Yay! Eurovision is on tonight! Those non-Europeans amongst my readership may be unfamiliar with Eurovision, which is a shame because it is the finest sporting/cultural event in the world.
Each European country sends their cheesiest unsuccessful popstar to battle it out in a wonderfully kitsch TV variety show watched by 150 million people all across Europe. Everyone votes for their favourite act and based on those votes each country assigns points to the top 12. It is forbidden to vote for your own country.
The whole thing is presided over by a lovely curmudgeon of a DJ, the delightful Terry Wogan. Terry is astonishingly rude about all of the acts and regularly despairs at the rather predictable voting that goes on (e.g. all the Baltic states tend to vote for each other). He also reportedly drinks vast quantities of Bailey's during the show.
Many people have Eurovision parties during the show. I'm in Birmingham with Vicki and we're having a very small Eurovision dinner do. The original plan was to have one course and one alcoholic beverage from each country. However, as there are 24 countries in the final we were worried such a menu might possibly result in our untimely death. And, while I am a fan of Eurovision, it's not quite how I want to cash in my chips. I can just picture St.
Peter asking, "Cause of death?"
"Um... Overeating and alcohol poisoning while watching scantily-clad europopstars on TV."
He probably wouldn't even bother to reply. He'd just wrinkle his nose in distaste and pull that big lever and I'd plummet down to Hell.
So we're just having stilton soup and port to support the UK, perogies to support the host nation of the Ukraine, broccoli and wild rice casserole to represent Canada (not sure why, really, as they aren't even allowed to compete), and spinach and strawberry salad because...
...well, because the colors match the flags of several European countries. Most of which (Belarus, Bulgaria, Ireland, Portugal) admittedly didn't make it through to the final. There's Hungary, though. Thank God for Hungary. Go Hungary! Go spinach and strawberries, that great Hungarian dish!
You, too, can join in the fun and see the videos online at http://bbc.co.uk/eurovision/.
Last year I wrote a running commentary of the show which you can see at http://www.yandatime.com/archives/000215.html.