We have the Eurovision Song Contest to thank for that I think
We have the Eurovision Song Contest to thank for that, I think we can agree – and for quite a lot else besides.’Eurovision Song Contest’, BBC1, 8pm, Saturday. Even so the Swedish foursome succeeded in lighting up a lot of people’s lives with classic pop songs. However, the band announced they’d asked permission first and said everything would be OK so long as they did nothing with fish in future.”Sadly, this meant that Abba never did do anything haddock-related. It’s true that, for years afterwards, people kept entering with songs about Genghis Khan, but that is not exactly their fault.The most wonderful fact about that Abba triumph in Brighton is that, the official history says, “much was made of the group’s name, which was similar to that of a fish factory. And his chosen target is EMI, the company that releases his records.In a politically charged attack that has been welcomed by anti-globalisation campaigners, Martin said that he did not care that the corporation’s profits might be dented by the delay in recording Coldplay’s third album.Speaking to the media in New York, Martin – who is married to the American actress Gwyneth Paltrow – said: “I don’t really care about EMI I’m not really concerned about that. I rather despise Julio Iglesias for, apparently, having denied that he was ever in it (he was, in 1970).
It has made a lot of people aware, without watching the more boring parts of the news, that there are countries in Europe called Ukraine, Estonia, Malta or Slovakia, who feel very proud of themselves, sometimes for very good reasons.Rather, let’s enjoy it in our own way, remembering that, after all, it has sometimes produced someone rather good Abba, after all, won in 1974 with “Waterloo”. They, at least, took the thing seriously.So let’s not be too awful about Eurovision. The German entry was the eccentric aging glam-rocker Guildo Horn. The party to celebrate his coming eighth was probably the most seriously drunken of my life, but what I remember was the intense hush of the mostly Turkish neighbourhood, broken by mad cheers when anyone gave Turkey any points for a ludicrous number called “Unatamazsin”. And you can bet that the show in Kiev this Saturday will not have a great deal of irony about it; it will be a national celebration we probably ought not smile about.My most memorable Eurovision was spent in Kreuzberg in Berlin in 1998. It took some time for his irreverent comments to leak out to the rest of Europe, but when they did, a certain annoyance was evident.
An Estonian newspaper wrote in 2002 that “this man is loved in Great Britain and hated in continental Europe. Aficionados have a special fondness for the Austrian entry on the first occasion the contest was held in Jerusalem, when a lady called Christina Simon tried to apologise for the Holocaust in three minutes with a number called “Heute in Jerusalem” and came, deservedly, second-last.In Britain, we have for years taken the contest less than seriously The ringleader of mockery is the presenter Terry Wogan. When commenting, Wogan will leave no stone unturned regarding the organising country, the presenters and their outfits, the songs and the final results of the show. The Nordic countries break into fits of complacent back-slapping, sharing the points among them.From time to time, the entries themselves go hilariously political.