EuroVision

Well, I watched both semi-finals and the finals of the Eurovision song contest for the first time this year. I think I saw the final in 2007, also when staying with Helen and Johan by no form of coincidence what-so-ever, which was my only previous acquaintance with it.

I don’t believe I would ever have decided to voluntarily watch it but having done so, it was nowhere near as excruciating as I expected it to be. If fact, I quite enjoyed it. I’m not sure if this was because the singers this year only very occasionally hit bung notes or the fact that I couldn’t understand a word the commentators said so I wasn’t distracted by them but it wasn’t that bad.

Of course, the Russian hosts and half-time entertainment they put on for both semi’s were rather horrid (the song contest was held in Moscow this year), but apart from the inane chatter, too-close-smooching, fully uniformed red-army choir, baby-pink tank and furry baby-blue fighter plane, the rest was ok.

And at the finals they had hosts that could speak both English and French and had cirque du soleil and some very interesting interpretive dance for the entertainment (people on see-through platforms awash with water high above the audience were gradually lowered down so the splashing they did was very visible), so that was good too.

I even liked the act from Norway that won – ‘I’m in love with a fairy tale’. Cool.

So yeah. It was Ok.

Experience ticked.