I don’t do Eurovision. Never have. It was always and still is, way beneath me. I’m better than that. I listen to ‘proper’ music. Not nauso-pop played in ‘plink-plonk’ style by a troupe of lederhosen clad Germans, bearded Greeks in long dresses or Uzbekistani dwarves dressed as the Smurfs. Its crap. Its bollocks. Its an affront to the senses. If they’d had Frank Zappa on it, I may have watched. Talking Heads. King Crimson. Maybe the Clash. But Cliff Richard? Brotherhood of Man?? I made one notable exception. Abba. Nothing to do with the music; everything to do with Agnetha in skin-tight satin pants. I ‘listened’ to Waterloo with the sound off. Seven thousand, six hundred and ninety-four times.

But now the Eurovision has become seriously politicised. How did that happen? Its about music. Which is art. Which is escapism. From life’s harsh realities. They don’t write songs about single-parenting with no money in a dank council flat that leaks. Its not what Euro-viewers want. They want realism they’ll watch the News. They want tragedy; listen to Country & Western.

I had no idea that the Contest was even with us on Saturday night. Had a barbecue with some friends. Sampled a few nice single malts. Got drunk. Ate too much. Wonderful. It was only Sunday morning when I saw the winner on the News. And learned of the ensuing scandal.

Things I never knew about the Eurovision (mainly because I just don’t fucking care):
Australia is now part of Europe, but only for nauseating song purposes.
The voting is no longer solely with ‘panels of judges from each nation’ but now includes a populist, phone-in vote as well.
Terry Wogan is dead.

The three kind’a ‘finalists’ apparently, the three who were neck & neck as the last votes came in, were Australia (I know, I know), Russia and the Ukraine. It was so exciting some viewers even woke up. And so in a move destined to really upset Putin and the Russians (though to be fair, virtually everything upsets Putin and the Russians, unless they’re bombing people), Ukraine won. Not only won the contest but with the most terrible song ever. A 1944 song, allegedly, about the Russian invasion of the Crimea. Not so much a song as a lament. Its awful. Depressing. And, if you live in Ukraine, rather relevant. And a ‘terrible insult’ to the Russian people.

Good, they need to be insulted. Hard and often.

They evacuated Old Trafford on Sunday, half an hour before the kick-off. A ‘suspect bomb’. Endless talk of terrorism, the threat to our way of life, increase of paranoia in football fans, blah, blah. Then it turns out, having sent 50,000 people home for the day, that it was a ‘fake bomb’ used by the security people to test their anti-terror systems. They’d left it there. Forgotten to take it with them after the test. COME BACK!!! Oh, its too late, 12000 of you have already headed off for the 250 mile jaunt back to Bournemouth from whence you’d come. Terrible.

And yet: it showed the efficiency of the evacuation process; no-one died; they didn’t know it was fake until later; and the guy responsible made the most sincere apology ever.

I think Luis Van Gaal planted it to extend his career by three days.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx