Serbia? Are you kidding me? Do people even sing in Serbia? They are surely too busy complaining about the bad international press they get to have any time for singing? A reasonable enough tune, don’t get me wrong, but Serbia? I mean, really, what's the story.......
There is just no way that this was a better entry than the ones offered by Hungary, Latvia or Greece. Oh Greece. Did you see that? Did you see the way he shook his shoulders and shimmied? Beautiful. Too cool. Dancing like a cheeky girl….shake it up shake it up, yassou Maria. Golden lyrics.
And his sleek, snake-hipped, thrustingly aromatic routine included some seriously effective interactions with his backing singers – “this is better than Bucks Fizz,” as my girlfriend correctly announced through her cherry vodka fog. “He’s sort of doing noughts and crosses with all the girl’s dresses.” High praise indeed. (I think)
Maybe the woman representing Hungary deserved to have at least some points docked for wearing plain jeans and a white t-shirt? I don't know. It’s not really entering into the spirit of things, is it? But she made up for this disappointing normality by walking onto the stage holding a suitcase (a powerful prop that had me gasping) and by hugging a Bus Stop a little further into the song. Plus, the piece was expertly delivered, quite bluesy, and should by rights have blown Serbia out of the water.
The commentator on RTE 1 restricted himself to saying “oh she’s good, she’s very good”. Hurrah. Straight praise and none of the tiresome sneering of Terry Wogan over on BBC 1. That really bores me after less than a minute. Away and do something else Terry, you fat fuck, if you can’t bring yourself to stop being so showily in the know.
Okay, I need to speed up here. Latvia – lovely. Six men wearing jeans, true, but don’t despair, they also wore top hats and tails – Hungary, seriously, you could learn from these guys. The song was faintly operatic and never once strayed from the tight embrace of predictability. Good. This means that you always know what the next line will sound like and this, in turn, inspires the confidence, the need, to sing along.
Hmm. I don’t really want to say anything negative about this sparkletastic extravacampza (I am weak with pride at having just made up that word, by the way) but find myself left with little choice. I’ll keep it brief.
Sweden and Ireland.
I always support Sweden in these contests - it’s an Abba thing - but I rather resented this fact last night. The song was called The Worrying Kind and was performed by a band called The Ark. It was a curious mixture of something awful and something worse - an affront, anyway, to Agnetha's Children. And I really wish that the singer – a reasonable piece of totty as it goes – hadn’t stripped off his shirt. I’m not saying that he had any dignity to begin with (no way), just that this action ensured he had none by the end.
After Sweden, I always root for the country I'm living in, and for the last couple of years this has been Ireland. I don’t know. I just have the most terrible feeling that the woman singing the song believed that by moving her eyes in a mysterious manner she somehow made herself seem ethereal and soulful and at one with trees and Celtic sounding stuff. She clumped inelegantly in a style that simply demanded ridicule and gentle loathing. She clumped.
I can happily forgive her the vocally inauspicious start she made (nerves, I imagine), but not the dancing and certainly not the song. According to the songwriters this was “kind of a Celtic celebration of the Eastern European revolutions”. Fair enough, but, according to my fevered reckoning, it was also "kind of a cheap and worthless lunge for idealistic sentimentality". Pure garbage. And shame on the Albanians for being the only ones silly enough to award it any points. This action of theirs sort of made Serbia winning seem slightly less awful, though, for some reason.
Anyway, hats off to Helsinki for providing a magical night of glittery glam, and well done Serbia for claiming the cherished prize. We all know that the wrong song won, sure - but there is little to be gained from griping.
shake it up shake it up.....yassou Maria.
Greece is the word.
