No, of course not. I imagine most of the UK, if not most of the world, would rather have been watching Doctor Who, but the Eurovision Song Contest does have its own campy charms.
For those who don't know every country in Europe (and the former Soviet Union, and some other stragglers from around this side of the planet) puts forward a song (supposedly chosen by public vote) to represent them in the annual inter-continental sing-off that is Eurovision. Then all participants get to vote on everybody elses' songs, leading to three hours of hilariously bad TV and some very suspect voting.
The days of proper, enduring pop acts - such as Abba, Bucks Fizz, Lulu, Cliff Richard and the Brotherhood of Man - participating are long gone and the voting has become very political, with countries voting for their neighbours or "friends", rather than the songs, which is why we were on the verge of getting the dread 'nul points' last night, until the Irish gave us a few token points and Malta gave our song (which, in all honesty, was utter rubbish) the top "12 points".
Basically, we are the whipping boys of Europe - no one likes us and we don't care! Part of our problem is that we're too cynical a nation on the whole for this kitsch competition and don't take it seriously enough to stand a chance. The Irish, the only people to finish below the UK, haven't really tried for a couple of years as they know, from experience, the glory of winning is quickly tarnished by the hefty cost of hosting the next year's competition!
For Matt, Nick and I (the official HeroPress judging panel), the competition is as much about who has the best looking singer or skimpiest outfit as who has the craziest or best song; which explains my disappointment that Russia's entry (pictured above) only managed third. The Catholic Schoolgirl look was obviously inspired by those other Russian pop princesses, and former Eurovision hopefuls, Tatu.
Last night's competition, having pushed out the bulk of Western Europe in the qualifying round, saw an Eastern European dominance in the tactical block voting , that resulted in a Serbian dirge taking the top prize, closely followed by a Ukrainian transvestite and the troupe of Russian schoolgirls in third. This was Serbia's first entry as an independent country, but still makes a mockery of Eurovision as a "song contest", as the best song of the evening - from Georgia - came nowhere memorable (somewhere mid-table).
The last time the UK won (with Katrina & The Waves) was ten years ago, two days into Tony Blair's reign as Prime Minister. With the increasing politicisation of this silly contest, now that Blair is standing down, perhaps our chances of winning will improve!
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