Eurovision Song Contest

I broke one of lifes rules last night - the one that states "thou shalt not watch the Eurovision Song Contest for it be shite"

But I watched it anyway, and it was shite and if I could have yesterday evening back again then I'd spend it delivering charity appeal envelopes, or saving kittens from wells, or fostering small black children from newly created african countries, something creative or worthwhile or newsworthy.

Instead I sat through Eurovision.

That is to say I sat and watch all of the 24 terrible performances, I couldn't bear to watch the voting section after that as it had given me a headache and so I took aspirin and went to bed - this morning I read that Serbia won and I'm not suprised at all that I can't remember what the Serbian entry was like even after seeing a photograph of them.

For those not of a European persuasion the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised song competition, but you'd probably worked that out for yourself already. It was founded in 1956 in the enthusiastic brave new technological world and seven European television companies chipped in a few hundred quid each and bought themselves the right to impose one full evening of dire TV upon their citizens every year inperpetuity.

Its grown since then and now includes countries that no-one else has ever heard of outside of Eurovision, invented countries that at least give us ten seconds of amusement as we try and pronounce their names, last nights competition kicked off with BosniaandHerzogovenia, spelled just like that on screen and it took three reads before I realised who they meant.

We also had the translated subtitles on screen so that we could understand what the Johnny Foreigner ones who refused to sing in English were singing about, quite frankly I wish we hadn't bothered as the translations all turned out to be the same song with a few words re-arranged here and there, except Irelands song, which finished 24th out of 24and consisted of a crazy looking female singing about springtime and talking to flowers, if she wasn't popping LSD tablets before during and after the competition then I'll eat my hat.

Jodie noticed pretty quickly that the translated lyrics in Johnny Foreigners songs didn't rhyme, so they must be crap then, and whilst I couldn't disagree that they were crap it took some explaining to convince her that the lyrics probably rhymed in the original Johnny Foreigner language but didn't necessarily have to rhyme when translated into English - we both ended up agreeing that it was crap anyway.

The UK entry was by a singing group (I use the word "singing" with caution) who were so bad that they were disbanded by their record company some years ago and then reformed recently when said record company realised that the BBC were looking for a really bad singing group to enter into Eurovision.

If you have never seen "Scooch" then consider your self lucky and under no circumstances go searching for them on YouTube, your life will never be the same after plunging to the depths of poorness that is Scooch. Imagine the sort of singing group that you see performing on a very bad childrens TV programme, the sort that is aimed at the under 3's and thankfuly televised while the rest of the world is either at work or asleep at 7am on a saturday morning - dayglo outifts, perma-fixed smiles, a general air of squeaky-cleanliness but with the obligatory extremely camp member who makes cheeky quips and innuendos for the parents to giggle to, yes they really are/were that bad.

The UK would have faired much better if they had entered the singing kids from Seseme Street.

However its over for another year and I still have the headache this morning, its a mistake that I will not make again next year and I have already marked in my diary to ensure that next May I am in Umslobogoland with a reporter from OK! magazine picking out a small black child from an orphanage there, whilst smiling with a Scooch-stylee perma-fix smile.

PS - The BBC, who we citizens actually pay good money to present this trash to us, feel so moved by the whole eurovision thing that they have posted a series of photos on their web site today - view with caution for Scooch are in there somewhere.

My confession...

I have a confesssion to make.
Last night I watched the BBC's "making your mind up"

The programme which bestows upon the British public the heady responsibility of choosing the song and performer(s) to represent these fair isles in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

For those of a foreign (not european) constitution a word of explanation.

The Eurovision Song Contest occurs once a year around April/May time and has replaced the once popular past-time amongst European nations of going to war with each other, now instead of fighting another German Reich every twenty 'years or so we don't vote for them in the Eurovision Song Contest, or we don't vote for whoever we have argued with in the European Parliament that week.

If you (non-europeans) ever have the chance of watching the four or five hour extravaganza on some public service network then do yourself a big favour and skip the first three hours when the different countries representatives actually sing their songs, and just watch the voting at the end instead when each country in turn picks ten entrants and awards them points from 1 to 12 (no I don't know why either), you can't help but notice that Greece or Cyprus never award anything to Turkey and viceversa and likewise with the former Yugoslav states and since we now allow former Russian states to enter and Isreal too (who also never vote for Turkey), then you can only imagine the resultant bun fight come marking time.

Last night the BBC showcased six acts who were all hoping to represent our country this year ranging from former boy band, drug addict and failed suicide bidder Brian Harvey who sang an appalling ballad that he admitted to having written himself, about himself, and like himself it was fekkin awful, to a former member of girl band Atomic Kitten Liz McLarnon who sang a song that she had written herself, it was fekkin awful, to former lead singer of The Darkness Justin Hawkins who sang a duet with some bint that he'd written himself and was so fekkin awful that I felt physically sick for the lad, to a band of soul, funky, hip-hop rappers who's name escapes me who sang a song that they had written which wasn't that bad really, to a french girl called Cindi who wanted to represent the UK in Eurovision (no I don't know how that works either), and finally to Scooch, the tradition Eurovision two boys and two girls all of whom look like they have just been moulded from pure sugar and whom, if you were stood next to them on a train for more than five minutes you'd punch them very hard in the throat just for being so.

I watched them all and cringed for most of the way through, but when Scooch walked on stage dressed as air stewardesses and pilots to sing a song with an avionic theme complete with a dance that had been devised by a pre-school playgroup high on suger saturated Fanta orange, then I hid behind the settee such was my discomfort.

Unfortunately their song was exactly what is required to win the Eurovision Song Contest for if our European compadres have one thing going for them its that they have absolutely no taste whatsoever when it comes to music.

Every year across the Spanish Costas some fekkin sickly song and dance reaches the parts of your bowels that Epsom Salts cannot reach and for months every sad fekker that goes for a cheap package holiday in some fekkin concrete hellhole on a Spanish coastline returns to these shores singing the fekkin stupid refrain and doing the fekkin stupid little dance that they have spent the whole two weeks of their chavvy little holiday learning.

Scooch's song "Flying the Flag (for you)" (retch) is of that genre - it reminds me of the son of a friend of mine who spent last summer in Spain working as a tour rep for Thomas Cook who, after he'd returned home and we'd got him drunk enough, showed us the song and dance routine that he had to do at the friday night "reps entertain" evening, it was appalling and embarrassing and I wish we hadn't forced him to show us, but it was exactly the same dance that Scooch did last night.

They will win Eurovision hands down, for our European kinfolk have no shame.