We could have a very long introduction to the quintessientially European experience of the ESC. For some reason, it has been a big thing in Sweden since the 1970′s (I guess ABBA in 1974 had something to do with it). Currently, the process of appointing the Swedish contestant is a process that takes five weeks, in a series of qualification heats. Anyway, the final in this internal just ended, with an amazingly tense voting outcome.

For those unfamiliar with the voting system, it trying to balance taste and populism by having both a set of “professional” juries and a general people’s vote. Both these two sets of votes generate the same number of total points (12 times 12 maximum for one song). However, the jury vote is 12 separate votes, while the people’s vote is one big block.

Today, at the end of the jury vote, we had a set of songs with scores from 96 down to 2… In all previous years that I have watched this spectacle, the popular vote will be roughly the same in order, and basically confirm one of the top three or so as the winner.

This year, the first three popular votes called out (the bottom scores) hit the three top songs. I don’t know how fast the artist were at doing math in their heads, but to me it was now clear that due to the way the scores were spread out, the popular vote would decide everything. We then essentially saw the popular vote inverting that of the jury vote… in the end, the song that was in eight place after the jury vote won! The amazement and surprise and sheer joy in Malena Ernman‘s face was touching. She looked as if she knew she had lost right up until the end.

It all felt almost unreal, as if someone had scripted the drama.The way the scores kept adding up to put new songs in the lead each time, and the fact that the next score called from the popular vote was always just enough to propel any of the top nine songs into the lead. A fictive movie couldn’t do it better!

It is all just entertainment, nothing really serious. But still this was fascinating to see.

What is funny though is the man that she has decided to marry. It a certain Mr (now Duke) Daniel Westling, a fitness trainer and gym owner with no noble or royal blood whatsoever. That would have been a scandal a century ago, but is perfectly normal these days. I guess a to-be queen marrying a personal trainer is also some kind of sign of the times… in the 1800s, I guess the equivalent would have been an explorer to Africa or similar adventurous types. But today, these are the kinds of people that are popular and visible. Even so, this particular specimen does not strike me as particularly impressive. On the other hand, having that kind of job at least keeps him close to home and should make it pretty easy to move into a formal representative role as there is no real busy career taking place.

The lack-luster career of Duke Daniel has caused some fairly funny commentary. In particular, Stern.de had some derogatory things to say about his business performance.

Anyway, but I think the really important part of this is the psychological effect on Sweden.

Is it just coincidence that this marriage is finally announced now, right in the middle of a recession? Having a royal marriage coming up should lift people’s spirits some. And for the next year, the popular press is going to have a nice uplifting gossipy topic that will ensure high circulation and dampen the effect of recession on them.

Good work by the Court!

I often listen to Leo Laporte’s “This Week in Tech” podcast. It is not particularly focused, but thanks to the quality of the participants it always enjoyable and I tend to end up learning something about general IT and general desktop computing that I did not know before. However, there are a few annoying themes that tend to pop up. One of these is the idea that traditional paper journalism and journalism in general is dead, to be replaced by smart news search engines finding “just what I need” based on my preferences. I think that idea is utterly broken. There is immense value to reading a collection of news and articles put together by someone skilled in the craft, and not just a search bot looking for stuff like what I already know and like.

Here is nice example of what such a bleak world would be missing…

Just last week I found the group “Universal Poplab“. A Swedish trio making nice pop music in a style that is quite reminiscent of classic 1980′s Synthpop. Which I happen to like. How I found it? Pure serendipity of the kind that will never happen in a world of agent-based targeted search and information. I was moving the car to the garage, and just tuned in to P3 on the radio. Where they happened to interviewing the group and played some short bits from their hits from recent years (hits that had completely gone me by, as I tend to be quite out of touch with cultural developments since we had a child a few years ago). “This is brilliant” I thought and logged into iTunes and bought a record immediately.

Without that purely random act, I probably would never have found out about them. There is so much good stuff out there hidden in enormous mass of indifferent stuff that the only really good way to get a handle on it is to let someone better informed tell you. Not some search bot. I guess this qualifies for “Rant” status.