Fact: every conversation about Eurovision in recent years will have included the phrase “Oh, but it’s so political these days” at least 500 times.
That’s because it’s true. The Eurovision Song Contest has got so political these days. The proof? The UK hasn’t won Eurovision for over a decade, regardless of whether we’ve entered a rubbish holiday camp cabaret act or a hamfisted reality TV show runner-up. It’s a flipping disgrace.
But Eurovision won’t be political for much longer, because Eurovision bigwigs are bringing back national juries in a bid to end the tactical voting that’s destroyed the contest’s credibility in recent years. At last! Now when the UK comes last at next year’s Eurovision we’ll know for certain that it was because our entry was genuinely awful and not because everyone’s quite scared of Vladimir Putin.
Another fact: the UK was robbed at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. No, we were. Andy Abraham’s song Even If came joint last out of 43 countries, when everyone knows that turgid rehashes of I Believe In Miracles sung by binmen with all the charisma of wet toilet paper deserve to come at least 39th.
Instead of watching Andy Abraham lift the Eurovision trophy we had to watch in disgust as Russia won – not because they entered a globally-renowned heartthrob who’s sold tens of millions of records and whose song was produced by Timbaland and featured a dance routine by a world champion figure skater, but because of tactical voting.
Oh you know. Tactical voting. It’s where all the Scandinavian countries vote for each other, all the former members of the USSR vote for Russia and nobody votes for the UK because we’ve spent the last decade humping America’s leg like a randy dog instead of concentrating more on countries like Andorra.
Tactical voting has destroyed Eurovision to the extent that Terry Wogan even threatened to quit earlier this year unless it was nipped in the bud.
And, terrified that a red-faced Baileys-stinking old Irish bloke would quit his commentary job, Eurovision has decided to do exactly that, by reintroducing national juries – the process of electing a panel of experts to judge each country’s Eurovision entry rather than letting it become a public phone-vote free-for-all. Ruurd Bierman, chairman of the Eurovision reference group, said:
“We strongly believe in televoting as a way of measuring the opinion of our millions of viewers across Europe. After the public debate about neighbour and diaspora voting, we decided to give the national juries a say in the outcome of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.”
That’s perfect in principle – it means that next year the continent’s finest scholars, taste-makers and musicologists will be able to detail exactly why the UK is so staggeringly bad at Eurovision – but let’s think about this seriously.
If, say, Russia wanted to win Eurovision again, wouldn’t it be far easier and more cost-effective to go and personally intimidate the national juries of its neighbouring countries, rather than maintaining a vaguely menacing military threat over the entire east European/central Asian region?
But now’s not the time to be cynical. Perhaps by bringing back national juries, Eurovision can restore itself to its former glory. True, not winning Eurovision might cause Russia to lose its temper and nuke the entire continent into the boiling sea, but compared to the thrill of seeing the UK come sixth or seventh at a singing contest that nobody really cares about anyway, it’s definitely worth the risk.
Julian Mentat says
It’s the Paralympics of pop music.
J Bollocks says
I really like Terry Wogan, his commentaries are delightful and I loved him when he appeared on Father Ted. That was great.