Matt Wilkinson's Blog

So the debate continues, do we continue to fund the Eurovision Song Contest or should we not even enter in the first place?! I watched the 53rd installment of the European institution at the weekend and I, like you perhaps, got a little bored and lost interest when it came to the voting section.

It started off well though, I thought some of the songs were great. I never thought I’d say this but I’d quite like to download the Ukrainian or French entry, and as for the Spanish performance… well I thought it was hillarious, but everyone I was watching it with thought it was rubbish. (Judge for yourself - click here). I say everyone because for the first time in my life I went to a Eurovision party. It was great fun. We all had to go dressed as a country and bring a dish from it. So I spent the majority of Saturday afternoon shaping and cooking my Swedish meatballs! As for my costume – well I don’t really know how Swedish people dress, so I cheated by wearing the colours of the Swedish flag and sticking on a big wig (like the band Europe – they were Swedish weren’t they?).

We watched all the acts, scored them using the Heart Eurovision pack and unsurprisingly none of our favourites were voted for by the majority of nations. It is a shame about the apparent 'block voting' but we're just as guilty of it. Ireland gave us lots of points and you can guarantee that if Irelands' turkey had made it to the final we would have given them douze points. We just suffer from having little European friends and no borders. Perhaps next year we should enter as England, Wales and Scotland then at least we'd get half way up the leader board! The voting is now pointless but at least the songs provide some entertainment.

When I was a kid watching the event it was the opposite, I remember not having the patience to sit through 20 songs (and the accompaning two minute tourist information films), preferring instead to watch Gladiators or Noel’s House Party and then flick over in time for the awarding of the points. Until recently they used to go through all the countries that had won marks from 1 to 8, 10 and 12. Now they just go for the ‘big three’ scores as there are now so many countries taking part. This takes away all the suspense and I’m left perplexed as to where all these countries came from – I didn’t realise Europe was so big!

What's more why is Russia, the winning nation this year, allowed to enter?? The last time I checked Russia, the biggest country in the world, was in Asia. It can't be in both surely?! And with the ever expanding base of contributing countries don't be surprised by 2009 to see an entry from China!

See you tonight from 7pm.

M x

Posted by Matt Wilkinson on May 28, 2008 at 17:06PM

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