Olly Dolly

Congratulations!

Gay icon and all-round sweetie Olly Alexander has been selected to represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest next year...

The Queen of Eurovision is dead

"My whole career really started by accident. There was a time when I was on the BBC three times a week - it seems very strange to think of that now, but it was the only thing people watched."

And so, farewell to another British icon, the former model, TV personality and doyenne of the Eurovision Song Contest - against whose genteel manner every subsequent hostess has been judged - Katie Boyle, Lady Saunders, who has departed for Fabulon.

You just do not get glamour and poise this this anywhere any more:

A tribute to Katie Boyle - Eurovision Song Contest

Facts:

• Her first marriage (to Richard Boyle, later the Earl of Shannon), which lasted eight years, was dogged by rumours of scandal - including a supposed affair with Prince Philip.
• She became well-known across the UK not just for her elegant appearances on chat shows and variety shows, nor merely for her stint as the hostess of the Eurovison Song Contest (she presented her first Eurovision Song Contest in 1960 and hosted the programme a further three times in 1963, 1968 and 1974), but as "the face of Camay soap" in TV adverts; though she admitted in private that she didn't use it because it brought her out in a rash.
• When Katie presented the contest in 1974, the year Abba won with Waterloo, she almost diverted attention from that spectacular victory as the tabloids had a field day with the fact that she wore no knickers under her slinky dress - of the occasion, she said she spent the whole show hiding behind the podium, but when she had to step out from it, her cards and hands were strategically placed to hide her private areas.
• Her marriage to Viscount Boyle meant that technically she was aristocracy, despite their divorce; third husband Sir Peter Saunders was a theatre impresario and the producer of Britain's longest-running show The Mousetrap, and when he was knighted she gained her second noble title.

And here she is again, singing(!) this Lerner and Loewe classic, with erstwhile telly show host Michael Barrymore:

Katie Boyle & Michael Barrymore - I Remember It Well

RIP Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali dei Principi di Francavilla (aka Katie Boyle, 29th May 1926 - 20th March 2018)

On the Jukebox this Eurovision weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers

Насолоджуйтесь! [That's "Enjoy!" in Ukrainian]

Queen of Eurovision

Happy birthday, and douze points, today to Katie Boyle (Lady Saunders; born Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali di Francavilla, 29th May 1926)!