It’s hard to know what’s worse about Hilda Heick’s admission that she cocked up her voting slip as a member of Denmark’s Eurovision Song Contest jury on Saturday night.
Getting her choices in the wrong order so her favourite song received the fewest points is pretty diabolical, but actually designating the eventual winner as her second worse entry – well, there in a nutshell is why this contest continues to defy the belief of the European public.
READ MORE: Eurovision no contest: From laughing stock to top of the pops
A near disaster
Had the difference in points between the winner Ukraine and runner-up Australia been close, this would have been a catastrophe.
Ukraine, awarded 12 points by Denmark’s jury, should have got zero, while Australia, which earned 10, was robbed of a maximum.
The 14-point swing reduced the winning margin from 23 points to nine, which begs the question whether there might be another hopeless Heick out there who cost Australia further points.
Not senile yet!
Heick, a former entrant and co-host of the contest who turns 70 on Thursday, has been called on to quit her role on various social media platforms.
Her mistake occurred despite a 30-minute briefing of all the Danish jury members by a representative of Deloitte, reports eurovisionworld.com.
She also made the same mistake voting in the semi-final, although it’s unlikely it would have affected Denmark’s failure to qualify as they finished 17th out of the 18 nations involved.
READ MORE: Denmark misses out on Eurovision final again
“It is my mistake and I admit that honestly,” she told BT. “But I want to point out that, contrary to what people are writing on Facebook, I am not senile yet!”
Forever the bridesmaid
Hilda’s husband Keld Heick is a prolific Eurovision entry lyrics writer. No fewer than nine of the songs he wrote the lyrics for made it to the Eurovision final between 1978 and 1996. One of them, Hot Eyes in 1988, even finished third.
However, he was less successful as a performer. Performing as a duet with Hilda, they failed to qualify for the song contest on three occasions.
