C'est pas avec ça qu'ils gagneront

Earlier this week I became very concerned that I might not successfully organise any kind of alcohol- and nibbles-related social gathering for the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Luckily, following an emotional media plea (well, a Facebook status change) I managed to procure a number of last minute invitations for Saturday night. After ruling a couple of them out on practical reasons - although frankly I'd have been happy going to Cambridge, if it hadn't been for the proviso of learning the Yassou Maria dance moves - I ended up with Bear and a bunch of randoms hosted by an Aussie who turns out to be a professional singer and former F1 pit "babe".

On further investigation, one of the randoms was a Parisienne, which was mildly exciting for me. There again, one thing I could never understand about the French was their attitude to the Eurovision. They always seemed to genuinely think that it was a competition to see which country could write the best song. Last year, frog sample, they proffered a very earnest piece of modern chanson written by a reputable songwriter and sung by a reputable singer.

This attitude extended to the televised coverage. Not for them the euro-weary witterings of Wogan. France3 had high hopes for the French entry and talked it up throughout the night. Not unlike Peanut Butter and Yorkshire Pudding, Finland's now-classic mauling of Eurovision traditions was thoroughly lost on them; as Lordi's guitars died out, Michel Drucker and his co-commentator noted sagely, "Finland have been entering this competition for 40 years, they've never won, and they're not going to win with that."

Lordi won, with a record 292 points; France finished third bottom with 5.

Astonishingly, something obviously made the French finally twig that maybe they were Doing It Wrong, and the 2007 contest saw them enter a deliberately bad song for possibly the first time (I'm not doing the research. You can.)

Unfortunately, rather than being so bad it was good, it was so bad it was unlistenable. This indeed seemed to be something of a theme. Is it just me or was that one of the worst Eurovision Contests ever? Only Ukraine came up with a memorable entry; there wasn't even the comedy value of the usual flagrant Westlife, Abba, and Shakira ripoffs. It was just great swathes of ballady dross. And won by a Serbian secretary using the bloody Corporate Chord Pattern.

Anyway, a positive to come out of it is that Emmanuella the Aussie resolved to enter next year, with yours truly as songwriter. I don't want to get ahead of myself but if we do enter, I think we'll definitely win. Emmanuella can certainly sing, and me - well - I produce novelty tracks that get over 1000 views on YouTube. Heh.

Well I was proud of it anyway.