Can Leicester's Molly Smitten-Downes win it for the UK? - Leicester is suddenly at the top of every league going

[Steven]

 

Not only Britain, but specifically Leicester could be on course to win the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend.

Molly Smitten-Downes, we hope, will succeed where another Leicester legend, the evergreen Engelbert Humperdinck missed out.

Well, why not Molly? Leicester is suddenly at the top of every league going, it would appear. The reception in the Town Hall last weekend for the Championship champs Leicester City FC is only the latest in a series of breathtaking national accomplishments.

Mark Selby – the ‘Jester from Leicester’ – waltzed off with the world snooker title on Monday. In the world of TV talent shows, last year's X-Factor champion Sam Bailey hails from the city, as does the Great British Bake Off champion and the Great British Sewing Bee victors.

The Leicester Tigers pretty much always win everything in rugger. Leicester lads Kasabian are also slated to headline Glastonbury this summer.

 

Now, for those of us from Leicester none of this comes as much of a surprise. Well, it does actually because we are used to a certain amount of condescension from the rest of the world; so much indeed that sometimes we almost lose faith in ourselves.

But we do not lapse into self-pity. Like Leicester City FC, however, we can and do regain our self-confidence, we remind ourselves of our fantastic achievements past and present, and go on to remind the world that this is one city happy to punch weigh above its weight.

Everyone knows how Leicester was enriched by the arrival of the Asian communities thrown out of Kenya, Uganda and Malawi from 1968 to 1976, and they represented quite a change for people in the city. However, their drive and entrepreneurialism have created jobs and prosperity. Besides they are only the latest in a long wave of migrants; from the West Indies of course, Ireland and eastern Europe, as well as from all over the rest of Britain, drawn here when the textile and engineering industries boasted many more jobs than they do today. Mum, a nurse, has still friends from St Lucia, Grenada, the Philippines and Mauritius.

 

In what I can recall of my official primary school picture (Green Lane Road, now long gone), I am sat among black children, Sikhs and eastern Europeans in equal measure.

When I was growing up, our neighbours on both sides were Geordie migrants, one a coal miner and the other a fitter at Walkers.

Since before Roman times the place has been a settlement for anyone who found themselves with hopes and ambitions, or maybe nothing much better to do, roughly in the middle of the country. 

We like to think we are a tolerant city, free of much of the racial tensions and violence that have scarred so many others  - the riots of 2011 hardly happened there, for example. Zimbabweans, Bangladeshis, Somalis, Chinese students and another wave of Poles are just the latest arrivals.

 

To me, this unassuming city in the east Midlands is really my New York, the Big Walkers Cheesy Wotsit maybe, rather than the Big Apple – but just as much a vibrant melting pot where making a living is more important than generating hate.

By the way we also have a miniature statue of Liberty, rescued from the old Liberty Bodice works, one of the many manufactures where the city lead the world a century ago. We still have the shell of the largest shoe factory on the planet when built ca 1890, the neo-Jacobean Co-Op Wheatsheaf Works. Just like NYC it would take you a week to appreciate Leicester’s magnificent architectural inheritance, one sadly undervalued by successive city councils.

Alan Bennett always said that the best anyone could usually come up with about his home town of Leeds was that it was easy to get to rural Yorkshire countryside from, a fairly back-handed compliment. Well, Leicester too boasts its hinterland of gorgeously rolling countryside and cutesy villages. But its environs are not the best thing about it. This is a happy city, though it has always had its problems and its poverty and its social divisions; an enterprising city; a great sporting city; a city that likes to get on with things without “mekkin a fussâ€. As they say where I come from, Leicester is frit o’ nowt, and we never, ever, go mardy.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/eurovision-2014-can-leicesters-molly-smittendownes-win-it-for-the-uk-9332771.html

[MPH]

Believe me, she will buck the trend.

 

 

 

 

 

Doesnt matter if we brought the beatles back and out of the grave, If they respresent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision song contest, they'll not finish in the top ten.

 

 

 

Voting is too political now - no one likes us since we got all Pally Pally with the U.S in Afghanistan..

[bovril]

Believe me, she will buck the trend.

 

 

 

 

 

Doesnt matter if we brought the beatles back and out of the grave, If they respresent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision song contest, they'll not finish in the top ten.

 

 

 

Voting is too political now - no one likes us since we got all Pally Pally with the U.S in Afghanistan..

 

Less political I think and more down to exposure of music across Europe. If you live in Serbia you'll probably hear and like Croatian music, or Turkish music in Greece for example.

[Rocket-Ron]

I bet we get more than Russia.

[Vacamion]

I agree that some of it is because we aren't liked in Europe.

 

Also, we haven't been Balkanised like Southern and Eastern Europe.

 

A lot of the votes are neighbouring countries with large groups of their neighbours included in their populations. 

 

If the UK ever spit into Tyneside, Yorkshire, Cornwall, Scotland, Wales, Wessex, Mercia and the rest, we'd probably appreciate each other's music more and vote for our near neighbours and former countrymen.

[FuriousFox46]

Less political I think and more down to exposure of music across Europe. If you live in Serbia you'll probably hear and like Croatian music, or Turkish music in Greece for example.

British and American music still dominates the popular music charts across Europe...

[LCFC Rennie]

Where about in Leicester is she from?

[fox123]

She'll probably do better than the egg chasers and cricketers have done.

 

Surprised there hasn't been a call for an LCFC, Sam Bailey and Mark Selby statue in Jubilee Square by the Mayor like the one on Gallowtree Gate.

[Xen]

Where about in Leicester is she from?

 

Rothley I believe.

[yorkie1999]

Eurovision has turned into the most ridiculous competition in the world. Who can remember, without looking it up, lasts years winner, and why do 90% of the acts sing in English if they're representing their own country, maybe because its the only language you can make two words rhyme apart from maybe j'adour le piat do'r , and that's always going to be a bit tricky to make a song around.

[Finnaldo]

Eurovision has turned into the most ridiculous competition in the world. Who can remember, without looking it up, lasts years winner, and why do 90% of the acts sing in English if they're representing their own country, maybe because its the only language you can make two words rhyme apart from maybe j'adour le piat do'r , and that's always going to be a bit tricky to make a song around.

The fit Danish bird.

It's not really hard, in Eurovision you only have to remember what nationality the fit bird is who wins it every year

[Webbo]

 Leicester is frit o’ nowt, 

 

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/eurovision-2014-can-leicesters-molly-smittendownes-win-it-for-the-uk-9332771.html

"frit a note" surely?

[MPH]

Less political I think and more down to exposure of music across Europe. If you live in Serbia you'll probably hear and like Croatian music, or Turkish music in Greece for example.

 

 

We used to win it often around the bucks fizz era... plus a couple of others.....

[MPH]

She'll probably do better than the egg chasers and cricketers have done.

 

Surprised there hasn't been a call for an LCFC, Sam Bailey and Mark Selby statue in Jubilee Square by the Mayor like the one on Gallowtree Gate.

 

 

 

Great idea... do you know the Mayors email address?

 

 

 

[Vacamion]

Eurovision has turned into the most ridiculous competition in the world. Who can remember, without looking it up, lasts years winner, and why do 90% of the acts sing in English if they're representing their own country, maybe because its the only language you can make two words rhyme apart from maybe j'adour le piat do'r , and that's always going to be a bit tricky to make a song around.

 

I can tell you from bitter personal experience (poetry and literature courses) that European languages do indeed have a plethora of rhymes.

 

I even (for shame) have a small collection of early 1990s German Rap. 

 

 

The fit Danish bird.

It's not really hard, in Eurovision you only have to remember what nationality the fit bird is who wins it every year

 

Back in the days when I used to throw or go to Eurovision parties, most of the chat was always about the shaggability or ridiculousness of the participants. Very little was ever said about the merit of the music.

 

I remember one year in the late 90s that there was a French female who looked beautiful and sang wonderfully but had absolutely bloody massive Pat Jennings-like hands.  Couldn't take my eyes off the shovels she had at the end of her arms...  If Kasper is snapped up, we should find her and sign her up.

[Strokes]

Eurovision is crap but its better than xfactor, I would rather be deaf than listen to either.

[DB11]

Like the United Kingdom will ever challenge in Eurovision. The most political contest there is! It's almost more political than voting for government

[fleckneymike]

Believe me, she will buck the trend.

 

 

 

 

 

Doesnt matter if we brought the beatles back and out of the grave, If they respresent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision song contest, they'll not finish in the top ten.

 

 

 

Voting is too political now - no one likes us since we got all Pally Pally with the U.S in Afghanistan..

**** all to do with politics and all to do with shit songs.

 

Would you buy our Eurovision songs? No. Then why the **** do we expect a bunch of foreigners to?

[Guest MattP]

Who cares?

Classic women, poofs and thickos TV.

[Kitchandro]

I love me a bit Eurovision. it's total shite but it's sort of an anti-X Factor, it came before it and is more ridiculous and it know it really.

 

Nothing wrong with laughing at the cheesy foreign presenters and Matthew you haven't watched it recently if you think it's for poofs. There was lesbian kissing and everything in it last year.

 

Quality family viewing.

[Manwell Pablo]

The whole thing is terrible, the missus loves it though so I'll do well to avoid it given this is the one weekend end in May I've not planned something for Saturday.

 

As much as I agree that there is political favored votes you'd have to be rather stupid to suggest that we've produced a song worthy of winning it in terms of quality since the last time we did . Most of our entrants have been dire.

 

EDIT: And having just gone and watched the song we're/she's entering I don't think we'd win if we brokered a world peace deal on Friday.

[Dan]

The only chance she's got of winning is if she changes her nationality.

[Guest MattP]

Ukraine have got to be backed at 10/1.

 

Will be picking up sympathy votes from everywhere after recent events.

[Alf Bentley]

Who cares?

Classic women, poofs and thickos TV.

 

Ukraine have got to be backed at 10/1.

 

Will be picking up sympathy votes from everywhere after recent events.

 

Were you watching, then? Who were you rooting for? And, er, precisely why did you care? 

:knock:   :nuge:    :top:

[MPH]

**** all to do with politics and all to do with shit songs.

 

Would you buy our Eurovision songs? No. Then why the **** do we expect a bunch of foreigners to?

And yet the top three songs each year are quality pieces of music?