In the cold, hungover light of dawn - well, midday really - I'm really realising what an unholy crock of shite Eurovision has become. The voting was awful, both overlong and overshort at the same time - too many countries on the boards means we were denied the exquisite pleasure of watching them fumble awkwardly through the votes as in previous years:
Host: Was that Lithuania, two points?
Presenter: No, Estonia, three points!
Host: Lithuania, four points.
Presenter: Estonia...
Host: I cannot hear you, Bucharest. Can we please have your next vote?
Presenter: Estonia, four points.
But with 36 countries to get through, it was absolutely bloody interminable, but so choppy that poor old Terry Wogan, stuck up in his box with naught but a bottle of Black Bush and Ken Bruce for company, never got a chance to get into full swing:
Belgrade: And finally, the twelve points of the Serbia & Montenegro televote goes to...'
Terry: Could it be...
Belgrade: Croatia, twelve points!
Athens: Croatia, twelve points, Croatie, douze points!
Terry: They wouldn't happen to be right next door to you, would they?
Which brings me neatly around to my next point, the bloc vote, which was just as prominent this year as in the last few. Now, I'm not sore that the UK entry, Daz 'Doorstep Challenge' Sampson and the Singing Chavettes essentially crashed out again, but this does now need to stop.
New Rules For An Improved Contest
Copyright: Alex, 2006
1) Get rid of the televote. It really has become the most ridiculous farce. We need juries back.
2) Ban spectacle. It's a song contest, not a who can use the most pyrotechnics, come in the weirdest dress, or choreograph the hottest boys in underwear. It is all about gimmicks. Based on talent alone, Germany or Sweden should have won that.
3) Britain needs to be made to grasp that Europe treats this as a an opportunity to showcase their best stars (except France, which treats it as an opportunity to showcase shit), whereas we treat it like Pop Idol. Then there's a chance we could start polling highly again.
4) The bloc countries need to be made to realise that it is a who sang the best song contest, not a who can vote for the neighbours contest. For that reason, I propose excluding the lowest scoring countries from each bloc (Balkan, Nordic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Germano-Turkic, etc) for a period of not less than two years, to give the remainder a chance to spread their votes around a bit. This would serve an additional purpose of keeping the damn numbers down - it's exploded since 1990. The whole contest has become too political and too unwieldy. Frankly, the whole thing needs to be swept out.
5) No mullets.
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