Sunday 25 May 2008

The Morning After Eurovision

Goats have been nibbling my ears all night and the sun still hasn’t risen. I’m sitting here in the darkness, listening to replays of ‘Divine’ and trying to work out why Europe hasn’t seen fit to vote for a group of female backing singers wearing beards. It was only a shame that the act of casual violence promised us at 2.30 in the video didn't make it to the Eurovision stage. Sebastien Tellier was robbed of his deserved Eurovision glory. It's wrong. It's all so very wrong.


The conclusion I’ve come to is that I clearly have no taste in music. Or, at least, I don’t share the public’s taste, which I suppose is a different thing entirely. The BBC’s plans for my taking over from Terry Wogan also lie in tatters. I sat through the Eurovision last night, taking notes on now to insult our European neighbours without sounding too insulting. It came as a terrible shock to all of us to hear that Terry is thinking of standing down. My time might have come a little too quickly and there’s already talk of giving the job to Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand. The BBC’s doubts are valid ones. Do I really have the experience to insult tanned East European divas with bleached teeth and hideous moles? Is the UK ready for my support of Europe’s alternative acts, with catchy melodies and a proper sense of the ridiculous? We shall have to wait and see.

I wouldn’t mind but the evening began so well, with Terry reminding us that last year’s winner looked like an ‘angrier version of Janette Krankie’.


I thought my own ‘glandular Ronnie Corbett’ was closer to the mark because I at least had the gender right...

Things started to go askew when Sir Terry began to praise the power ballads and mock the different. My choices from last night were all the songs that have received the most insult from the nation’s media this morning. I am, as you know, quite a fan of Tellier but I also was won over from the entry from Bosnia and Herzegovina. At first, Judy suggested that the guy looked like a paedophile with a Leslie Phillips fixation but we were soon warming to the enjoyable alternative rock song by Laka. The whole performance was helped by my understandable attraction to Cleo Rocos wearing a revealing dress and knee-high stockings.

The Spanish entry was also quite catchy and surreal, plus he was backed by a few attractive woman displaying plenty of flesh. I’ve often been accused of watching Eurovision for what Judy describes as ‘tail’ and I won’t deny it. A bad song with flesh on show is easier to endure than yet another ballad sung by a Romanian steel worker and her friends.

If Terry Wogan does retire from Eurovision (and assuming that the BBC don’t do the sensible thing and give me the gig) then I suggest that we should withdraw our considerable funding from the competition. We pay a large portion of Eurovision's wages and if our licence fee isn’t being used to provide an easy outlet for our latent xenophobia, then what is it going to be used for?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh Richard, I agree Bosnian song was quite catchy, Spanish too I mean at least they were weird enough to stand out :)
I think I might have a career in writing lyrics for the Eurosong competition, I mean you just take a dictionary and pick random words, its not they actually know what they are singing :)
But long gone are the days of Johnny Logan tssssssss :)

Misssy M said...

Thanks for providing the video for Sebastian Tellier, Richard. I agree with everything you said. It made me think that this would be the kind of song Jarvis Cocker would go to eurovision with.

No western European country is ever going to win again, that looks certain, but personally I was disgusted that the UK didn't give it 12 at least.

We certainly voted for it at out house and my son even dressed up as Tellier.

Anonymous said...

You try too hard to be funny Mr M... sometimes real feelings are the important thing. Let us know about your real self..

Anonymous said...

I agree with the DOG.Tell us a true tale of a brief encounter on a train ....