Nul Points
Those crazy Europeans are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen tonight. I may not stay up for it. I know the ESC consists almost entirely of lousy songs performed by lousy performers, and it's total kitsch, but it's one of the things I miss about not living in Europe.
The voting process in these contests was always eccentric - anonymous panels of judges from each participating country would phone in their scores, usually in French. There was much political and tactical voting that usually meant that if, for example, the Brit act were doing well, the French jury would proclaim that they had awarded us 'nul points', and give the maximum number to the least popular performer - Liechtenstein or somewhere like that. Hah!
In the UK the contest used to have a big build-up where for months preceding the event a dozen hopefuls would be whittled down to one final entry. Sometimes nobody would be good enough so they'd just hire Cliff Richard. Tonight's gig features 14 songs that have been selected by interweb voting (the list is here).
The UK is represented by Cliff Richard doing 'Congratulations' (without doubt one of the worst songs ever written), and Brotherhood of Man doing 'Save Your Kisses For Me' (also one of the worst songs ever written). Ireland's Johnny Logan is going to be busy, he has two entries. And that well-known Swiss performer, Celine Dion, will also be taking part. And get this, Israel is in it too!
The voting process in these contests was always eccentric - anonymous panels of judges from each participating country would phone in their scores, usually in French. There was much political and tactical voting that usually meant that if, for example, the Brit act were doing well, the French jury would proclaim that they had awarded us 'nul points', and give the maximum number to the least popular performer - Liechtenstein or somewhere like that. Hah!
In the UK the contest used to have a big build-up where for months preceding the event a dozen hopefuls would be whittled down to one final entry. Sometimes nobody would be good enough so they'd just hire Cliff Richard. Tonight's gig features 14 songs that have been selected by interweb voting (the list is here).
The UK is represented by Cliff Richard doing 'Congratulations' (without doubt one of the worst songs ever written), and Brotherhood of Man doing 'Save Your Kisses For Me' (also one of the worst songs ever written). Ireland's Johnny Logan is going to be busy, he has two entries. And that well-known Swiss performer, Celine Dion, will also be taking part. And get this, Israel is in it too!
posted by Keef at
9:37 pm
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