Save Me…… from my lovely waste of three hours

It had to happen sooner or later. Life always imitates art eventually. And so it has this week with Spain’s entry to the Eurovision song contest.

Already a parody of itself, at least as far as the major European nations are concerned, the annual trawl of the pop sewer, once again takes to the airwaves tomorrow night across the continent.

Intentionally or accidentally, Spanish poptart Pastora Soler let slip to the press yesterday that the country’s national TV broadcaster TVE didn’t want her to win this year because they didn’t want to be saddled with the cost of putting on the three-hour marathon of musical manure next year, such is the prestige of winning this God-awful show.

Rewind 15 years to a UK television comedy called Father Ted, about three dopey Catholic priests who live in a remote part of Ireland. One episode had them being chosen as Ireland’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest with the very worst song in the world called “My Lovely Horse”, precisely because Ireland didn’t want to win and end up having to pay for the show the following year.

And lo, it came to pass that TV comedy gold became reality. Surely the writing is on the wall for this symphonic stupidity now?

 The Spanish public themselves already see the contest as nothing more than a bit of fun, one night of idiocy, a joke. For proof, look at the song the public voted for as Spanish entry in 2008. A comedy character called Rodolfo from a TV chat show who sang a song called “Baile el Chiki Chiki” (Dance the Cheeky Cheeky), complete with fake plastic Elvis wig and dancers who deliberately fell over.

The same year, Ireland paraded shopping trolley puppet Dustin the Turkey singing a song called “Ireland Douze Pointe”.

This year, the UK is being represented by none other than ancient, past-it, Engelbert Humperdinck. I don’t doubt that he’s sincere in his wish to sing a good song. But the people who chose him? What sort of shortlist did they have? Were they aware of the irony?

The question is, how much more of a two-fingered salute to the contest can you get? Maybe next year both Spain and the UK should send clowns with water-squirting flowers and custard pies and a comedy car that falls apart on stage. Or let’s just go the whole hog and send Jonathan King instead? The pop impresario has been convicted of sexually assaulting teenage boys, but hey, he can write a damn good pop tune.

There’s no doubt that the stranglehold the big European nations once held over this prestigious poop-fest has well and truly gone. Since 1998 only one of the “Big Four” nations has won it – Germany in 2010. But the UK, France, Spain and Germany are the ones who still dig deepest in their pockets to keep the contest going year after year. “Why?” I ask myself with an incredulous look on my face that no-one can see, which is why I’ve described it to you.

In the UK, the sad spectacle has been treated as a joke by the public for years, helped in part by the brilliantly sarcastic barbs ladled out by long-time BBC Eurovision commentator Terry Wogan. But even he bowed out in 2008 after nearly 30 years, describing it as “predictable” and “no longer a music contest.”

His last comment referred to the fact that politics has overtaken the voting nowadays (Greece and Cyprus regularly swapping “douze pointe” every time, for example). The voting used to be the only part of the show I’d watch. But I don’t even bother with that any more.

Even more ironically, the current BBC commentator for the show Graham Norton is an actor who used to be in Father Ted himself!

The only people who seem to take it seriously now are the “new” Europeans. Since 2000 the show has been won by, among others, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia and Azerbaijan.

So it strikes me that while tiny Iberian songstress Pastora Soler might have been speaking slightly tongue-in-cheek when she said what she said, I’m not so sure the bosses at TVE are actually that keen for her to win anyway. I bet the BBC give a sigh of relief every year the UK hits the bottom spot with “nil pointe”, which it has done worryingly often in recent years.

Ok, the contest has provided some musical quality over the years, the most obvious of which was the win by ABBA in 1974, funnily enough when the contest was held in my home town of Brighton.

But when you’ve had songs called “Ding-A-Dong”, “Boom Bang-a-Bang”, “La, la, la” and “Diggi-loo Diggi-Ley” over the years – and they’re just the winners! - just how much shit do you have to wade through to uncover the real diamonds?

When everyone is tightening their belts, when there’s cuts everywhere, when TV is already swimming in its own growing filth pool of reality shows, is it really worth investing more and more millions in what is frankly a big joke now? Tradition it may be, but crap it most definitely is.

I’d much rather watch “My Lovely Horse” over and over again for three hours. At least it knows it’s a joke.