Here, there and everywhere May 28, 2008

Hello there dear reader.

I apologise for the distinct lack of blogging over recent weeks. It’s mainly due to the fact I seem to have been unable to stay still for more than 48 hours at a time! I’ve been running about all over the country, visiting York, Birmingham, Reading, Witney and I’m currently in Cambridge. I’ll be in London next weekend, after spending two nights in Thetford and attending a wedding in Cromer at the end of this week! However I promise I will attempt to blog more frequently during this time, despite the craziness, as it would obviously be cruel to deny the digital world of my many opinions and adventures for so long

 

So in the meantime, allow me to comment on the phenomenon that is the Eurovision Song Contest. I will hold my hands up and admit to being a bit of a Eurovision fan. I can’t help it. I enjoy the chance to sit down once a year and allow my ears and eyes to be assailed with some terrible musical offerings, whilst being given free reign to laugh at my fellow Europeans. This year I voted for Denmark, with their song ‘All Night Long’, which owed more than a little to Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’. Now Eurovision in the UK would not be the same without the commentary from the genius that is Terry Wogan. However I have never heard the poor man sound more dejected than at the end of the results on Saturday night. You see the songs entered by various countries appears to make very little difference to how many votes they get. It’s all about voting for your neighbours, and in recent years this has meant an Eastern European nation winning every time. This year it was Russia’s turn. And well done them. The UK came absolute last. We lost to Azerbaijan’s entry with the crazy man, the knitting brides and the washer woman with birds in her hair. We lost to about 7 different songs which would fall into the category of “life is miserable ballads”. We were even beaten by the Latvian pirates (although to be fair, that was a fun act!).

 

Now the past couple of years I could understand our poor results. We sent novelty acts: Scooch with their horrific ‘Flying the flag’ number, and don’t even get me started on Daz Sampson. But this time round we had our best entrant in years! Andy Abrahams (runner up on X-factor the year Shane Ward won) did us proud. The former bin man got up there and gave it his all. The song was catchy, bright, cheerful… and yet the only countries to give us any points at all were competition newbie San Marino (that mighty nation) and Ireland. Who had themselves sent a turkey. Literally. Conclusive evidence that whoever we send and whatever they sing is now utterly irrelevant. The UK is not popular within Europe, nor is anyone scared of us. We have no friends so we get no points. Germany are suffering a similar problem. What grates even more is that a large part of the funding for Eurovision come from the western countries in the EU – not the Eastern ones. We get a buy into the final because of how much money we put in. What would happen if we all pulled out? It’s certainly tempting after this year.

 

However I reckon that by the time 2009 rolls around, we’ll all have become optomistic once more and we’ll still participate. I just need to remember to not bother watching the voting next time. It’ll only make me angry.

 

And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.