#oneaday Day 134: Eurovision

I’d say “sorry for the late entry”, but looking at the clock it’s somehow only 11pm and yet my pissed-up state makes it feel a great deal later, and that going to bed and sleep would be a Very Good Idea right now. In fact, I’d already gone to bed before I realised I hadn’t written today’s entry, and promptly leapt out of bed to sort out that situation forthwith. Fortunately, my awesome girlfriend Andie has already succumbed to the lure of sleep, so she probably won’t notice that I snuck off to write this, at least until tomorrow morning, when she might read it.

The reason I’m so pissed-up is because of the Eurovision song contest. It’s been some time since I last watched it, but as I recall, the last few times I watched it also involved a great deal of drinking, even without the use of The Eurovision Drinking Game, the rules of which seem to vary from social group to social group.

Tonight’s rules involved drinking whenever you saw someone (not necessarily a lead singer) who was “hot”, any time there was a key change (disappointingly infrequent this year) and, as the evening proceeded, a variety of other criteria, including light-up outfits and “if you felt like it”.

As I say, it’s been a while since I watched Eurovision and the songs on display this year seemed disappointingly short of the usual cheesy nonsense and skirt-ripping usually on display. France, in particular, seemed to be taking the whole thing very seriously, with a quasi-operatic number that seemed completely out of place. I hasten to add we’ve turned it off before all the voting is over — mostly because the voting goes on for hours and hours and hours but at least partly because of the amount of vodka and Tizer (classy) that has been consumed throughout the course of the evening.

Jedward were on fine form representing Ireland, exhibiting a song which required them to do little more than shout a bit whilst dressed as homosexual space marines while their backing singers did 95% of the work. The UK’s entry Blue was rather weak, with some dodgy tuning issues in the solo singing, but some nice harmonies. As usual, there were conspiracy theories about the UK entry’s mixing making it appear worse than it was, which I feel is missing the point somewhat — however much we used to enjoy dancing to Blue in Kaos “back in the day”, they were never that good really, were they?

Germany’s entry was notable for featuring a spectacularly hot lead singer (the same one as last year, I believe, not that I watched it last year) and a song that was actually quite listenable and a bit Portishead-ish. The fact it was quite listenable, however, meant that it was completely inappropriate for Eurovision.

In fact, the whole thing was disappointingly light on eccentricity this year — there was no Norwegian death metal, and only one group featured a unicycle. Maybe next year it’ll get back on track.

Also, it’s not the same without Wogan.

Anyway. I’m off my face (and surprisingly coherent despite this) so I’m off to bed now. Good night.