Letter: Eurovision ‘pleasures’

After a year off due to the small matter of being in the midst of a pandemic, the Eurovision Song Contest was back in business again on Saturday night, with he of the acid tongue and the strong stomach, namely Graham Norton doing the honours again.

This year the venue was Rotterdam (no, not Rotherham...).

When it comes to the Eurovision Song Contest, GPs come to mind. Guilty Pleasures. Well let’s face it, they give the term a whole new meaning.

I always watch it in eager anticipation of hearing a whole catalogue of catawauling that is so bad that it’s brilliant, and it never fails to disappoint.

Saturday’s offerings were no exception.

The scenery, the artistes, the vocal offerings, all the naffest of naff. Just what I’m looking for, so what more could I want?

This year’s expressions of agony after the usual preamble, kicked off with Albania’s offering, a girl called Angela with not much on in the line of clothing but plenty of red smoke emanating from her, which had Graham Norton questioning her diet.

As for the song, well nothing there to get Andrew Lloyd Webber all excited.

As for Russia’s entry, it was basically a woman all trussed up like a very elaborate toilet roll holder, who burst out of the said outfit halfway through the act and pranced around the stage in a boiler suit, as if she’d just sat on a drawing pin.

France’s entry, meanwhile, showed a talent for gurning and seemed as high as a kite.

Israel’s offering screeched a note that mostly only dogs can hear, apparently the name of the said note was B6 which sounds more like a vitamin that’s used for PMT to me. She certainly sounded like she had it.

As for Ukraine’s demonstration of agony, Graham Norton warned us that the mystery of what had happened to Orville the duck had finally been solved.

The lead singer was wearing him. He wasn’t far wrong. I’d never seen so many green feathers in all my life. As for the song, just don’t ask.

Of course, our country was trying so hard to break the cycle of monotonous defeat, year after year, and had landed singer James Newman, a fellow Yorkshireite with the responsibility.

Alas, not only did we end up getting nul points for all the poor lad’s efforts but we were even the only country in the whole contest who notched up the grand total of diddly squat.

Still, fair play to James Newman, he seemed to be philosophical about it and took it well.

Let’s face it, we never seem to stand a chance.

They just don’t want to give us the time of day.

A subject to constitute another letter. Terry Wogan commented years ago that the voting had got way too political which was why he decided to say a big adios to his presenting role.

So, again a bad night for us.

Another humiliating but unsurprising defeat. Sigh.

However, the delightfully diabolical performances entertained me as always and definitely kept the guilty pleasure factor alive.

The winner? Well it was Italy’s turn to triumph as a band of would-be Alice Coopers took to the stage to carry out the encore.

So pandemic or not, they managed to pull it off, despite some of the entrants having to perform by video link from home as they were self-isolating. You can’t accuse them of not being dedicated.

So that’s it for another year, and the anti-climax has kicked in already.Till next year…