Last night saw the annual horror of the 'Eurovision Song Contest', about the only major international event still hosted by the BBC. At huge expense, a series of largely talentless performers pranced around and made noises that were presented as 'songs'; most were accompanied by flashing lights and other special effects designed to distract the viewer from the banality of the central performances and highlighting the inadequacies of these.
The sheer awfulness of this annual extravaganza is hard to put into words. Most of the entries are indistinguishable from one another and most have no little or no real musical value. Few of the performers have any ability to sing and much of the stage presentation is dreadful. The booming beat behind many of the 'songs' mimics the modern trend for noise rather than quality. Graham Norton's commentary is totally flat, with none of the wit previously shown by Terry Wogan, and the judging is, at best, a lottery and, at worst, fixed.
The UK's entry was softer and slower than many but none the better for that. The singer, the sexagenarian Bonnie Tyler, was every bit as bad as the worst of the rest and the dirge deservedly gained very few votes, finishing 19th out of the 26 competing nations. The winning song, from Denmark, was an 'OK' entry but nothing that anyone will actually remember in a week's time; in fact, I doubt that any of the entries will be remembered much beyond tomorrow.
I don't know how much the BBC spends on supporting this appalling waste of money but it's time they stopped doing so. This is the type of rubbish which belongs on one of the independent channels - Channel 4 would, perhaps, be most appropriate. There, it could languish until it fades from memory, brought back to mind only by the occasional strains of 'Waterloo', 'All Kinds of Everything', 'Puppet on a String', 'Making Your Mind Up, or 'Boom, Bang-a-bang', a few of the very few entries from the past that are still remembered today.
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