I’ve always hated the Eurovision song context. Its the most pathetic, puerile, talentless collection of horrendously dire, mid-European, plink-plonk, squeeze-box-‘rock’ garbage churned out every year and surely there are better ways to spend about 4 hours of your life. In meditation would work for me. Being tortured in Abu Graib would be a preferable use of the time. Waiting for the wheel-clampers to come and release your car having taken 400 quid for doing so; even that would be better than watching Eurovision.

I haven’t watched it… well, ever really. I was always a music snob, much like I’m a movie snob, a book snob… I suppose I’m just a snob at heart, generally. I made exception when Abba first came out of their test-tube and were presented to the world, all blond hair and mini-skirts, but that wasn’t really about ‘the music’. It was about schoolboy fantasies of the Swedish au pairs we never had. I don’t know that I can ever fully forgive my parents for that omission

On Saturday they voted a ‘bearded lady’ as winner of this year’s contest. A transgender Austrian (aren’t they all, really) won the contest. Good for him/her. But now there’s an outcry. Because the competitor with the most tits, sorry, most votes, was the ‘Polish Milkmaids’. I never saw them but you can imagine, and there’s pics in the paper today; all blond hair and big cleavages and knowing, inviting, ‘you’re next’ looks to camera as they squeeze and pull, squeeze and pull, squeeze and pull on imaginary udders. The cameraman had to change his trousers before the next act.

But the bearded drag artist (surely you’re a much more convincing ‘woman’ if you shave off the beard?? Unless you’re in Greece) was deemed winner because the ‘professional judges’ get more votes (its all sounding a bit Moscow at this point) or more influence and they chose the drag queen because they’re ‘judging more on the actual singing ability and musical talent’ than just the novelty factor, or political statements (“the contestant from Ukraine, scores 10 from Belarus, 7 from France, Russia refuses to acknowledge the independence of this singer and insists her votes be added to the Russian total…”) or whatever vague and moronic influences possess the voters.

So why go through (what seems like) 9 hours of voting from all the nations if you’re just going to overrule them anyway? That constitutes torture of the public and is illegal under the Geneva Convention. This was the greatest electoral travesty since George W Bush won the Florida recount. Though at least he did that without a beard. Just the dress worked for George, transengenderalism, as he called it.

But more importantly, using the ‘artistic merit’ card takes it all too far. This is the Eurovision Song Contest; there is no fucking artistic merit. Its not allowed. There are only degrees of hopelessness. You want ‘artistic’ go paint the Sistine chapel, don’t dress as a giant lemon and mime to a reworked Hitler Youth marching song.

Basically, I don’t give a shit who wins the Eurovision, as long as its not Russia. Or Germany. Croatia. Lithuania. Holland. Latvia. Estonia. Norway…

But I do care about abusive quasi-electoral systems. One day you’re ‘massaging votes’ in the Eurovision, the next you’re claiming Ukraine as a ‘victory for their people’, or having a Kim Jong Un haircut. And I didn’t chain myself to the Houses of Parliament wearing an Emily Pankhurst dress (and beard) for that. No siree.

Happy pro-European, undemocratic Monday

A xxxx