Yes, it’s that time of year again when the technicolor traveling circus that is Eurovision rolls into town. After Ukraine’s win last year, the tele-moguls wisely decided against staging the glitterfest in Kyiv with the risk of Russian drones crashing the party – literally. So, the poisoned – or blesséd – chalice was passed to runners-up, le Royaume-Uni.
In 2014 I wrote…
‘… the songfest has been given an extra political frisson this year by Tsar Putin’s annexation/ repatriation (delete according to taste) of the Crimea; continued unrest in eastern Ukraine might earn Kiev a few sympathy votes…’
Prophetic or what?
Reaching an audience of over 160 million, the Eurovision Song Contest is the biggest music show on the planet. These days, the competition is less about the actual songs – once heard, rarely remembered – and more about the glitzy spectacle, with performances ranging from the camply sublime to the utterly bizarre. It hardly matters. Votes will be cast along political and ethnic fault lines anyway. They always are.
The City of Liverpool won the bid to host the jamboree on behalf of Ukraine and good ol’ Auntie Beeb has chucked most of our license fee at it with week-long sideshows online and on stage to accompany the main events. Excitement has built to fever pitch with superfans from across the realm and the continent descending on the city. There have even been special trains laid on…
Fans travel to Liverpool for Eurovision Song Contest https://t.co/bYJGk8yPP7
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) May 9, 2023
Just like our Liverpudlian comrades, we’ve decided to embrace the entire silly shindig with a silly shindig of our own. Sadly, our gaff is a tad smaller than the Liverpool Arena so a kindly neighbor has stepped in to host the show at their mini-mansion. They’ll be silly hats, silly score cards and silly prizes. Good luck to the UK’s Mae Muller. It’s a crackin’ song with crackin’ lyrics.
But when the nil points roll in and the UK predictably plummets down the scoreboard, we’ll just crack open another bottle and drown our silly sorrows.