wrote that he had left the LaRouche movement in the 1980s.Benton founded the Falls Church News-Press in March 1991, and in July 2010 celebrated the periodical's 1,000th edition. He has served twice as the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, been named Falls Church's “Pillar of the Community” twice and “Business Person of the Year” once, and had his enterprise named “Business of the Year” twice. He has authored a weekly national affairs column in his periodical since 1997.
In November 2009, Benton was unsuccessful in a bid to acquire the Washington Blade in the wake of the bankruptcy of the Blade's parent company.
In December 2010, he was elected to the newly created Stonewall LGBT Caucus of the Virginia Democratic Party.
Benton has been married and divorced three times; he has no children.
1960 – Today's the birthday of Holly Johnson, lead singer of 1980s band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The band were pioneering for having two openly gay members - Holly and second vocalist Paul Rutherford – and a sound and image that borrowed heavily from underground gay culture and dance music, which they in turn fed into with their controversial number 1 hit Relax.
In November 1991, Johnson learned he was HIV positive. This triggered a temporary withdrawal from the music business and public life in general, with one of his last TV performances around the time being at the Diamond Record Awards, Antwerp, where he performed "Americanos" and "Where Has Love Gone?". His condition was made public during an interview with The Times in April 1993.
In March 1994, his critically acclaimed autobiography, A Bone in My Flute, was published. In it he discusses his struggle with, and acceptance of, his homosexuality. The same year, he recorded a new single, "Legendary Children (All of Them Queer)", whose lyrics referred to famous LGBT people throughout history. During 1994, he performed live at London's Gay Pride show, where he performed "Relax", "Legendary Children" and "The Power of Love". In April 1998, he performed "The Power of Love" live at the Easter Gay Happening in Krefeld, Germany at Club Königsburg.
Since the mid 1990s, Johnson has worked primarily as a painter. His works have been exhibited at the Tate Liverpool, and The Royal Academy. He has contributed to Modern Painters and the Paul Smith sponsored CARLOS magazine.
1965 – Stephen Raymond Merritt, better known as Stephin Merritt, is an American singer-songwriter, best known as the principal singer and songwriter of the band The Magnetic Fields. He is known for his distinctive and untrained bass voice. Merritt is openly gay.
Merritt created and played principal roles in the bands The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, The Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes. He briefly used the name The Baudelaire Memorial Orchestra as an attribution for a song written for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, entitled "Scream and Run Away". Further music was recorded for the audiobook versions of the series and is attributed to The Gothic Archies. The Tragic Treasury was released by Nonesuch Records in October 2006 along with the 13th and final book of the series.
Growing up, Merritt used different spellings of his name for different purposes. Stephin was one such pseudonym that he used to sort his junk mail, and that became the spelling he used for his life as a musician.
Prior to 2013, Merritt had never met his father, folk singer Scott Fagan, who had a brief affair with Merritt's mother, Alix Merritt. The three met at a screening of the film AKA Doc Pomus in 2013, and Fagan is planning a cover album of his son's songs pending the outcome of a Kickstarter campaign.
Mrritt's lyrics are known for bending and blurring gender lines; examples include the song "When My Boy Walks Down The Street," sung by a male vocalist, which contains the lyric "and he's going to be my wife."
1992 – Avan Jogia is a Canadian-British actor, singer, activist, director, and writer. He is known for his television roles Beck Oliver in the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious, Danny Desai in the ABC Family drama Twisted, Roman Mercer in the Syfy paranormal action series Ghost Wars, and Ulysses Zane in the Starz comedy Now Apocalypse.
Jogia first came to prominence with his portrayal of Danny Araujo in the 2006 biographical television film A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story. After moving to the United States in his late teens, he landed various television roles within series such as Caprica (2009–2010), and the miniseries Tut (2015). Jogia's numerous credits in television and cinema include Spectacular! (2009), Finding Hope Now (2010), Rags (2012), Ten Thousand Saints (2015), I Am Michael (2015) and Zombieland: Double Tap (2019). His directorial debut came in 2011 with the short film Alex, which was followed by the 2016 web series Last Teenagers of the Apocalypse.
Avan Tudor Jogia was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Jogia's father is British Indian, and his mother is of English, German, and Welsh descent. He is the younger brother of Ketan, a music producer in London.
Besides English, Jogia speaks some Gujarati and French.
According to The Start, Jogia was a student at Killarney Secondary School until age 17 when he left to pursue acting full-time, having already gained a number of small television credits. In an interview, he said that his parents withdrew him from middle school in favor of home schooling. He moved to Los Angeles, California on the trial-basis that he would land a role within a six-month period – or return to schooling.
Jogia has cited British actor Tim Curry as one of his early acting inspirations, particularly Curry's role as Long John Silver in the 1996 musical adventure comedy film, Muppet Treasure Island. British actor Sir Ben Kingsley is another of Jogia's inspirations; the two would later appear in the 2015 miniseries Tut, and work together on the 2016 short film Of Dogs and Men.
Jogia co-founded the online PSA organization Straight But Not Narrow (SBNN) in 2011, with Heather Wilk and Andre Pochon, in conjunction with the support of fellow actor, Josh Hutcherson. The non-profit organization is aimed towards changing the attitudes and viewpoints of heterosexuals about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Jogia believed, "[t]here was no one making straight youth responsible for their apathy. When you see a bully beating up a kid and you stand idle, that's as loud, or louder, than the actual oppression", and thus established the organization.
1994 – Pope Iohn Paul II attacks the European Parliament resolution in favor of lesbian and gay rights.
2018 – Adam Rippon was selected to represent the United States at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea where he won a bronze medal thus becoming the first openly gay U.S. male athlete to win a medal in a Winter Olympics. Later that year, he won season 26 of Dancing with the Stars with professional dancer Jenna Johnson, making Rippon the first openly gay celebrity to win the competition.
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Jonny is calling from the band's office outside Oxford, close to their rehearsal studios and a stone's throw from all their homes. The Oxfordshire landscape, he says, is "all cottages and power stations", which might well explain the blend of pastoral strains and industrial textures in Radiohead's music. They'd rather be in Dublin, confesses Jonny, but they've got to stick around to finish off the mixing of Ok Computer.
"Thom and I stayed there for a week after our show in Galway last year," says Jonny. "We just went up to Dublin and it was amazing, we go quite often, we've got a lot of friends there."
Irish Times - May 17, 1997
#thom yorke#jonny greenwood#interview#1997#ok computer#Jonny and Thom finishing the recording of okc together#t+j
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MA- Shreya Battersea-Parsons
"𝙄 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙮𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙢, 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙄 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚."
Name: Shreya Hümasha Battersea-Parsons
Nicknames: TBD
Birthdate: 6th of May, 1997
Zodiac Sign: Taurus
Personality Type (MBTI): TBD
Blood Status: Half-blood
Nationality: Turkish, Indian and Irish
Physical Appearance
Hair: Black, thick and long
Eyes: Black
Height: 1.65m
Weight: 63kg
Body Type: Average
Skin Tone: Dark brown
Distinguishing Marks (scars, birthmarks, etc.): TBD
Background
Hometown
Shreya grew up travelling between Antakya (Turkiye), Dublin (Northern Ireland) and Kolkata (India), living a comfortable life and in the public eye since she descended from the former House of Osman through her paternal three-times great grandmother Nilufer Sultan, later known as Battersea. Her mother Esmanur was her direct descendant and her father was a famed businessman who travelled often. She grew up with everything she ever wanted, and even took in her sort of cousin Luke Battersea.
Family
Mother: Esmanur Zeynep Battersea
The only daughter of Bayezid Battersea, she was a proud and entitled woman who was used to have the princess treatment. She planned to marry highly, given that her heraldic blood was on her side. She married Mahmud Parsons, a wealthy Indian businessman. Despite him being away and Esmanur flauntering her own wealth, they had a daughter together, Shreya, and doted on her like nobody else. They raised her so that she’d know who she was and carry on their legacies.
Father: Mahmud Ismail Parsons
A wealthy businessman in Mumbai, he was introduced to Esmanur during one of his annual visits to Istanbul and was quickly charmed by her. The two of them hit it off and decided to get married that summer of 1996, and soon after the wedding, their daughter Shreya. They’d try for more, but it ended up in miscarriage. After the third try, they desisted. He instead devoted his limited time to Shreya, though he was never truly around, making up with expensive gifts and bringing Luke to make her company.
Distant cousin: Luke Battersea ( @unfortunate-arrow )
Though they weren’t exactly close or talked much, after he was taken in by the family, Shreya was the one to genuinely care for him and always watched Star Wars with him and listened when he talked, despite not understanding him much, but she truly tried her best, and she knew that Luke knew.
Hogwarts
House: Slytherin
Best Class: History of Magic, Transfiguration and Potions
Worst Class: Flying and Herbology
Boggart: Something awful happening to John, later Kevin
Riddikulus: John starts singing in a bad Irish accent, later Kevin
Patronus: TBD
Patronus Memory: Playing hide and seek with her parents
Mirror of Erised: Becoming the next Minister of Magic, opening the way to women of colour to own power positions
Amortentia (what she smells like): Powder, strawberries, Turkish delight, spices, lavender and hot coffee
Amortentia (what she smells): TBD
Career
11-18: Hogwarts student
20-38: Diplomat for the British ministry in the East
39-48: Chief Warlock
50-62: Minister of Magic
65+: Retiree
Personality & Attitude
Priorities: Her career, herself, her family’s safety and her goals
Strengths: Strong-minded, confident, kind and funny
Weaknesses: Proud, perfeccionist and tends to romantise everything
Stressed: During the time where they tried to murder her for her family jewels
Calm/Comforted: In her room, hearing John laugh, later reading in comfortable silence with Kevin
Favorites
Colors: Black, grey, green, red and orange
Weather: Sunny
Hobbies: Reading, studying, fashion and beauty products
Fashion: Shreya dresses to the latest Turkish fashion (her favourite kind of fashion) and is always aware of the latest trends in Istambul
Relationships
Significant Other/Love Interest: John Arthur ( @potionboy3 )
Shreya has always had a crush on John Arthur, but who wouldn’t? He was handsome, charismatic, athletic, sweet and such an incredible young man. Shreya never made her move, noticing his heart was elsewhere.
After graduation, they found one another again. She noticed how lost he seemed and Shreya felt that way too, and both of them started dating while they helped one another find their path. He was her first everything: first serious relationship, first intimate time, first boy to bring home, first time she ever fell in love... and they shared two beautiful years together, him almost becoming family. When they started inquiring about him popping the question, many aspects in their lives had changed.
An old love of John had returned and, after much deliberating, decided to end the relationship. It ended amicably and, after healing from the heartbreak (she had been used to him being there) they became good friends and, though Shreya never knew Theo’s secret, came to like him and understand why John loved him.
Kevin Farrel (husband)
Shreya and Kevin went to the same year and had similar ambitions, making them good friends. They had a special connection, though Shreya was caught up in her crush with John, thus never saw Kevin, but from time to time, she’d have heart flutters when he smiled at her. Kevin, however, always had a crush on the brilliant, cultured, intelligent and incredibly beautiful Shreya, and seeing that she did not feel the same, decided to bury himself on his studies.
They met years later after their graduation, and reconnected when she went to see Robyn on the Quidditch World Cup. Kevin, more confident, asked Shreya out and started seeing one another. Shreya had gotten out of a long relationship with John and had just come back from vacationing in her hometowns- Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) and Antakya, which are located in India and Turkey respectively. They fell in love and, after a year and a half of dating, Kevin proposed to Shreya, and they were married when they were 28.
The Green Gals: Bryony Rose ( @cursedlegacies )
Shreya and Bryony met when they were assigned their dorms together, and though they butted heads over Bree’s feelings for Cassandra Vole, she ended up supporting her, not wanting to waste years of friendship over her.
Jupiter Durand ( @cursed-herbalist )
Shreya and Jupiter have similar personalities and soon clicked. Shreya introduced Jupe to Arabic and Indian poetry, as well as Turkish dizis and Bollybood films. She also learned from her how to draw and French and Italian poetry and literature
Nymeria Lee ( @gcldensnitch )
(Lore TBD)
Rosa Yaxley ( @potionboy3 )
(lore tbd)
Other friends: Sophie Pembroke
(lore tba)
Rivals: Cassandra Vole
She and Cassandra butted heads, mostly because she made life impossible to her dear friends and duelled many times, in which Shreya always beat her. When she started dating Bree, she offered an olive branch and promised to crush her if she broke her friend’s heart
Colby and Fischer Frey
To say that the Fischer twins made Shreya’s life a pain was to say the least. They always butted heads and had a bigger rivalry of pranks and sabotage. After graduation, she didn’t talk much to them and avoided them.
Trivia
Despite appearing in Turkish and Indian headlines, Shreya enjoyed much better the indoors and peace of home, a homemade food and tea on her desk while she studied politics
To further her process as minister, she studied a double degree of law and political science in King’s College.
Her favourite singer is Taylor Swift and Madonna
She also likes to dance to Turkish and Indian songs when she’s alone
She loves to travel and read the newspaper to see what’s going on in the world
She has triple citizenship in Turkiye, India and Northern Ireland, a rare thing indeed
Apart from Turkish, Indian and English, she also speaks several Balkan languages, Greek, German and French, and has tried several times to learn Japanese
She loves to bake and eat Turkish delights and drags everyone she knows to try them
She also loves spicy food, very spicy food
She knows how to cook several dishes in case they have to prescind from their cook
#magic awakened#mc: shreya battersea parsons#HPMA#harry potter: magic awakened#john arthur#luke battersea#battersea family#slytherin#oc profile#character sheet
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Crippled Symmetry [Morton Feldman, 1983], Opera Paese, Roma, October 23, 1997 [Photo: © Opera Paese]; in Vertical Thoughts. Morton Feldman and the visual arts, Foreword by Enrique Juncosa, Edited by Seán Kissane and Imelda Barnard, Contributions by Dore Ashton, Juan Manuel Bonet, Barbara Monk Feldman, Bunita Marcus, Brian O'Doherty, Francesco Pellizzi, and Kevin Volans, Designed by Peter Maybury, IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2010, p. 215 (Monoskop pdf here) [Exhibition: Curated by Juan Manuel Bonet, March 30 – June 27, 2010]
#graphic design#art#music#photography#exhibition#catalogue#catalog#morton feldman#opera paese#enrique juncosa#seán kissane#imelda barnard#dore ashton#juan manuel bonet#barbara monk feldman#kevin volans#peter maybury#irish museum of modern art#2010s
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Dublin 1997 - The interval act and other performances
The benefit of having a bona fide, 100% genuine pop star as a host is that the interval act is sorted. It's right there. In Oslo they had Morten Harket, and such was their extravagance, they had him as the opening song. They put on a huge separate interval act without him
Ireland and RTÉ weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and neither were Boyzone's management. The interval was Ronan and his fellow Boyzone band members performing their song Let the Message Run Free. Initially this just had Ronan on his own with a dance troupe, but he was soon joined by the boys dressed in full black leather trench coat ensemble, anticipating The Matrix by at least a year. They even got some choreography at the end to match the dancers.
This is Boyzone at the absolute pinnacle of their popularity. They were trying to make a push to break into the US market. To this day they're the second most popular boy band in the UK chart history after Take That. They're were also popular across Europe, so this is Eurovision getting a big name to start at the centre of the show - another attempt to get Eurovision to more credible and marketable across Europe.
If I'm honest, despite the contemporary big name, it's not particularly memorable. What you think of it will entirely depend on how well you think of Boyzone. There's no trip around Ireland on video. Nothing traditional, although Ireland have already ticked that off in 1994 and 1995. This is as straightforward a pop performance as you can get. And it only lasts about six minutes.
youtube
#esc#esc 1997#eurovision#eurovision song contest#ireland#dublin#dublin 1997#Ronan Keating#Boyzone#interval acts#Youtube
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Duncan Grant’s bedroom at Charleston.
The door opening into Duncan’s bedroom shows the ceramic number plate betraying Charleston’s previous identity as a summer guest-house. The ornate nineteenth-century prie-dieu chair is decorated with beadwork—not good for kneeling on, one might think—indeed some people have doubted whether this was its function. It is one of a pair, made in Dublin and bought by Duncan in Brighton in 1918. When he saw them, Clive [Bell] is reported to have exclaimed with horror, ‘Now, Duncan, you have gone too far!’ Above it hangs Vanessa [Bell]’s portrait of Angelica [Bell], painted in 1930 when she was twelve. The head of Vanessa on the early-nineteenth-century French provincial chest-of-drawers is by Marcel Gimond, and was made in 1920–21. Gimond also did the red chalk sketch hanging beside it.
—Virginia Nicholson, 1997
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The first of the two “Vibe For Philo” concerts that I attended in Dublin, January 1997.
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Trivia - Minority Report was first optioned in 1992 as a sequel to another Philip K. Dick adaptation, Total Recall (1990), with Arnold Schwarzenegger set to reprise his role as Doug Quaid. But after the Total Recall production company filed for bankruptcy, the project was reworked into a stand-alone project and started its development in 1997, after a script by Jon Cohen reached Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise (Wikipedia).
Colin Farrell starred in both Minority Report and Total Recall (remake).
Minority Report predicted multiple future innovations, including facial recognition, personalised advertising and predictive crime fighting.
Total Recall showcased self-driving cars. Google is now making cars that can drive themselves without human intervention (I saw a preview in Google HQ in Dublin).
In 2010, the Transportation Security Administration installed total-body scanners in many U.S. airports to reveal any concealed weapons on a passenger’s body.
Also video calls (Zoom) and hologram (digital) instructors are now a reality.
#minority report#best actor#movie#ireland#colin farrell#total recall#sci fi film#futuristic#technology#google#self driving cars#sci fi#stranger than fiction#artificial intelligence#trivia
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The Rings of Power, Prime Video’s much-anticipated Lord of the Rings spin-off, works hard at recapturing the magic of the Peter Jackson movies. But for Irish viewers the $1 billion series evokes less welcome memories. It features a race of simpleton proto-hobbits, rosy of cheek, slathered in muck, wearing twigs in their hair and speaking in stage-Irish accents that make the cast of Wild Mountain Thyme sound like Daniel Day-Lewis. Twenty minutes in, I’m having flashbacks to that 1997 EastEnders episode with the fightin’ villagers and donkeys walking the streets.
And a bit later on...
The accents embark on a wild journey from Donegal to Kerry and then stop off in inner-city Dublin. The Harfoots themselves are twee and guileless and say things like: “Put yer backs into it, lads.” One is portrayed by Lenny Henry, a great comedian and actor who deserves better than having to deliver lines such as “De both of ye, dis does not bode will” (in an appalling Irish accent). Scouring the internet, there is no evidence of any Irish actors having been involved.
Why do these primitive itinerant hobbits sound like something from the dodgy-Irish-builders episode of Fawlty Towers? According to the show’s Australian dialect coach, the accents are intended to be “familiar but different” – and the Harfoots are meant to have an “Irish base to their accent”, but they do not speak as though they’ve walked out of a “particular cross street in Dublin”.
Rings of Power: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent.
Often with such fare to feast upon, we all watch and the mother and the sister try to guess which accent the dialect coaches were going for (I sadly have a tin ear for accents) but thankfully Ed Power did a rant so we don't have to.
#Rings of power#Accent#Much more stuff in the link#More scottish accents for the dwarves#And discussion of irish stereotypes and xenophobia towards the irish#Also my heart broke that Tolkien apparently didn't think much of celtic mythology#BROKE I TELL YOU!!!#ah I'll cope
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Dublin's Club FM
"Dublin's Hottest Dance Mix"
In keeping with the theme of radio not necessarily chasing popular music (so much as popularizing music, at least (Rothenbuler, 1987)), here we have an example of a radio station that does one thing amd one thing only, but does that one thing very well: this is the Republic of Ireland's Dublin's Club FM.
This will be a fascinating little review about a fascinating little radio station. As the name suggests, Dublin's Club FM is all about club/dance/house music, the kind you'd hear at clubs or parties. Their broadcast area is mainly centered around the city of Dublin itself over FM radio, but surprisingly, despite it being a format that is no longer officially supported in Ireland, Dublin's Club FM is also available over DAB+ in counties Dublin, Cork , Waterford and the northeast to anyone who owns a DAB set in Ireland. The station also heavily promotes their availability over the internet on their social media websites...
...but very little is actually known about the station itself. Although evidence exists that there used to be a Club FM official website, all links to said website end up here:
Evidently, the website no longer exists, but the radio station is still playing- going onto www.liveradio.ie and tuning into Dublin's Club FM shows a very much still active radio station, so what gives?
Well, as it turns out, comments on Dublin's Club FM's liveradio.ie page shows evidence that, despite being much beloved, the station faced some sort of closure prior to October of 2021.
It's likely that though the station returned, they were unable to re-acquire the domain for their website. Regardless, they are an active presence, and they remain quite popular.
They also have social media following, with their Facebook account in particular having around 7K followers, indicative of a small but loyal fanbase. They mainly use their social media account to promote upcoming raves and related events:
Amusingly though, they're not beyond also posting funny/ironic memes or jokes.
So despite how little is known about the station, it's clearly beloved by its fans and still has an active online presence today. What kind of fans are they, however? Who exactly does the station cater to?
Well, with that question being the sort of thing that can only be solved with a personal listening, allow me to enlighten you.
I listened to Dublin's Club FM via an online stream on liveradio.ie on Sunday 24th December, from 2-4PM to get a real feel for what they're about. As it turns out, the station's formatting is simple: they have no links, and play dance/lounge tracks pretty much non-stop. There are some stingers between songs with the station's slogan, but no presenters, nor news. The station sets out to do one thing- play dance/lounge music for its fans to rave to, and to its credit, Dublin's Club FM does exactly that to the letter. It's going out of its way to cater to a specific audience, one that isn't specifically local since artists played on the station like the Klubbheads are from the Netherlands, not Ireland. Furthermore, the specific song from the Klubbheads used- Discohopping- had been out as far back as 1997. In general, the station's songs seemed to be a consistent mix of rave music centered around the 90's, early 2000's and early 2010's.
This, plus comments as seen above on their liveradio.ie webpage talking about bringing back classics, being taken back to older times and showing some distaste for "cheap mainstream stuff" tells me that the station caters towards older audiences with a fondness for older, 'classic' club music. This in mind, I do think that the station's approach is effective- it does have a clear following, showing it works, and I personally appreciate the simplicity with which Dublin's Club FM goes about its mission.
After all, if all one wants to do is listen to club music, I doubt they want to hear anyone actually talking about it between songs- this is something Dublin's Club FM clearly understands very well, and I for one applaud them for it.
Find Dublin's Club FM at:
References:
Lull, J. (1987) Popular Music and Communication SAGE Publications, Newbury Park
www.facebook.com (Date N/A) Club FM Dublin [Online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/clubfmdublin [Accessed 24/12/2023]
www.liveradio.com (Date N/A) Club FM Dublin [Online] Available at: https://www.liveradio.ie/stations/club-fm-dublin [Accessed 24/12/2023]
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