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Eurovision 2012: the preamble
Friday, May 25th, 2012 11:20 amIt took me a long, long time to ‘get’ the Eurovision Song Contest. When I was a kid, it was something that was on telly once a year and that was it.
You go through phases with it, or at least I did; things may be different in these days of hundreds of digital TV channels, the intarwebs and digital radio. When I was a kid, there were two TV channels (three from 1969), computers were in films only and radio was the BBC. And I didn’t have a record player of my own until I was nearly twelve…
To begin with you’re just too young to care, if you’re even allowed to stay up while it’s on. Then comes the point when you endure it, because it’s on telly and it’s better than going to bed, this may evolve into a shortish period where you quite like it, or actively detest it according to taste, but that is rapidly replaced with indifference as the hormones of puberty take hold and anything that is vaguely mainstream is to be avoided like the plague. The next stage is simple habit; having avoided/detested the entire cheesy concept through your teens, you then become old enough to go to the pub, meet the opposite sex, set fires, that sort of thing. You just forget it’s on.
And one day, one Saturday in May, a few years down the line, you find yourself at home at a loose end. Your friends have all inconveniently gone away for the weekend to avoid you, have run out of internet, can’t be bothered to read and have nothing to do that calls to you so you switch the telly on and stare at it. You flick the channels and, because by definition, TV is rubbish, you keep coming back to the Eurovision Song Contest. You still ignore it, the first time, but when you happen upon the voting towards the end of the night, there is a reasonably strong possibility that you will stop and see what happens. Which country is going to snub its biggest rival? Which of the small East European countries will attempt to incur the wrath of the Bear by allocating fewer than 10 points to Russia. And will France even acknowledge the existence of the UK entry (though frankly, who would this year?).
And then you’re hooked.
With the advent of Twitter and FaceBook, where you can be as rude and/or hilarious as you like with your pithy comments, it just gets better.
The trick is, and this is the bit that takes the learning, Eurovision Song Contest is just a name. It’s not about the songs at all, not for us in the UK at least. It’s all about funny foreigners trying to show that they understand pop music when frankly, they don’t. It’s all about national rivalries but without the guns.
This year the Spanish state broadcaster has asked their entrant not to win, because Spain can’t afford to host the show in 2013. We could be in for a bumper year if a lot of the other shaky economies out there take a similar view.
Visually, 2011 was the year of the Gorgian hypno-muff, though that well-known European state, Azerbaijan somehow won the contest on buggins’ turn. I wonder what the most appalling visual of 2012 will be? Or the most appealing?1
And remember, with everyone desperately trying to lose this year, vote for Greece. They need cheering up.
1It’s probably too much to hope to see Jedward being taken out with a sniper rifle…
You go through phases with it, or at least I did; things may be different in these days of hundreds of digital TV channels, the intarwebs and digital radio. When I was a kid, there were two TV channels (three from 1969), computers were in films only and radio was the BBC. And I didn’t have a record player of my own until I was nearly twelve…
To begin with you’re just too young to care, if you’re even allowed to stay up while it’s on. Then comes the point when you endure it, because it’s on telly and it’s better than going to bed, this may evolve into a shortish period where you quite like it, or actively detest it according to taste, but that is rapidly replaced with indifference as the hormones of puberty take hold and anything that is vaguely mainstream is to be avoided like the plague. The next stage is simple habit; having avoided/detested the entire cheesy concept through your teens, you then become old enough to go to the pub, meet the opposite sex, set fires, that sort of thing. You just forget it’s on.
And one day, one Saturday in May, a few years down the line, you find yourself at home at a loose end. Your friends have all inconveniently gone away for the weekend to avoid you, have run out of internet, can’t be bothered to read and have nothing to do that calls to you so you switch the telly on and stare at it. You flick the channels and, because by definition, TV is rubbish, you keep coming back to the Eurovision Song Contest. You still ignore it, the first time, but when you happen upon the voting towards the end of the night, there is a reasonably strong possibility that you will stop and see what happens. Which country is going to snub its biggest rival? Which of the small East European countries will attempt to incur the wrath of the Bear by allocating fewer than 10 points to Russia. And will France even acknowledge the existence of the UK entry (though frankly, who would this year?).
And then you’re hooked.
With the advent of Twitter and FaceBook, where you can be as rude and/or hilarious as you like with your pithy comments, it just gets better.
The trick is, and this is the bit that takes the learning, Eurovision Song Contest is just a name. It’s not about the songs at all, not for us in the UK at least. It’s all about funny foreigners trying to show that they understand pop music when frankly, they don’t. It’s all about national rivalries but without the guns.
This year the Spanish state broadcaster has asked their entrant not to win, because Spain can’t afford to host the show in 2013. We could be in for a bumper year if a lot of the other shaky economies out there take a similar view.
Visually, 2011 was the year of the Gorgian hypno-muff, though that well-known European state, Azerbaijan somehow won the contest on buggins’ turn. I wonder what the most appalling visual of 2012 will be? Or the most appealing?1
And remember, with everyone desperately trying to lose this year, vote for Greece. They need cheering up.
1It’s probably too much to hope to see Jedward being taken out with a sniper rifle…