Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Eurovision and Euroblindness
Mark Steyn, as always brilliant, on Eurodemocracy, a topic I've been touching upon frequently these past few days:
Needless to say, most entrants sing in the language of a country, which for most of its history had, at best, an ambiguous relationship with the rest of Europe - although the particular dialect most commonly used at Eurovision is Gibberish English and not Queens English. But it's the sentiment that counts.
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The Eurovision Song Contest is not always a reliable guide to the broader political currents coursing through the Continent. One recalls the 1990 finals in Zagreb, when the charming hostess, Helga Vlahovic, presented her own fair country as the perfect Eurometaphor: "Yugoslavia is very much like an orchestra," she cooed. "The string section and the wood section all sit together." Alas, barely were the words out of her mouth before the wood section was torching the string section's dressing rooms, and the hills were alive only with the ancient siren songs of ethnic cleansing and genital severing. Lurching into its final movement, Yugoslavia was no longer the orchestra, only the pits.In case you were wondering, the standard at least of the lyrics at this years Eurovision, has been predictably awful. Tim Blair analyses the entries.
But this year's winner, Miss Helena Paparizou of Greece, was a shrewder analyst of the geopolitical scene. Her triumphant My Number One is an eerily perceptive summation of the EU establishment's view of its ingrate electorates this pre-referendum week: "You're delicious So capricious If I find out you don't want me I'll be vicious."
Needless to say, most entrants sing in the language of a country, which for most of its history had, at best, an ambiguous relationship with the rest of Europe - although the particular dialect most commonly used at Eurovision is Gibberish English and not Queens English. But it's the sentiment that counts.
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