Eurovision time again.

[Heid the Ba]

Latvia: leather jacket and jeans emote in English. Hair products abound. Votes? Not so much.

[Heid the Ba]

WTF are we watching?

Just your run of the mill Eurovision. It is a bit bland without the naked Belorussian singing to wolves.

What commentary are you getting?

[Heid the Ba]

Ukraine: scary lady says Stalin was a cunt and stay out of the Crimea. The song is called 1944. Could be called "Fuck off Putin".

[Heid the Ba]

Malta: looks like Mariah Carey, dresses like Mariah Carey, sings a bit like Mariah Carey. The Italians bombed the shit out of Malta in WW2, if only they had hit her grandmother.

[Heid the Ba]

Georgia (the country, not the state): more rock, oh the rock, much rocking, he has a hat AND a guitar. Singing about reach a rounds, or something. I would pay money not to hear what this beat in the national heat.

Graham Norton: It would take Stephen Hawking to explain how that was only three minutes.

[Heid the Ba]

Austria: blonde singing in French? How very queer. Taylor Schnell by the look and sound of it, but without the talent.

[Heid the Ba]

Double post. Doppelpost?

[Heid the Ba]

UK: shit song sung by shit Scousers. All the CGI and lasers in the world and they stand in front of a montage of photos. Europe laughs, at us, not with us.

[Heid the Ba]

Armenia: smoke, strum und drang, legs, more smoke, a cloak, strident singing, random phrases, smoke, legs, hair, random phrases, dancers in body stockings, bagpipes, innuendo. Always pays to be last.

[Heid the Ba]

Petra has changed into a green dress and a cameo by Derek Jacoby and Ian McKellen.

[Arneb]

Did you say 95 % gay men?

[Heid the Ba]

95% gay, 5% bisexual.

[Heid the Ba]

You just put the kids to bed?

[Heid the Ba]

How good is this?

[Heid the Ba]

And a man in a hamster wheel!

[Lance]

So this is a "Pop Idol" or "Britain's Got Talent" type of show?

[Heid the Ba]

This is much more mental, and camper, than either of those. Did you watch the song and dance number the hosts did?

[Heid the Ba]

The voting has started and time stands still . . .

[Arneb]

@Lance:

Sort of, and in a vague way, yes.

I'll tell you because I am not watching. Let Heid enjoy it.

When the European Community started to grow, the participant states founded Eurovision, a sort of production company for EC-wide television events, with participation from public radio and TV channels of the EC member countries: Eurovision would produce game shows involving several member states, they would beam the Vienna Philharmonic New Years Day concert across all of Europe, etc. Membership of Eurovision today is the Eu member stated plus a bunch of other European countries: Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, Armenia...

One of the main events is the Eurovision Song Contest, which is carried out every year. The public TV organisations of each member country do a sort of national qualification event (usually with viewer voting, as in modern talent shows). The contest used to be a single long Saturday night TV show, but since participation expanded after the Cold War, they now have two "semifinal"shows in the two day before. After the presentation of the songs, a long and tedious voting process is started whereby every member state awards between 1 and 12 points to ten of the participants. The song with the most points wins, and the winning participant's country gets to host the competition in the following year.

The Contest was the starting point for many a pop singer's carreer, most notably, Abba's in 1974 ("Waterloo"). It also features very, very weird pop performances, often on the verge of the unintentionally funny. Or beyond that verge. There were two participations from Germany that actually presented parodies of typical Eurovision Song Contest material (Here and here).

So yeah, it's kind of a talent show, but with heavily moral overtones: Internationalism, friendship of the peoples of Europe, etc etc.. And it has its very own mix of the quixotic, the campy, the cheesy, the weird and - sometimes - the ridiculous. Used to be the song had to be performed the presenting country's offical language (or one of them, if there were more). That didn't make things easier for audiences. Armenian? Hebrew? Turkish? Really?

ETA: I see Heid also uses the word camp. Well, two old farts, one thought.

[Lianachan]

Watching it here, in the only state possible: EXTREMELY drunk. I voted for Ukraine.

[Heid the Ba]

I'm lashed up too.

Oh tits and arse, have you seen the Ukraine jury?

[Arneb]

Watching it here, in the only state possible: EXTREMELY drunk. I voted for Ukraine.

One more reason not to watch it for me: I am on call. I was sticking black plastic tubes down people's throats when Germany performed...

[Heid the Ba]

Yeah, but sticking tubes (not Tubes) into people is what you do for fun.

[Heid the Ba]

Blimey, Stalin's a cunt and fuck Putin seems to be the popular vote. Who knew?

[Lance]

Did you watch the song and dance number the hosts did?

I don't know that I can get it here, not being in Europe and all.