Madam, - Your correspondent Karen Fricker reported last Monday that Ireland's entry, Dustin the Turkey, finished a "respectable 15th out of 24 songs in its round" at Eurovision 2008. In fact Dustin finished 15th out of 19 in his semi-final and 33rd out of 38 overall in the combined semi-final points total.
To add to the woe, it transpires that of the 20 countries eligible to vote for us, 17 awarded Ireland either zero, one or two points, leaving only three countries who gave us three or more points. Far from being a "respectable" placing, this is unquestionably Ireland's worst ever result at Eurovision.
To provide some context, the much derided Donna and Joe McCaul, regularly held up to be our worst performance to date, polled 53 points while finishing 14th of 25 in the semi-final in Kiev in 2005.
The joke has certainly come full circle for Dustin/John Morrison, who will now be remembered as one of the "sad acts" he sang/wrote.
In the process he has contrived to make a lot of so-called
clever people in RTÉ look very stupid indeed. - Yours, etc,
JAKE WALSH,
Walshestown,
Clogherhead,
Co Louth.