Failing with Grace

The better half organised a Eurovision party last night. Not that I needed an excuse to take a peek at the goings on in this year’s kitsch fest but a bit of party snacks and company for the dissing always helps. So we’re out – and a song that was never really destined to shoot through the charts makes a gracious exit (almost gracious bar the snipe at “neighbour votes”) from the world of euroglam and drug-free fantasia.

There’s something eerie about this Eurovision. Its thrown up the usual suspects from the weird to the tasteless to the musically undesirable but there is something more to it. There is almost (and I stress almost) a whiff of the political once again. It’s not all Plastic Bertrand if you know what I mean – there is a DNA of the economic depression that runs through most songs and – weirdly enough – a very unexpected common strand in what is generally considered a heathen festival of bugger-thy-neighbourdness (while getting his vote) is the constant appeal to religion and spirituality – a peak reached by the weepingly ungrammatical implorations to Mr God (was it Moldavia?).

Lithuania promise a musical solution to the depression on Thursday but Russia has already dug into the deeper and darker side of its soul providing with an incredibly melancholy outfit that reminds you of anything but music but that would also be a brilliant soundtrack to a Euro-Dollar exchange chart. In times of trouble we take refuge in the spiritual and phantasmagorical. What better place then for the expression of men with bulging crotches dressed as birds, butterflies gone wrong and trees that dance and sing Whoary-horny?

The festival will go on on Thursday and Saturday. The French have an Outre-Mer catchy football anthem featuring Brasil football gear while any intelligent bets would be on Ze German song- catchy and full of euro-pronounced English. Intelligence is not what wins the Eurovision though and given the usual betting shenanigans Deutschland and Merkel will be spared the expense of hosting the next edition of the travelling circus.

Back home we will probably revert to the usual suspects of accusations of waste and disquisitions as to whether the € spent on euromadness would have been best spent on something with more “kulcher”. We just don’t get it … c’est ça la culture … and even in this kitschfest of depressive depravity and soul-searching spirituality we exit early in a shower of self-commiseration, misguided xenophobic accusations and a renewed disgust at the failure of Greater Europe to give credit to this small island’s Dream.

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ADDENDUM:

And even more Maltese kulchur unveiled. The PL HAD to have its say on the matter.

PL sends its congratulations

The Labour Party in a statement congratulated Thea Garrett and her team for an excellent performance and said that Thea should continue to pursue her dream in the music industry.

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