Dobbo

Well that was well timed indeed.

Steve Aoki getting his highest peaker as late as 2016 was wild.

Top 20 hit I'll think you'll find! (It was Love Ya that missed the top 40). And tbh my understanding was that cheap songs were allowed and even encouraged prior to the strict veto framework we see nowadays so I would have still expected A Thousand Miles to do really well here! Less so the other ones I suppose.

Wow Shake It, A Thousand Miles & What Am I Fighting For all DNQ'd? BJSC must have had really bad taste in the early days...

Look forward to co-competing with you for the first time next month!

I mean I don't rate the manager at all, they should have stuck with Pereira and Edwards is further ruining his reputation when he could have rebuilt it by staying with Boro and getting promoted.

Yeah Wolves aren't really all that bad, the comparisons to Derby are a bit short-sighted as they were getting battered 6-0 every other week, whereas Wolves have genuinely been competitive in most of their matches and have only lost one game by more than 3 goals (which was on the opening weekend vs City) and should have easily gotten a point away at Arsenal recently too. Amorim is completely inept whatever formation he picks, he has absolutely zero in-game ability to affect a match.

I used to like Dominick The Donkey but in recent years I've started to hate it a bit.

Christmas Drillings is dreadful, makes Food Aid look like a masterpiece in comparison. This Or That was actually not too bad though. Tease Me is a bona fide classic but that cover doesn't hit the spot at all.

Burnley 0Vs1 Newcastle United Chelsea 3Vs1 AFC Bournemouth Nottingham Forest 1Vs1 Everton West Ham United 1Vs2 Brighton & Hove Albion Arsenal 2Vs1 Aston Villa Manchester United 3Vs0 Wolverhampton Wanderers Crystal Palace 1Vs2 Fulham Liverpool 3Vs1 Leeds United Brentford 1Vs1 Tottenham Hotspur Sunderland 1Vs3 Manchester City A most unusual schedule this round indeed!

If Cool wins this it'll be the first ultimate survivor winner that I couldn't hum.

BJSC 105 Host Country: Niceland Overview Approaching the mid-way point of the year and it was off to a relatively new nation at the time in Niceland. 2 DNQs down already meant this was a year to write-off already in aiming for the upper echelons so the pressure was off, meaning our submissions were very much whatever was the flavour of the month. This contest featured one of my favourite ever formats in final vote reveals, with all the DNQ-ing nations being posted in order of receipt and then votes revealed from each current last place nation in the standings, culminating in a nail-biting finale. It was to be a fourth consecutive first-time winner, with Land of DW this time taking the spoils. Dobago's Entry Result: 27th One benefit of not really caring about EOY stats is the lack of pressure to send something "hit" sounding and instead send something leftfield with the possibility of picking up a select few big fans. This is exactly what transpired here with our first rap entry. I had made quite a few French friends at this time and somehow, somewhere was introduced to someone who is apparently considered a legend in French hip hop. This was a more recent release of his and grabbed me instantly, with very intensely spoken verses and a funky, electronic breakdown. It only just qualified, finishing lowest of the advancing entries but performed more admirably in the final by avoiding the bottom 10. Surprisingly, this still remains to this date my best ever result in BJSC with an entirely male vocal song. Winning Entry Country: Land of DW This is one of those rare cases where a song very much out of the usual "winning formula" sounds manages to appeal far beyond its typical base and achieve near universal appraisal. It's simply an extremely powerful piece of music both musically and lyrically and still very much retains the same impact listening to it now as it did at the time. Even the music "video" is oddly mesmerising to me, with the 6 missiles being fired over and over. 106 was another notably high-quality contest and my overwhelming preference for dance music at this point pushed this song down to 8 points in my rankings but I think this would be receiving a fair few more nowadays. 18-Pointer Country: Cowtermont Looking back it really did seem like psytrance entries would near certainly garner strong Dobagan appraisal and this was yet another one that took home the gold medal. This track encompasses soft, intriguing vocal chants with new age style instrumentation and makes use of numerous tempo shifts to exhibit the "going on a journey" feel throughout its 7 minute runtime. A surefire banger but I certainly don't rank it along with the likes of 'Free Tibet' nor 'Varanasi', rather with 'Before' in being a very fun ride but not one I have chosen to relive all too often. This song was actually the lowest scoring qualifier in the opposite semi to ours so we were indeed lucky to be able to point it whatsoever but Cowtermont really were on one hell of a run in 2018. Our 15 points went to the infectious afropop track 'Laissez-Les Kouma' and 13 to the bold, brassy banger and namesake of a former DNQ of ours in 'Flamenco'. Re-ranking now, this may actually be one of our weakest collective top 3s of the year, as the winning song certainly tops them all and there'd need to be quite the reshuffle with 'Sisters', 'Your Eyes' and 'World Of Our Love' faring better than many songs previously ranked higher.

Yep that's happened quite a few times actually. I think George Ezra - Budapest & Harry Styles - As It Was did this and also some Pitbull song from like 2011. It's usually songs that are initially well received but then spend long enough in the top 10 for people to start disliking them.

+5 Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas [have to give this max points on its last ever appearance in this] +4 The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York +3 Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree +2 Shakin’ Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone +1 Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock -1 Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You -2 Kylie Minogue - XMAS -3 Elton John - Step Into Christmas -4 Wham! - Last Christmas -5 Brenda Lee - Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Have to go for Elvis now to try and save Omarion although I'd rank it 3rd best out of these.

Unfortunately darts will never get a look in at this prize. If Phil Taylor, the most dominant player in an individual sport of all time couldn't win it, then no one ever will.

Maresca's poor form going completely unnoticed this season, many Chelsea managers have been sacked for much less...

We need to take this unexpected opportunity of not having Bruno, our most overrated player, available for selection to kick on and actually get a run of results. I'm not surprised we were much better defensively yesterday.

Manchester United 1Vs1 Newcastle United Nottingham Forest 1Vs3 Manchester City Arsenal 2Vs0 Brighton & Hove Albion Brentford 1Vs1 AFC Bournemouth Burnley 0Vs2 Everton Liverpool 3Vs0 Wolverhampton Wanderers West Ham United 1Vs1 Fulham Chelsea 2Vs2 Aston Villa Sunderland 2Vs1 Leeds United Crystal Palace 2Vs1 Tottenham Hotspur

Well they had nothing on em after all!

So they are NOT the same person??

Arctics by far, can't believe the Gwen song has done so well

Dizzie for sure next

+5 The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York +4 Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree +3 Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock +2 Kylie Minogue - XMAS +1 Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You -1 Elton John - Step Into Christmas -2 Dave & Tems - Raindance -3 Wham! - Last Christmas -4 Brenda Lee - Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree -5 Together For Palestine - Lullaby

Much worse section there, I think all of my top 4 are there including the despicably atrocious Golden. From what's left there's only Truth In The Lies I dislike (bad sample) but wouldn't be unhappy at Ordinary winning either. Steve's Lava Chicken & Squabble Up should both be nowhere near this list!