Dare to Dream! We’re back for the game of the year, the Eurovision Song Contest hosted this year by Israel, a country which won last year with a chicken dance in a kimono. The Netherlands is inexplicably the bookies’ favourite, but audience appreciation for Malta, Switzerland and Norway are all off the charts, and North Macedonia’s entry will be popular with anyone who can’t remember Rise Like a Phoenix. We’ve already had to say goodbye to Austria’s blue-rinse with a boob tube, Romania’s zombie bondage butlers and Portugal’s… well, I don’t know what Portugal was, except it was a song about mobile phones that sounded like someone throwing a piano down some stairs.
Step One: you will probably need to be quite drunk. Step Two: The following sights will be seen during this Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest. Can you see them first? Remember to shout it out. Party hosts will need to keep score of who gets what first, or otherwise dish out the forfeits to those that aren’t quick enough. As ever, there is more than one key change, and plenty of orbital cleavage. Keep your eyes (or ears) open for any of the following. And when you notice it, SHOUT IT OUT!
In no particular order, in Saturday’s final you should look out for:
Midget drum-kit
Chinese man with a stepladder
Heart made of lasers
Pogo-dancing idiot
KEY CHANGE! (every time you hear one)
MULLET! (a man with two haircuts, both of them bad)
MAN TABLE! (table made of men)
Crotch grabbing
Some audience nutter waving a Brazilian flag for no reason.
Girls on sticks
Mirror man
Giant chair
Hammer time! (hammer as musical instrument)
Lyrics: “I’m dancing with the fairies now.”
Black thigh boots but no knickers
Sign: IT HURTS TO BE ALIVE
Sudden gospel choir
Hand-drawn armchair
Giant reindeer effigy
Man in inadvisable shorts
HOLA OLA! First sighting of supervisor Jon-Ola Sand
Pointing
Onstage Fencers
SHOW A LEG! (single leg poking out of costume)
Robot
Misheard lyrics: “I’m shitting my body tonight.”
He’s a Cockney Czech!
El Dancing Wicker Man
Lyrics: “Na Na Na”
Big ballerina
White thigh boots
Backflip! (seriously, stop with the... stop... stop!)
Hands make a heart (on or off-stage)
Gaucho backing dancers
Lyrics: “The ruins of what has been”
FLAME ON! (every time there's pyrotechnics)
Slide and Sneer!
Lyrics: “I can be your jungle.”
WINKING
COSTUME CHANGE
Giant ball!
Giant ball thrown into the audience.
Ribbons!
Bimbling*
ORBITAL CLEAVAGE**
Buddha Jazz Hands***
HORSE HEAD! As a special bonus for all you astronomers, at some point tonight you will see Barnard 33, also known as the Horsehead Nebula.
Other optional bonus categories are:
YES, WE KNOW! (every time someone points out Israel isn’t in Europe)
The Palestinian Protest Sweepstake – pick a song in advance to see if you can predict when the stage invasion, banner or other stunt inevitably happens. My guess is when Estonia or the UK are onstage, because that’s when everybody will be in the loo.
Threatening comment from Eastern European panellist about “our neighbours”
Panellist attempts to say “L’CHAIM!”
AYOUB SERIOUS? Green-room host Lucy Ayoub switches into Arabic.
(*swaying one’s head from side to side in a snakey fashion.).
(**ostentatious cleavage sufficient to see from a satellite in orbit, which, according to Eurovision bra consultant Tom Clancy, requires a minimum of C-cup).
(***the dancers all pile behind the singer in a line and then fling their arms out, creating a multi-limbed oriental deity-look)
“We are technicolour. Watch us go.”
Since there is no Eurovision this year, there is also no Eurovision Shouty I-Spy, but that doesn’t mean that your correspondent hasn’t been enjoying the usual surfeit of mentalism among the entries that would have competed. If you ask me, and you didn’t, but if you did, Efendi’s Cleopatra (lost I-spy opportunities STEALTH BUDDHIST CHANTING) was my pick for third place, with Athena Manoukian’s Chains on You (lost I-spy opportunities: “HURT ME!”) would have been a shoe-in for second runner-up. But despite all you online pundits in love with Iceland’s dork-off, my pick for the top would have to be Little Big’s fantastic Uno.
