{"id":146,"date":"2005-05-16T16:36:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-16T16:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/wordpress\/?p=146"},"modified":"2010-01-09T16:54:35","modified_gmt":"2010-01-09T16:54:35","slug":"le-royaume-uni-nul-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/2005\/05\/le-royaume-uni-nul-points.html","title":{"rendered":"Le Royaume-Uni: Nul Points"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the things I was looking forward to on the plane to London was that I could finally watch the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> the way God intended it: with Terry Wogan snarking over the top<\/a> and futilely barracking for the UK. More to the point, the show would not be nearly ruined by some idiot at SBS<\/a> interrupting with lame jokes, fake wogs and drag queens in some ill-starred attempt to add “local content”. It was all more or less worth passing up the chance to hear the MSO play Feldman’s<\/a> Coptic Light<\/a><\/em>.<\/div>\n
Now I hear from The Supermercado Project<\/a> that SBS has (once again) repented for its affront to European culture and is showing the BBC broadcast<\/a> straight! I go halfway round the world to avoid that idiot they had blabbing over the top of everything last time – all for nothing! <\/div>\n
The Eurovision forum on SBS’s website is mostly taken up with discussion about the TV feed<\/a>*, with the majority expressing relief that no-one from SBS will be involved.<\/div>\n
Supermercado has excellent wraps of the superb 2003 event<\/a>, and the decidedly average 2004 contest<\/a>. Let’s hope this year is another corker of international atrociousness.<\/div>\n
At short notice I’ve pulled a few people together into the Bunker for Saturday night’s Eurovision Drinking Game:<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n

Phase One: The Performances<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Key Change.<\/em><\/strong> Whenever the singers dramatically change key during the final chorus. Additional drink for every successive key change in the same song.<\/div>\n
The Buck’s Fizz.<\/em><\/strong> Whenever a performer sheds a piece of clothing. Finish your drink if the clothing loss is obviously unintentional.<\/div>\n
Is That English?<\/em><\/strong> Whenever someone notices that the singers have switched from their native language into English in an attempt to win more votes. Two drinks if they try to dodge the language issue by *intentionally* singing gibberish.<\/div>\n
The San Remo.<\/em><\/strong> Any occurence of visible armpits and\/or pointing.<\/div>\n
The Fine Cotton.<\/strong><\/em> Any appearance by mercenary singers flown in to represent a foreign country. Two drinks if they’re Irish.<\/div>\n
The Tatu.<\/strong><\/em> Finish your drink if the audience boos (on telly, not in the living room.)<\/div>\n
Don’t Mention The War.<\/strong><\/em> Each time the German entrant sings something about everyone being happy.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Phase Two: The Voting<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
The Wardrobe Change.<\/em><\/strong> If the female host is wearing a different frock after the songs have finished. Two drinks if the male host has changed his suit.<\/div>\n
The Hurry-Up.<\/strong><\/em> Every time the hosts have to talk over the announcer from each voting country to ask “Can we have your votes please?” (i.e. shut the fuck up already). Finish your drink if the announcer tries to deliver a personal message to a relative watching at home in Murmansk.<\/div>\n
The Gimme.<\/em><\/strong> When Greece gives twelve points to Cyprus.<\/div>\n
The Old Europe.<\/strong><\/em> When the UK gets null points from France.<\/div>\n
The New Europe.<\/em><\/strong> When the Baltic states all vote for each other.<\/div>\n
The Sympathy Vote.<\/strong><\/em> When anything sung in French gets a point and\/or the last country without any points finally gets off the mark. A special toast to any country left with zero points at the end.<\/div>\n
The Sandra Sully.<\/em><\/strong> Each time an announcer fucks up the voting results. Finish your drink if they get so confused they have to start over.<\/div>\n
The Master of Suspense.<\/strong><\/em> Any time an announcer realises that the pause for suspense only works if they announce the twelve points and then the country that has won them, not the other way around<\/em>. (This may not happen.)<\/div>\n
The “Viktor, You Very Unattractive Fellow.”<\/em><\/strong> Two drinks if the hosts speak in rhyme and\/or pretend to flirt with each other. Finish your drink if the flirting is serious.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The wildcards<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
The first person who asks why Israel is in it, or why Italy isn’t, finishes their drink.<\/div>\n
A toast to the first person who expresses dismay when they realise how long the voting is going to take.<\/div>\n
A toast to the person who gets so drunk you have to secretly call a cab and persuade them they ordered it when it arrives.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
* UPDATE: SBS has taken the forum down, even though there’s still a link to it on their Eurovision page. They still have last year’s forum, which is almost entirely filled with dozens of posts protesting against SBS adding their own useless talent, amongst hundreds of posts by bickering Greeks and Macedonians. Guys, it’s a web page, not a soccer match. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the things I was looking forward to on the plane to London was that I could finally watch the Eurovision Song Contest the way God intended it: with Terry Wogan snarking over the top and futilely barracking for the UK. More to the point, the show would not be nearly ruined by some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3461,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/3461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}