15th May 2022

 Now that our daughter’s safely back home in Maine, what does she regret not seeing on TV? Last night’s Eurovision!  As I watched it last night, my thoughts zoomed back to my earliest Eurovision memories. In 1956 we didn’t yet have a TV for the first event in Lugano where the winner out of just 7 countries was Switzerland. But I do remember wonderful past hosts like Katie Boyle, with her language skills. Back then, songs could only be sung in each nation’s native language, but this changed when everyone realised the advantage of singing in an internationally-known language. Hence, Abba’s Waterloo, sung in English. These days there’s something weirdly compelling about this annual zeitfest of ridiculous costumes and strobe lights, with hardly one good melody amongst them. And, last night, don’t even mention Spain’s pole-dancing costumes! But the political shenanigans going on between so-called independent panel selections are always predictable, even before the first note’s been sung. However, last night the political focus came even more to the fore. I got the feeling that douze points was already scribbled in for Ukraine before anyone had even heard the song. Well, was I in the Eden Bar here in Birmingham to watch and hear the nail-biting result? What do you think?