A normal Saturday

 

One has to count one’s blessings: we had sun this morning and into the afternoon and we had been promised rain.  I even had time to stretch out and take what rays I could.

Apart from the extraordinary feat of going to El Corte Ingles with The Family and spending nothing – not even on parking, the day has been largely uneventful.

This is of course essential when the evening is going to take all the accumulated energy that I possess to get me through the annual humiliation of Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest.  Watching the songs is the easy part.  It is the voting.  It is always the voting.

I always end up shouting at the television; demanding that we leave the EU; send gunboats to those countries that have coasts; bomb the ones which are landlocked; withdraw aid; get the International Court of Justice activated – in fact all the usual over-reaction that is traditional when watching the end part of the Eurovision Song Contest.

So far Denmark has produced something that could be popular; the Balkans are producing their usual rubbish but given the spread of voters that means nothing; Britain’s effort seemed uninspired and under-sung; Germany has the same singer as last year; most of the songs are absolute rubbish and the real star of the show is the light show.

The backgrounds to the songs are amazing and easily the most impressive that I have ever seen in this contest – but in a song contest if the single element that deserves comment is the set then there is something radically wrong!

We have listened to all the songs and we have both decided that the winner is Denmark!  Also in the running are: Hungary, Switzerland, Moldova, Romania and Spain (Toni’s choice) and Sweden, Slovenia, Russia and the UK (My choice).  I am quite calm at the moment.  The voting is about to begin.

We were of course wrong, or “wrong” because the patchwork nature of modern Europe has too many pretend countries with colonial attitudes.  No-one votes for the songs and even the worn jokes of national prejudices shown by the awards of the 12 points are wearing a little thin.

This year the last.  We should stop paying for this fiasco and make the Balkans pay for everything.