We Was Robbed

Everyone knows, I think, about the dubious pleasures of Eurovision. The reliably abysmal English entry, the heavily choreographed boy bands, the strange fondness lately for wearing white and gold, the bands who seem to have been transported to the stage directly from 10 years ago (without so much as an outfit change or a trip to the hairdressers in between), the girls with those excellent dresses where the skirt can be whisked off to create an entirely new (and Eurovision-appropriately skimpy) dress, only to be whisked away again to reveal an identical skimpy dress in another colour, the people singing about peace, love and HIV awareness while dressed in traditional national costume, the fake musicians on stage, the odd group of lunatics dressed as monsters/pirates and so on. Sadly this year, though, we the viewing public are going to miss out on the chance to hear Switzerland's own DJ Bobo spreading the message about the everpresent danger of being attacked by vampires, because in an abysmal travesty of musical justice, we the voting public failed to help him get past the semi finals. And by "we the voting public", I mean people in Europe but not in Switzerland (who could have voted for him but apparently didn't). By which I mean you, Annette, because you are the only person I can think of at the moment who actually reads my blog and lives in Europe but not Switzerland.

Personally I think we (by which I mean Switzerland) was robbed. The vampire song wasn't that bad. It was catchy. It was ludicrous (because they were all dressed as the undead. Maybe if they had been able to recruit Mark Selby they would have been more successful). People have at least heard of DJ Bobo (didn't he have some song that was famous in the early 90s? Possibly some idiotic joke type song, but that's better than nothing). The song was in english, which I think is always a good thing in Eurovision. There was an enormous scary blonde woman and a dude with a huge mohawk on stage. I think DJ Bobo might have worn fangs at some point, although apparently not actually during the semi-finals. There had even been scandal and drama about the song before Eurovision was on (some bunch of conservative types in Switz got a petition up to have the song banned because apparently vampires aren't really alive, and only satan would say that they are, or something like that. Plus the song was used on telly here to advertise dairy-based beverages, which was entertainingly ironic, a bunch of doofuses dressed as vampires singing about how they just "have to survive" while happily scoffing strawberry milk. It's better than the blood of virgins, people! Apparently DJ Bobo has some longstanding thing as an advertiser of dairy products). Surely all of these are good enough reasons to vote for him? Apparently not.

Reto kept me awake for some time after the semifinals ended as he muttered darkly about eastern European conspiracies not to vote for any non-eastern European countries and how no one likes Switzerland (he also said no one likes Norway either, which I thought was mean because I like Norway and I was hoping they would get into the finals too, even though their song was pretty atrocious (the singer had the excellent change-o dress thing going on though). Apparently Reto was right, though, because no one voted for them either). All of which I suspect may contain some grain of truth, because entertainment definitely wasn't the winner last night. The songs that were the funnest (which surely should be the sole criterion on which you base a vote for a Eurovision song?) were not, in my opinion, the ones that got into the finals.

Still, that doesn't mean I won't be watching the finals. It just means I'll be sure and have a nice glass of gin and tonic in my hand when I do. And possibly a mean-spirited determination not to vote for any of the countries that got to the finals by beating Switzerland (and Norway) in the semi-finals. He he.

I ♥ The Losing Team

Mark Selby lost. Although he did make a ludicrously valiant effort in winning 8 of the 12 frames played on the second day of the final. And he still gets his £110,000 in prize money. So it's not all doom and gloom.

Pool Party

A rainy weekend meant that I spent a lot of it sitting on the couch reading and watching Reto channel-surf. Personally my televisual preferences in this country run mainly to stuff in english, which means that I spend an embarrassing amount of time watching abysmal shows on Mtv (although I have to say that Flavor of Love, where trashy morons compete for the heart of the formerly well-known singer or something, Flavor Flav, is not abysmal or embarrassing at all. In fact, it's the best tv show I have watched since I left Australia and stopped watching things that allowed me to retain some semblance of self respect).

Anwyay, Reto has an inexplicable fondness for sport, so there was a lot of ice hockey to be seen and ignored over the weekend, and a lot of snooker, which I ignored slightly less because the commentating was in english and because the competitors were wearing such unattractive waistcoats (horribly shiny and with these awful pink-themed tartanny patterns on the back). As it turns out, this snooker thing is a competition which has been going on for something like a week, the horrible-waistcoated people didn't seem to make it past the early rounds, and it's actually kind of interesting. Well, not actually interesting, in the sense that it's not that much fun to watch, but interesting in the sense that I have a favourite player now and I want him to win. He is Mark Selby, and he looks kind of like a vampire or a victim of consumption or something. He is quite the youngster, too (only 24) and apparently last time he was in this competition he was eliminated in the second round. And everyone likes an underdog, especially an undead* newcomer underdog.

I first got interested in him during the semi finals, which dragged on and on and on forever on Saturday evening. He was playing against Sean Murphy, who I don't like at all (and he sounds like a complete dork from his wikipedia profile. Apparently he and Mark are good friends though. There's no accounting for taste), and it was the best of 33 frames (and considering that a frame takes something like half an hour or so, you can imagine that 33 of them takes what seems like a lifetime) . Happily I didn't watch most of it, but in the end it came down to the last frame, they were totally even at 16 frames each, and then against all my expectations, Mark won. By the time it was over he looked like he was on the brink of death, all pale and sweaty and grim looking, which didn't leave me too optimistic for the finals, which started the next day (Sunday).

My pessimism was well founded, it seems. The finals are half over, and the other bloke, someone called Higgins, is giving poor Mark a bit of a trouncing. It's 9-3 or so at the moment, and the rest is apparently on tonight, but I think Mr. Selby is just going to have to make do with second prize (which is something like £110,000 . Poor thing).



* although according to DJ Bobo, vampires are in fact alive, and may well be responsible for Switzerland trouncing the competition at Eurovision next weekend. Assuming he gets into the finals, anyway,and assuming that the voting public is insane enough to want him to win. Which is quite an ask, frankly.