Soph's TV Snark: Eurovision 2015

I couldn't play Eurovision drinking games this year because I am HUGELY PREGNANT (due in July, so I might get my brain back in time for autumn reality season). But I still forced my poor husband to watch it with me, drinking for both of us. Ah, magical times.

Before I begin, a salute to fallen favourites. The Macedonian Evil Hypnotist. The PVC clad Moldovan policemen. The quasi-Hives Beatles tribute from Denmark (who I HATED on SIGHT, so was utterly desolated when they didn't get through). Malta's Eye of Sauron tribute. The angry Czech shoe-thrower. So many to love.

But most importantly, THESE FINNISH FOLK:

I love you PKN. Don't stop.

So. Vienna. An orchestra. Circles. Bridges. Conchita FLYING ABOUT THE PLACE. A children's choir! A random whiteboy rapper. A trio of female presenters that look like they should be in an M+S clothes advert, SINGING. Conchita (who has dropped her Wurst) in the green room/elaborate bus shelter.Graham Norton guffawing/commentating for us, which is a step up from gormless Scott Mills and overexcited Mel Giedroyc. A video of people giving each other shit via Vines!
This year, the postcards introducing each act have an "Austrian hobbies" theme. These include the obvious (cake! skiing!) and the less obvious (firefighting! living sculpture!).

SLOVENIA. POINTS: 39 POSITION: 14 Here For You by Maraaya.
Sounds like: Hamsterdance
Looks like: Fearne Cotton and Ray Quinn

I didn't lie tho.

The first song is this pair of youthful, headphone-toting idiots. He plays the piano with an occasional wink, and she sings directly through her nose. It proves to be a total earworm.

FRANCE. POINTS: 4 POSITION: 25 N'oubliez Pas [Don't Forget] by Lisa Angell.

Lisa's pre-song sequence involves her having a tea party with stuffed rabbits. This is evidently a very popular Austrian hobby...
The song is an anti-war polemic (the first of many), about how the Germans fucking RUINED France in WW1 AND WW2 and she was there (because she's 120 years old) and won't forget. She remembers harvest celebrations and the smell inside the houses. She promises not to forget. FRANCE REMEMBERS, GERMANY. CHECK YOSELF, BEFORE YO WRECK YOSELF. She is accompanied by some Thunderbirds, and seems genuinely fucking furious.

ISRAEL. POINTS: 97 POSITION: 9 Golden Boy by Nadav Guedj.
Looks like: Anthony Costa

Apparently, this young man is 16 years old, and known as the Israel Justin Timberlake. Poor Justin: how the mighty have fallen. Nadav has GOLDEN SHOES, and sings about how he's going to show you how he does it, and then the sights of Tel Aviv. Sex AND tourism.

ESTONIA. POINTS: 106 POSITION: 6 Goodbye To Yesterday by Elina Born and Stig Rästa.
Sounds like: A Bryan Adams duet from the late nineties

Smug twat. YOU BROKE HER HEART!

My actual favourite song, in a non-ironic way. I know! For shame! Elina is 14 years younger than Stig, which makes this song about him creeping out of her life, smiling at the dog, rather seedy. There is serious eye-fucking, and then she ACTUALLY SQUEEZES OUT A TEAR. A tour de force.

UNITED KINGDOM. POINTS: 5 POSITION: 24 Still In Love With You by Electro Velvet.
Sounds like: The bastard child of a Waffles advert and Scatman John
Looks like: Dita von Teese and a man that embodies evil.

Pure. Evil.

I deliberately avoided this song until the night, so I could be horrified/delighted as appropriate. Alas dear reader, I was horrified. Scat should be reserved for German porn. The staging is psychotic and the song is all about controlling your ex. Yay. Shockingly, we scored fuck all (thank you, Malta, Ireland and San Marino).

ARMENIA. POINTS: 34 POSITION: 16 Face The Shadow by Genealogy.

Imagine you make a party on an RPG. Who has a party of three mages, two clerics and a rogue? First time you meet a spider, you're dead. Sigh. That ritual Armenian demon gate won't summon itself though.

And the song? Erm...there was a lot of not denying the Armenian genocide, which apparently went down like a ton of bricks with Azerbaijan, so they changed the song and pretended it was about love and peace and harmony. Honest, guv.

LITHUANIA. POINTS: 30 POSITION: 18 This Time by Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila
Looks like: Poundland Jason and Kylie although he also gives off some creepy Nick Lachey vibes

They made the poor children do a bungee jump in their pre-song sequence. Then there is a lot of kissing. Poor Monika is dressed like a bird, and has to kiss that smarming fool.Vaidas really likes the kissing...dirty boy.

SERBIA. POINTS: 53 POSITION:10 Beauty Never Lies by Bojana Stamenova.
Looks like: A Valkyrie without the hat

Finally, she can say, that she's different and it's OK. This was tipped to win, but I have no idea why because she's frequently shrill and off key, and even with a eurodance breakdown. However, among Bojana's other talents is that she can play the lute. I respect this lute-playing woman. She also has costume-changing gimps. So that's nice.

NORWAY. POINTS: 102 POSITION: 8 A Monster Like Me by Mørland and Debrah Scarlett
Sounds like: Discount Of Monster and Men
Looks like: They should be in Skins/News International: The Musical (thanks Twitter)

"Honey, I'm telling the truth. I did something awful in my early youth." Like what? Joined the Nasjonal Samling? Murdered a child? Stole peanuts from the greengrocer? She probably needs to lay off the drugs, and he needs to stop self-flagellating in this fashion.

SWEDEN. POINTS: 365 POSITION:1 Heroes by Måns Zelmerlöw
Sounds like: Lovers on the Sun
Looks like: Sexy Russell Howard

Ah, our winner. He once said that homosexuality is a biological deviation (which...many things are...including hair colour, so WATCH YOSELF, SWEDE BOY) and gay people shouldn't be parents, so his appearance on the gayest show on Earth is a little...um... bizarre. NONETHELESS, he has backtracked swiftly since then, and now claims to love all men. Not that any of this matters, because here is a man who knows how to work a video stage and that's what Eurovision wants.
And he looks like this.

Which can't have harmed his chances.

CYPRUS. POINTS: 11 POSITION: 22 One Thing I Should Have Done by John Karayiannis
Sounds like: The Bisto advert
Looks like: Groucho Marx

I reckon he got those glasses and nose out of a costume shop. This song is a bit...awful, and suffers from coming after homophobic sexy boy.

AUSTRALIA. POINTS: 196 POSITION: 5 Tonight Again by Guy Sebastian
Looks like: The lovechild of Bruno Mars and Gareth Gates

WHY are Australia here? They are not IN EUROPE. If we're going to start admitting anyone who's ever been colonised by Europeans, we'll have to start letting in AMERICA and Eurovision was started to stop that sort of thing happening. Trufax. Anyway, Guy promises that we can do this all again tomorrow. Nobody's told him how Eurovision works. He also claims this is one tough act to follow, little realising that he's going to be beaten into 5th by the next act. THAT is ironic.

BELGIUM. POINTS: 217 POSITION: 4 Rhythm Inside by Loïc Nottet.

My husband is part Belgian (the Dutch bit), and every year, rends his garments at the songs his ancestral home brings to Eurovision. I mean, he should go write his own if he's that bothered, but I love to see him enter into the spirit of the thing. This song scored incredibly highly considering it's minimalist, slightly seizure-inducing and includes the lyrics "I'm gonna rap-bap-bap", whatever that means. It's very...er...modernist:

Maybe rap-bap-bap means "rip your face off" in Flemish.

AUSTRIA. POINTS: 0 POSITION: 27 I Am Yours by The Makemakes.
Looks like: Matt Berry/Three Phases of Jesus/Kasabian

Yes, the piano is on fire. Why do you ask?

Despite being totally innocuous, and not awful, this scored nul point. Hipsters will perish at Eurovision. In the words of Conchita "The long hair and the beard, huh? It worked the one time." Shade.

GREECE. POINTS: 23 POSITION: 19 One Last Breath by Maria Elena Kyriakou.
Looks like: Cat Deeley
Sounds like: A weak Diamonds Are Forevuuuh

In an economic crisis, zips are the first thing to go.

MONTENEGRO. POINTS: 44 POSITION: 13 Adio [Goodbye] by Knez.
Looks like: Little Britain hypnotist or George Galloway or Paul Hollywood, if you're Mel Giederoyc

I mean...what can you say? The song's about plunging your love into oblivion, while everything smells of sorrow. My highlight is the field sobriety test dancing.

The crowd fucking love it.

GERMANY. POINTS: 0 POSITION: 26 Black Smoke by Ann Sophie.
Sounds like: Paloma Faith
Looks like: A Bond intro

Rub them thighs

This song was cowritten by Ella Eyre, and isn't actually that bad. But it scored nul point anyway.

POLAND. POINTS: 10 POSITION: 23 In The Name of Love by Monika Kuszyńska
Sounds like: A bad Martine McCutcheon album track

This lady celebrates her Eurovision entry with a Lenor advert. As you may recall, Poland have a bit of a history with seated artists... Ahem...

NEVA4GET!

LATVIA. POINTS: 186 POSITION: 6 Love Injected by Aminata.
Sounds like: A particularly alarming chillout track.

I really like this song. It does, as the wonderful @lellymo (on the twitter) pointed out, need a donk on it. She IS dressed as a huge, stationary, red, toilet brush and has a backdrop of church windows. And she IS singing about being er...injected with um...love. But that aside. TUNE.

ROMANIA. POINTS: 35 POSITION: 15 De La Capăt [From The Beginning] (All Over Again) by Voltaj

Voltaj, I am reliably informed, are a proper, real band. This song is, rather hauntingly, about the children who get left behind when their parents emigrate from Romania for work. Nobody tell Farage. They are surrounded by suitcases, and tell us at the end not to leave our children behind. Quite.

SPAIN. POINTS: 15 POSITION: 21 Amanecer [Dawn] by Edurne.
Looks like: Shakira

She goes out with David de Gea, whoever he is, and featured on an Olly Murs track. Who knew? It's pretty much immediately forgettable, aside from the happy lyric which appeared on screen as "EEEiEEEiOH". Old McDonald had a Spaniard, eeieeioh.

HUNGARY. POINTS: 19 POSITION: 20 Wars For Nothing by Boggie.

Hurr.

Did you know our world is a mess? Coz of war. War is shit, yanno. It's for NOTHING, nothing except OIL and LAND and occasionally TERRORISTS. So sayeth the wise Boggie, with her eyes like saucers.

GEORGIA. POINTS: 51 POSITION: 11 Warrior by Nina Sublatti
Looks like: A female Lauri Ylönen, come to eat your soul

And how the fuck did she not win?

Here is a woman who got the word oximated into a song. That means turning into an oxime. Which in turn means... er... something to do with alcohol breakdown. So it may even have been in context: only organic chemists know. She hurls her microphone stand at the floor! She shouts, she pouts, she has thigh high boots. I will marry her, one day.

AZERBAIJAN. POINTS: 49 POSITION: 12 Hour Of The Wolf by Elnur Hüseynov

Nope, I have no idea what was going on here either except one of the dancers looks like Luke from SYTYCD and I'd like to see him in more things. It really is a din, but somehow it got quite a lot of points.

RUSSIA. POINTS: 303 POSITION: 2 A Million Voices by Polina Gagarina.

"Please don't hurt me."

Russia are the bad guys of Europe, so Eurovision literally told the crowd not to boo them and implemented their anti-boo technology to stop it happening. It happened anyway. During voting, she literally wept and said she just wanted to see her son again. Where's her son?

"I don't know..."

Despite the anti-Russian feeling, it comes second. UKRAINE ARE LITERALLY NOT HERE BECAUSE OF RUSSIA! ARE YOU THAT AFRAID?

ALBANIA. POINTS: 34 POSITION: 17 I'm Alive by Elhaida Dani.
Looks like: Keira Knightley crossed with Caroline Flack

There's nothing wrong with this song, except it being blander than vanilla Angel Delight.

ITALY. POINTS: 292 POSITION: 3 Grande Amore [Great Love] by Il Volo.
Sounds like: The Divs
Looks like: A truncated version of One Direction

Bringing the classics back, Il Volo close the songs with a heartfelt operatic song about great love. I am not feeling it, particularly because of the dubious facial hair. The rest of Europe clearly do - ONE FOR THE NANS.

And then there's an INTERVAL ACT of DRUMS, led by this guy; the happiest man at Eurovision, the human representation of Animal!