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UK theatre tour announced
Andy Abraham - Not giving up music career!
Esctoday has learnt that the former X-Factor star intends to continue with his music career. Andy has announced a year-long theatre tour starting on the 31st October to promote his new album Even If. The album, which contains original music recorded on his own record label B-Line Records, has so far failed to appear on the UK album chart, however the single release of Even If reached number 67 in the UK singles charts in late May
Andy found fame as the former bin man who went on to finish as the runner-up in the popular X Factor's 2005 series, losing out to Shayne Ward in the final episode.
Although Andy has kept a low profile since appearing in this year’s contest in May, his management plan to keep Andy firmly in the public spotlight, while he travels on tour around the United Kingdom. The tour will include theatre appearances in over 40 UK towns including Portsmouth, Milton Keynes, Swansea, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Ipswich.
Full details of Andy’s tour have been published in the events section of his official website:
Here is Andy Abraham performing for the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2008.
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Michael,
that's why I said that if we had 1 vote per phone those problems would be much fewer...at least in regards to diaspora..not sure about neighbour voting..if I could see the results of all the juries this year I would have a better opinion. But something tells me that neighbour voting would happen with juries, too.
Mina,
I didn't expect juries to vote for Ukraine either. I remember that one of the Turkish jury members said that they all (4 musicians+4 ordinary people) liked Ukraine so Ukraine got the 12 pts. The musicians didn't vote for Greece (she couldn't sing)or Armenia, for the same reasons. The guy himself didn't like Albania or Bosnia.
Jonny,
Long live Malta 
Yes Stockholm! Malta obviously have the finest taste after giving 12 points to the UK & then 12 points to Sweden!!
I like how Azerbaijan has jumped on the Band Wagon with this Unjustice of Tele Voting....I heard that Azerbaijan Promised Turkey 12pts even when Turkey did not choose their Entry at that Moment.now to me if that was True,then Azerbaijan sould of been told to have a Jury Vote Instead of the Televote as that was a Advantage for Turkey.
@ mina
the problem is , with televoting we know exactly where the 12 10 and 8 are going before they open their mouths , that is unfair by any standard
And Jonny, this year Malta loved us
these peopel who claim televoting is fairer are completely misguided. televoting is fundamentally unfair and totally predictable and un entertaining
It depends on your definition of 'fair'. Fair to me would be if people decided..when I learned the results of the Turkish jury and the 12 pts they had given to Ukraine my first reaction was how is that possible? Did musicians vote for that? Now if that was repeated by a bunch of juries and Ukraine won this contest I admit that my first thought would be that something isn't right because I couldn't (still can't understand) how could professional musicians vote for that song..of course it's half musicians and half simple people but still! And my 2nd reaction was how could they not give any points to Israel? What kind of musicians are they?
And that's because we have some expectations from the juries that we don't have (I don't have at least) from the simple people.
When people vote, it's easier for me to understand their criteria and ofcourse in any case I know that no, noone paid them for their vote....so no matter where every country gives 12 pts, I won't 'doubt' that decision..I don't know if I'm making myself clear.
Of course all the above are about 'normal' televoting which I think could happen if there was the rule of only one vote per phone.
it is said that back in the 60s maybe some jurors were bribed but cmon lets not be silly about this. its hardly likely that bribery these days would happen and even if it did its a minimal chance of influencing the result , i mean how many jurors would need to be bribed in the first place ? jurors vote 1 - 5 votes per song each i think, so you couldnt influence a jury of 16 easily at all. so these peopel who claim televoting is fairer are completely misguided. televoting is fundamentally unfair and totally predictable and un entertaining
Jonny:
"May even vote for the UK" - that's a good point
But only a percentage of the jury should be experts.
"LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL true"
Mina: It is true! We need to juries just to save the UK! The only countries that do televote for us is Ireland (they obviously have superb taste! lol) and sometimes Malta (who love us so much they fixed us a 12 points in 2007! lol)
Well if the EBU don't bring the juries back then we should just persuade the BBC to buy points from other broadcasters! TVE did it in 1968 so we can do it in 2009! lol (jokes) I doubt the BBC would ever buy points off other broadcasters, that job belongs to Channel 1 Russia!!! (just joking Mina! 
)
Hahahaha, that was too funny, Jonny.
Yes Mina & Vincent & Stockholm
Juries have their bonuses and disadvantages
Bad aspects - Easy to bribe, Can be more political than televoting, Don't represent the public opinion.
Good aspects - No diaspora!!, May even vote for the UK!!! A percentage of the jury has to be "musicians" and is thus aware of a good song more.
Good aspects..... May even vote for the UK!!!
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL true 
Vincent,
for me there are many reasons why I don't like juries..voting politically or being easier to bribe are just 2 of them...another one is that the best song should be for the people to decide, not for a few experts...in my opinion at least. But, on the other hand, because I realise the televoting problems stated here by some of our western friends, I agree with 50/50...only because I can't think of a better way...although even with just 1 vote per phone, I think most of those problems could be solved.
juries are far more likely to be swayed by political issues than the public. Which is one way in which televoting is fairer, because in the jury years Turkey and Cyprus never exchanged points, and Turkey and Greece very rarely exchanged points, nowadays it happens all the time.
Correct..and easier to bribe, too.
guys,
i did not trie to judge the political situation and the army conflicht between Russia and Georgia. I am not aware of the details and anyway i am not here to talk politics. All i wanted to say and i still believe is that the Gergian entry would have done a much greater impact under the current circumstances than it did back then.
But i am happy that you all seem to agree that jury voting would be actually more political than the televoting..that is good to hear it from you, because i have stated the same thing in various comment myself and we seem to agree on this.
That's true, Jonny.
Stockholm: Yes. In fact juries are far more likely to be swayed by political issues than the public. Which is one way in which televoting is fairer, because in the jury years Turkey and Cyprus never exchanged points, and Turkey and Greece very rarely exchanged points, nowadays it happens all the time.
Yes Jonny, I think you're right.
As this is a song contest I hope that people would have voted for the songs they liked.
If the ESC had taken place now. Then Dima may have just won, but not by much. He would have still got alot of votes from eastern europe no doubt, because the political situation will be portrayed very differently in eastern europe to here in western europe., where he probably would have lost alot of votes.
Here in western europe the news sides with the pro-western Georgia, so in western europe we all think this is entirely Russia's fault.
However I am pretty sure that in eastern europe the reports would be alot more balance, or even siding with Russia, because seeing Georgia as pro-western could anger alot of eastern countries including Russia's allies.
We're also forgetting that most people don't vote by politics. If a person was watching they would probably think "This Russian guy has nothing to do with politics, so i'll still vote for him, even though I don't like his government". It would be incredibly narrow minded of people not to vote for Dima just because the Russian government isn't behaving itself, and I think most europeans aren't that narrow minded.
So if ESC had taken place today, Dima may have lost votes in western europe, but probably not in eastern europe. And because most of his votes came from eastern europe anyway, he probably still would have won.
Vincent,
that's what I tried to say in my other post, without going into details...that tha'ts not what we hear over here by our reporters in South Ossetia. We have a different picture of how that crisis started and who is responsible for all this..so let's just change the subject. It's a very complicated situation.
Mina,
i am sure, under the current circumstances and the unjust bmbardements of russian in the mainland of Georgia, eveyne would have boycotted the russian entry in the ESc by not voting for it and i think under the current political circumstances the georgian song and the lyrics would move and touch all Europe, especially the eastern part of it, and i think this song would massively win if the contest took place today
About the Georgian entry:
Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't! 
To be honest I thought it would qualify because peace songs normally get voted for. However given how strong the final was, it was never going to be a top 10. Although I thought the performance was a bit messy. I think there was too much going on, and the costume change was cool, but not needed.
I listen to the studio version every now and again, its a nice song, but it sort of washes over me, and I forget i'm listening to it!
Sorry, the Georgian entry was not one of my favourites and I didn't expect it to qualify.
I think Russia would still win. Those political reasons are probably obvious in western countries but it's not what our media say.
Michael,
i think if the contest 2008 tok place in these days, Georgia wuld win by far and Russia would come top bottom, just beause of obvious political reasons
i liked the georgia song much more than the russian entry and the costume change was very clever. how ironic the song wa called "peace will come"
i wonder how many votes russia would have got in belgrade if this crisis had happened in may !
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