Harve

Clock twice a day etc. I'm in England until the elections and my mum received literature from the Greens and Reform. The Green leaflet was classic local election material about specific local bugbears from the ward's candidate. The Reform leaflet was not the type of campaigning I've seen be posted for local elections - the only person on the leaflet was Farage rather than anyone local, and it was for Derbyshire as a whole. The message was even more generic than that - most likely the same being sent to other councils in England with the county name altered. It mentioned issues that county councils do have control over like potholes alongside mass immigration which anyone reading this will know is not these elections' remit. Fair enough if you want to stamp down your (racist) values I guess. While I'm not pushing the fetishisation of everything in politics having to be rooted in localism, I'll be very interested if we get councils turning Reform and how they are run by a party that's very centralised/national, and has no local governent history. Even competent administrations are having difficulty keeping councils afloat at the moment at the moment. Demographically, Derbyshire is not the most nativist or populist-inclined part of the country but it's a very swingy county with 9 flips from the Tories in 2024 to make all 11 MPs Labour (I think one of a handful of shire counties alongside South Yorkshire and Northumberland to have managed that?), whereas the 2021 election returned a huge Tory majority in the county council.

First spectacularly crashing the economy, now killing famous old people shortly after meeting them, the Trump administration is Truss 2.0.

I have more opinions now: Germany - Abor & Tynna - Baller Albania - Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm Sweden - Kaj - Bara Bada Bastu Latvia - Tautumeitas - Bur man laimi Finland - Erika Vikman - Ich komme Ukraine - Ziferblat - Bird of Pray Austria - JJ - Wasted Love San Marino - Gabry Ponte - Tutta L'Italia Estonia - Tommy Cash - Espresso Machiato Iceland - Vaeb - Roa Armenia - PARG – Survivor Norway - Kyle Alessandro - Lighter Malta - Miriana Conte - Serving Luxemburg - Laura Thorn - La Poupée Monte Le Son United Kingdom - Remember Monday - What The Hell Just Happened Australia - GO-JO - Milkshake Man Denmark - Sissal - Hallucination Ireland - Emmy - Laika Party Croatia - Marko Bošnjak – Poison Cake

Voted after a quick relisten this morning after doing my main listen through during a rather windy hike. I had about 15 tracks that I would be willing to give 5 points to, which is great, but no huge standouts so hopefully I'll find something 18-worthy in the opposite semi.

I Felt Love was such a covid-era indie earworm thankyou for the reminder <3

I mean literally the only thing to benefit from dropping a bomb on the global economy is his ego - it's a very self-destructive way to encourage public grovelling from businesses and diplomacy to get things back to square 1. There will be much rowing back but it will all be presented as getting concessions.

The vocals of the live performance that I've seen of this were horrendous but the studio track is a bop.

I'll be adding towards the top of this list next month btw x

Eledan getting fewer voters in 5th than 29th place did lmao. A little disappointed with the results as I gave a lot of points to 3 of the bottom 4, and didn't give anything to the podium, although all of the podium were alright.

Learnt while voting that James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco is from the next town over from where I grew up in the Peak District lmao I tried not to be bitter about Kiss Facility's awful SF2 result but the qualifiers from SF1 were better I think. Probably would have done less badly if I had those voters in the semi too.

Sweden: KAJ - Bara Bada Bastu Latvia: Tautumelias - Bur man laimi Finland: Erika Vikman - Ich komme My top 3 with the rest being either not great, I've not heard or haven't made an impression on me yet.

Ok just realised after well over a decade that #00274E referred to a colour. Sent a gorgeous Kathaldazia recycle and my first Arabic entry.

This is so funny. Nobody hates Farage more than his own MPs and it's a tradition that goes back to Douglas Carswell.

New winner klaxon! Congratulations - it feels very overdue. I don't vote for Taahino all that much and then when I do it's a bit of a flop? Sorry for cursing I guess. On my side I'm delighted at 11th - I got real Space Dimension Controller vibes which unfairly got something like 15 semi points a few years ago. Went further into Octo Octa's back catalogue after entering this track and I probably would've sent her most high energy track which is this one (idk why I can't see where to embed YouTube videos on the new site).

Testing copy pasting tables into Invision 4 and it is very janky (without having persevered too much) in that I can't seem to edit the table easily but it's now doable yay. The results were ALMOST a bloodbath but the last reveal really saved it.