Sunday, May 22, 2005

Eurovision jingoism

The Eurovision Song Contest is a bit of a national joke in the UK - last year the British song made it to the front page by coining in "zero points" (for you non Brits out there - this phrase must be said in a French accent). Growing up, the point of the event was not to watch the songs themselves but the political shenanigans in the voting afterwards.

So it was that last night found me catching up on some episodes of Friends inbetween the beautiful Shiri Maimon's accomplished performance and the start of the voting. In order not to miss Israel's rep, we sat through several numbers - some of a fair standard (the Maltese effort (2nd place) was very impressive - a case of the fat lady singing before it was all over), some amusing glam rock and punk performances and some downright awful guff before we got to the main part of the entertainment.

After coining the first point of the evening, Israel's effort continued to gain points and was soon heading the leaderboard. Every time a jury failed to award points to Shiri we erupted into cat-calls of "anti-semites!!" - less then 4 or 5 points suggested that a country was likely to be calling for boycotts of the "Zionist entity" at the UN. Only 6 points or more indicated that a country can be looked at sympathetically as a possible holiday destination.......

All great fun and very tongue in cheek of course (just in case you didn't get it...), Israel faded towards the end although 10 points from the French at the very death (perhaps seeking atonement for...... any one of numerous offences) ensured a very respectable 4th place finish. If only our politicians represented the State with as much Kavod and success!

Gilly

2 comments:

tafka PP said...

Two things:

- I can't believe you wrote a Eurovision post without mentioning Terry Wogan

- Did you notice who the "final four" were? UK, France, Germany and Spain! As you said, it really doesn't reflect reality...

Gilly said...

Those are the 4 countries that don't have to go through the semi-finals as they underwrite the whole thing.