Good luck, Lucie

So, we have our Eurovision song for 2017.

Everyone will have a view on it. Mine, for what it's worth, is that it's a bit too musical-ish. This suits Lucie Jones' experience, of course, but I'd like something more standalone, something that takes you on a journey in 3 minutes rather than seems to be illustrating a point from an existing narrative. But maybe I'm just being picky. It's good to see a pro singer with lots of experience getting the gig - she'll be less fazed by the crowd and the razzmatazz. And she has a genuinely good voice. I still think we need to field a name act singing their own material if we want to win, but I hope the 2017 entry will move us to a more respectable position. The top half of the scoreboard would be nice.

Maybe what is most interesting about it is that the singer and various people at the Beeb are thinking of tweaking the song in the light of people's comments online. This is a new kind of interaction between creative artist and 'the public'. It could be a fruitful one. Fifty Shades was written this way: EL James originally posted the story on a fan fiction site, and people kept telling her to make it racier. It certainly didn't do her any harm. The skill, of course, is for the artist to keep the work 'theirs' while taking comment on board.