I'm in love with a fairytale...

So far my resolution to be thoroughly involved in every Swedish celebration has failed. I burned myself on Fat Tuesday, and so was in pain the whole time I munched my semla. I had the worst diarrhoea of my life over Easter (no candy filled paper-eggs for me!). Axel's brother Alfred and his partner Cissi (and their adorable baby Igor) were down for Walpurgis Eve and May Day, and we decided it would be more fun to hang out together than stand around a bonfire on the other side of town with drunk students.

Last night, all that changed. I sat around the TV with eight other people, home-made scoresheet in one hand and a delicious daquiri-ish drink in the other, and witnessed my first... Eurovision Song Contest. I spent almost the entire show with my mouth hanging agape in wonder. I just cannot believe that with a whole year in which to plan, that those performances are the best a country can come up with to represent themselves musically. My fingers quiver on the keys as I type out the 'music', as music is the last thing Eurovision is about.

For those who don't know, Eurovision is a song competition for Active Members of the European Broadcasters Union, which includes countries outside Europe such as Israel and Azerbaijan. Due to time constraints, only 25 countries can compete in the final, so the pool is weeded down in two semi-finals. The 25 finalists sing one song live on television, and the winners are decided half by tele-voting and half by a jury from each country. No one is allowed to vote for their own country, but it is common for countries to vote for their neighbours regardless of song quality.

I quickly learned that my taste in music is not shared by any of the people that voted last night. I did think the Norwegians deserved to win - they took a Zac Efron look-alike, gave him a violin and some camp back-up dancers in Norwegian lederhosen, and had him sing about love and fairytales. How could this combination fail? My favourites were France - the sole country to opt for class over pop with their throaty-voiced (and relatively modestly clad) soloist; Armenia - exotic purple women, weirdly synchopated beats and traditional instruments; Portugal - folky riffs with flute and accordion, and a charismatic singer; and Russia - a catchy chorus and morbid visuals. The Swedish entry wasn't too bad, even if the performer did look more like a mermaid in a wedding dress than Ariel did at then end of the Disney film.

What horrified me was that all the songs I hated came so far up the rankings! Iceland came second with an entry of pure insipid dross, and with visuals featuring a dolphin diving through cloud formations. Why? The song is more interesting if you think about it in terms of Iceland's current economic and environmental crisis: "falling out of a perfect dream, coming out of the blue... Is it true, is it over? Did I throw it all away?" As for England (5th place), SHAME ON YOU Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Though Iceland and the UK went for the sweet and virginal, some of the acts were hilariously raunchy. The Greek entry had us drooling (with laughter) over their bare-chested hunk and narcissistic antics (best bit is at 1:30-1:40 in linked video-clip). The Germans were a little bit disturbing, and thorougly under-used Dita Von Teese.

But really, the whole thing was so tacky and soulless it made me long for ABBA to smash down the door in a blaze of white flares. They would have kicked ass. What happened to songs that you actually want to hear? France Gall won in 1965. It is especially disturbing to me that they got a couple of guys up in space to give viewers the order to "VOTE". The presenters chanted to millions of viewers, "vote vote vote". Why does no one put that kind of effort into getting people to vote for elections that actually matter? Maybe if there was an Asian guy in space telling American people to vote we wouldn't have had two terms of George Bush. But I guess that kind of voting doesn't make millions of dollars for broadcasters. Go figure.