TO set the record straight from the off, I've never watched Eurovision from beginning to end. If people are honest, I suspect that places me in the majority. Normally, I'll watch (some of) the acts and a bit of the voting, until I'm sure that the idea of political voting is once again coming to the fore.
Until last year, I always thought the idea of political voting was a mere figment of the imaginations among those of us from the traditional big hitter countries which hadn't won.
Not any more. Friday's 10 O'Clock news on BBC 1 actually did a news report looking at the political voting (shock = eastern bloc votes for eastern bloc and so on) but came to the conclusion that countries which had high level of outward-bound migrants - such as Turkey or Poland - did well because these migrants then took part in the phone votes in their new countries.
Sky News picked up a similar theme, not least when Terry Wogan announced he probably wouldn't do a Eurovision again because a) the UK appears to have sod all chance of winning and b) it is blatantly political.
Now, if the worst that happens from the world's condemnation of Britain's invasion of Iraq with America five years ago is that we don't ever do well in Eurovision again as the continent votes against us, then I'm quite relieved. Maybe airport security could be relaxed if that is the case?
But, putting my serious face on again, if the BBC is to clear prime-time telly each year to show the contest, then the whole thing needs an overhaul. It's wonderful that all these smaller countries seem to love Eurovision so much, but you don't let kids come and play on the Anfield pitch during a Liverpool v Manchester United game just because they're excited, do you?
After all, they aren't the ones putting the serious cash into it. No, that falls to western European countries such as, oh yes, the UK. In return for that, we get the right to take part every year, regardless how badly we do when we put up a former binman who failed to win X-Factor. Oh yes.
So how do we make it fairer? Simple. Everyone has to pick their act via an X-Factor-style campaign. Rather like the prize in Britain's Got Talent. In that, you get to perform at the Royal Variety Show. For this, you get to represent your country in the Song Contest. Neither prize is one I'd jump through hoops for, but then I'm not bonkers.
So you get the whole country's buy-in to the entrant. Not just some odd shortlist which the BBC trots out at the start of the year. And if each country does that, we have a contest which reflects the diversity of Europe (or, to be precise, the European Broadcast Union, which actually includes much of North Africa), rather than a contest made up of acts chosen from a short list selected by failed Simon Cowells.
And when they have all sung their songs, and Terry Wogan has made his witty comments, each country then has a selected panel who vote, not some public phone-in which naturally lends itself to "vote for Spain because it's where we go on holiday, mum" type antics.
The alternative, of course, is to just drop out of it all together. It might be a big joke, but it's one we have to take seriously, or not bother getting involved at all.
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