EURO GIMMIX

14-05-2007

As Sir Cliff might have said, “Congratulations” to Serbia for winning this year’s Eurovision - an event so lacking in the spirit of fair competition, it could have been organised by the Premiership. The Stirrer’s resident poet Brendan Hawthorne reflects on another year when politics called the tune.

Wicked Wogan wags

at the host nation

Its peculiarities proven

in videoed presentations

set like spangles

between the artistes

And by the time

the viewing public

has downed enough

alcoholic anaesthetic

served with cheese

whatever’s

its time for crowning

the winning entrant

Unfortunately the criteria

is not based on things like

performance

Not based on whether

the song was sung

in tune

In key

or even that it was any good

Instead ‘winning’ is

now based on how

geographical and cultural

frontiers have yielded

into de-commissioned weaponry

and all other differences

covered by laminated

good-time smiles

As the jolly japes begin

the competition was

won before it started

The voting former

Eastern Bloc

bulling up its member states

in a frenzy of back-slapping

and art imitating life

Linking arms in camaraderie

for the encore………

credits………………

fade out

Once again no-one

got near their Waterloo grail

but making their minds up

was made simpler

with the omission of

the power pack four

the funders

and backers

treated with derision

and left to pick-over

the left-overs

fallen from the feast

Bailey’s-driven sarcasm

is so appropriate

and so refreshing

rasping at the pomposity

incredulity and banality

of the Eurovision

gimmick competition

the lift shaft echo chamber

of member states

and their own interpretation

of muzak

Yet when the glitter

is swept from the stage

and put in a box

until next year’s fiasco

feverishly returns

will we give it

another nil point

until we all tune-in

again to

unpredictable predictability

so prevalent

that I wrote this

before the showcase began

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