Jemini sits on an unenviable plinth in the UK’s cultural history. In 2003, this pair of enthusiastic Liverpudlians were the first ever UK entry to score a spectacular nul points at the Eurovision Song Contest, with Cry Baby. Oh, we did.
In 2021, it was the cruel and unusual fate of James Newman to follow in their footsteps all the way to the bottom of the right hand side of the board with an equally non-existent score for Embers, the ensuing headlines writing themselves.
While these disasters coincided with the Iraq War and first Contest post-Brexit proper, against a background of expanding East European neighbourly voting and the usual historical mutual sympathies, it was all too easy for us to conclude that the rest of Europe* (*and Israel, and Australia) just didn’t like us.
The problem being, of course, that it’s impossible to tell whether this is true when what we put up for their delectation is so half-hearted.
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