Eurovision 2006

I can't tell you how much I love Eurovision. I watch it every year religiously. Apparently Ausralia is one of the few countries to have a significant Eurovision following outside of the countries who perform. I guess Australians are drawn towards camp and bad taste! One thing I love about Eurovision is no matter how much it is parodied, or parodies itself, there are still moments where I stare at the screen in utter bewilderment, trying to figure out 1. what is going on and 2. why they thought it was a good idea. Like the recreation of Aristophanes' The Birds with people actually dressed as birds flapping around the stage. As Terry Wogan pointed out, there was no mention of Bird Flu here. Terry Wogan is of course another reason I love Eurovision. He's a well known Eurovision institution which, until recently, was not heard by Australians due to SBS's need to put their own commentator in. While I loved Des Mangan introducing weird cult films late at night on SBS, he never really cut it for Eurovision. So it's good to hear Terry again. The other great thing about Eurovision are the terrible hosts who always seem to be talking over the top of each other or having awkward silences. It's true Eurovision gold.

Last night I was overjoyed that Lordi won. They are a death metal group from Finland who performs with monster costumes, and I was going for them. The best part about their act was that apparently whoever funds the Finnish Eurovision entry said they didn't know if they could fund the pyrotechnics which usually accompany Lordi's act. So there was a grassroots funding campaign so that Lordi got their pyrotechnics. I love this, because the Finns obviously understand the need to have pyrotechnics on a large scale with their death or heavy metal. Apparently the funding campaign was organised through two of the biggest heavy metal festivals in Finland, leading to the conclusion that there are multiple heavy metal festivals in Finland!

My second favourite entry, "We are the Winners/of Eurovision", from Lithuania also scored highly, so it's good to see that at least some europeans have a sense of humour about Eurovision.

Anyway, I am looking forward to next year's competition in Finland, and to see the response from other countries who will try and copy Lordi's act next year. Should be an absolute hoot!