Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest finished with a victory for Finland, an act described in the pre-contest hype as a “death-metal” group, who sounded more to me like Bon Jovi-in-search-of-a-tune. The UK finished 19th out of 24, although doing too well probably does no good for anyone’s credibility. The Scandinavian countries voted for other Scandinavians, and the Balkan countries voted for other Balkans. Former eastern-block nations unaccountably voted for Russia. The UK and Ireland offered generous votes for one another. My favourite was Latvia, a weird vocal-only group who sounded like they should be appearing in a seaside-tent variety show for children rather than in a pop music competition, and all the better for it.

Here’s where you can find more news of the event and, by clicking the video button at the top right of the link, you can hear some of the highlights.
If you’re not from Europe and have no idea what I’m talking about, clicking on the link will confirm what you may have suspected, that Europeans can unite only in madness.