Friday, May 23, 2008

Not making your mind up

Isn't it time the whole Eurovision thing was put to bed? Not necessarily the contest, although the Wogan-promoted idea of an Eastern Europe block vote is extraordinarily tiresome especially since it was found the top five would have been the same had the eastern bloc voting been taken out. Just this whole idea of Eurovision parties and people genuinely analysing the songs, the sort of thing that was the preserve of final stories on regional news bulletins when we were growing up, where the And Finally reporter would gently mock someone who collected the records while making jokes about Sandie Shaw's feet and Bucks Fizz's dresses. Now we're all supposed to be like it. The irony has come full circle and now nobody's sure whether we should mean it or not. Eurovision is the only event left that the mass media tell us is cool, or rather (oh god) "so uncool it's cool", and everyone believes it.

We think part of it is because of the British attitude to the ongoing contest. We're told only Britain doesn't take it seriously, yet Andy Abraham's song is just about the tritest and most Route One commercially attuned there. And Wogan's no fun any more since he spent two thirds of the show moaning. We'd suggest you went out, except there's parties in pubs now. In five years' time imagining that Bosnia's entry is reflective of their entire music scene even though nobody would claim the same for the UK will be enforced by law, you mark our words.

1 comment:

23 Daves said...

I think the European arguments about Britain not taking the contest seriously stem from the fact that we don't enter our stars, whereas most of the Eastern bloc do. To quote a very angry fellow on a Eurovision forum the other day: "For a superworldpower of music, the UK does not even try!" He has a point. Andy Abraham the Binman isn't really the best we could put forward.

As for the contest itself, I'm happy to stand up and say I've only missed one show since 1980, so by no means am I latching on to an ironic trend. Speaking as somebody who loathes football, it's also quite nice that I have an event of my own that's interfered with people's evenings out, since the World Cup and European Cup invade every single bloody bar everywhere - but if you can name a decent pub that's showing it properly I'd be very grateful. I haven't found that many, and will probably still watch from home.