Better....But Still a Cheese Fest

As the recession continues unabated, my weekends are now curtailed to just one night on the sauce. This week I chose Friday, at the George, surprise, surprise, which left me confronted with Saturday night television. My kids made me sit through the dross that is "Britains got Talent," which is a funny name for a show that then proceeds to disprove it's title. It also has Piers Morgan as a supposed "judge" of said talent, which again I find strange, as I have yet to witness Mr Morgan display any kind aptitude for anything, apart from being the biggest wanker in the known universe. Even more pointless than the aforementioned Piers though was the fragrant Kelly Brook, whose only discernible skill is to grin inanely and possess a fine pair of fun bags.

Enough of that dirge, my main reason for raising this post is to comment on a show I have not watched at length since the days when Maggie Thatcher was Prime Minister, and Chuck and Di were happily married. Or just married any way. The Eurovision song contest. Back then it was a half arsed show, played out in two bit exhibition halls, featuring strangely dressed foreigners, warbling earnestly in there own language. Sequins and jump suits were the order of the day, and all the blokes who participated sported facial hair that would have done a porn star proud. My, how times have changed. Firstly the venue, some where in Moscow, was huge, and packed to the rafters. At the interval, when thew phone votes were being tallied, they put on an extravaganza, featuring semi clad girls swimming and cavorting in pools of water suspended from the auditorium ceiling. The last time I saw one of these things, it was a seriously unfunny clown messing about for ten minutes.

But what about the songs and performers? Well there wasn't one a day under 25 to start with. And I can't recall any facial hair, although I think the German offering may have had a geezer with a goatee. It was a struggle to focus on the song or the performers, as they had drafted in the waspish Dita Von Teese, world renowned stripper, as eye candy. She was wearing a tight basque and knickers ensemble, which diverted all my attention from the song, an earned me slap up side the head from the Elster, and a command to put my tongue back in my mouth. Apparently she was forced to cover up after dress rehearsal, which begs the question "What wasn't she wearing?" cause there wasn't much.

This brings me nicely onto the next major improvement in this annual cheese fest. Back in the day, the performers were usually a little past there sell by date, and almost always offered up some lame dance routine, if you remember the God awful Bucks Fizz you will know what I mean. Not now. At least three quarters of the performers were the most nubile, scantily clad young ladies you could wish to see. And boy did they like to bounce, more often than not to some Euro disco number whilst perched on top of a wind turbine. The Ukrainian entrant was my undoubted favourite, and would have a good eight inches to go along with the 12 points I would have bestowed upon her. Her song was total nonsense, of course, but she pranced gamely in the shortest of skirts, and at one point proudly did the splits in a big circle thing, whilst semi clad Roman centurions thrust themselves at her from adjoining rings. It was marvellous, a tenner says I wasn't the only middle aged geezer watching with a semi on. Other honourable mentions in the fit stakes go to, Iceland, Sweden, Spain and Turkey, whose nubile entrant, of course, did a belly dance.

But it was none of these lithe young starlets who walked of with the golden trophy thingy. Iceland finished second, and those shimmering hips propelled Turkey into third, but the winner, and by a record amount of points, was a young Norwegian fiddle player. It was pretty obvious he was going to win. My theory for these phone in things is that the only people who can be arsed ringing in are tweenagers, bored housewives, old ladies and homosexuals. The only contestant to appeal to all these demographics was the boyishly handsome crooner from Oslo. If us lazy half arsed fellas of my demographic ever bothered voting for any of these competitions, they would all be won by either hip swivelling Turks or Pneumatic Ukrainians with a liking for bare chested Roman soldiers. I have to admit, I enjoyed this nonsense much more that I thought it would.

PS A tip to the British. If you have serious ambitions of ever winning, don't let Andrew Lloyd Webber near the stage. He is one seriously strange looking dude.