I ran the Manchester 10K again on Sunday which was a gruelling battle between man and road. It was a good race that left my legs heavier than a pair of Americans after Thanksgiving and my ankle in quite a bit of pain. But I made it! All be it in a longer time than last year, a whole six minutes more, meaning I have some work to do for next year. Six minutes in a 10K is a week! Although my time was disappointing, I did manage to raise a lot of money for CICRA (Crohn's in Childhood Research Association) which is always great!
Of course being involved on Sunday meant that my Saturday night was spent indoors watching Saturday night tele. Lucky for me it wasn’t just any Saturday night, this one was special, it was of course Eurovision night!
I turned on the tele part way through so I missed any of the opening ceremonies, whether that’s a good thing or not I don’t know. It probably was a good thing based on the presenters, a guy who looked like Justin Lee Collins after a much needed hair cut and a couple of women from Boots. I didn’t hear them talk too much as Graham Norton provided a great service by talking over them all the time.
I came in early on with Sweden performing a song from their charts, it was called ‘I will be popular’ and in all honesty I sat there watching it and it was the perfect metaphor depicting society today. I’m not really sure if that was the message it was trying to get across but it really was poignant viewing. Looking back at it though, I doubt the performer, a young Justin Bieber look-alike, was weaving sociological metaphors. He looked like he was genuinely just saying it as it is…over…and over…again. I WILL BE POPULAR! I WILL BE POPULAR! I WILL BE POPULAR!
After that it got a little dull for a while but it didn’t take long to pick up a little when Moldova came into it with what looked like a bunch of gnomes on acid dancing some weird ska punk while pretending to play instruments. It was pretty much the closest known representation of Colonel Gadaffi’s dreams. At lease one nation treated the completion as a joke.
The UK’s entry this year was everybody’s favourite boy band gag, Blue! Yes, they reformed for one last time (maybe) to perform their song ‘I can’ and in fairness to them, compared to the other acts, they were easily top five material. Anthony Costa is still the weakest link, which is saying a heck of a lot, and Lee still has that annoying high whine he brings to every song! Seriously that guy must get asked to perform that trick at parties. Presuming he still gets invited to parties.
Jedward were also performing a song I don’t know nor remember. It was just a couple of Irish guys who can’t sing jumping about on stage while wearing the same clothes. Basically a karaoke night in the Navy. Unfortunately they didn’t go away once their song was over as the camera kept on going to them as they larked about in the green rooms. At one point Jedward number 2 nearly knocked out the camera man with a kung-fu kick!
Speaking of the green rooms they were the most bizarre ones I’ve ever seen. Positioned behind the stage, they rose up like the council chambers from Star Wars. I kept expecting Emperor Palpatine to rise up from the oven-hob-like stage and demand the deaths of all countries beginning with the letter S, and Jedward.
Other acts included Switzerland, who’s song evoked no emotions from me one way or another; Finland, a young guitar strummer who thought guitars were still cool; France, who sent the most boring man dressed as a character from Les Miserables, they just don’t care anymore; and Italy, who were apparently back in the completion after some absence, they sent their version of Harry Connick Jr. He was pretty terrible, but he came second. Go figure.
My favourite was the Ukraine’s entry, not because of the song, I can’t remember what that was like, but because of the sand-artist working in the background! Really, she was amazing and easily the most talented person I saw the whole night! If only the other entries were that interesting.
Once the songs were all sung the night did lose a bit of steam. It became the most boring bit of tele I’d seen for a while. It almost made me flick onto ITV. Almost.
The votes needed to be made, and then counted so we were treated to a German bloke who sang the longest song I’ve ever witnessed. It wasn’t good, in fact it was terrible and I was considering trading in my soul just to make the horror end! Eventually it did and we had that part where people from across Europe appear and say ‘Hello from Latvia’ or wherever they’re from.
Some of them we’re very annoying. Some doing impressions of octopuses, others pretending to be the Polish version of Chris Tarrant, leaving us in suspense when in reality nobody could have cared any less. Christine Bleakley’s clone gave the UK’s votes, the girl from The One Show, obviously we gave all our points to Ireland as that’s how Eurovision works: vote for your neighbour. Saying that though, Ireland did not give us all their points! What a rip! They can forget it the next time they need a bailout, they can go ask their beloved Denmark instead!
The UK rather impressively didn’t just get of the foot of the table, they achieved a massive 100 points! At one point they sat pretty at the top of the ladder, not that it lasted long, Jedward finished above us for crying out loud. By the end of the voting my patience had grown more tired than the presenter’s poor cheekbones so I swiftly turned it off and headed to bed ready for my big Sunday.
I wouldn’t mind but I ran the whole 10K with that bloody song in my head. I WILL BE POPULAR!I WILL BE POPULAR!I WILL BE POPULAR!I WILL BE POPULAR!
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