Eurovision is nearly here... you probably don't care... but I'll be watching

It's that time of year when people start waving flags and playing clips of Bucks Fizz whipping off skirts and looking for all the world like children's TV presenters. It's Eurovision time and music critics and snob-pop fans will again bemoan the state of music. Failing that, they'll whine "it's pretty pointless now, I mean, all those Eastern Bloc countries will jus' vote each other up anyway... the spirit's gone man, gone." Whatever. Eurovision is here, and like Hollyoaks, I'll tune in whether I like it or not. Belgrade, Tuesday night, is the place to be, unless you're watching it on the telly... like me.

I'm not sure why I persist in watching the Eurovision Song Contest. Sure enuff, I don't like the songs and I don't like the glitzy showbiz pageantry... hang on... maybe I do. Y'see, most music is so determined to bleed cool that it's often found in combat trousers, sat in front of the main stage at Glastonbury waiting for one of the Gods with electric guitars to come and preach a pop sermon. I'm so used to moody fringes and people jumping up and down in a field that, sometimes, jus' sometimes, I need a break. Some of my favourite pop clips in history are filled with razzamatazzamatazz, and the glitz and glamour has been replaced by po-faces and overwhelming earnestness.

In the '60s and '70s, singers used to have their own shows. They tell lame jokes and do a little number and then, with a stroke of genius, invite the latest pop-hippies on the block to the show and get them to play their latest 45 on a specially constructed set. There's a particularly good Chris Farlow clip knocking around that sees his crooning 'Paint It Black' whilst chasin' chickens and climbing into the buckets on the front of farm-yard diggers. It's mind-boggling and the music ain't great, but it sure beats watching Radiohead on Jools Holland feelin' it. TV is determined to show how cool it is... and man, we all know that ain't true. TV is fulla vapid cigar vendors hoping that you click the ads during the break. What we've been missing is things like this...

So, even though this year's Eurovision certainly ain't gonna bring no Bobbie Gentry, I can still get lost in the spectacle. Maybe it's an autism of mine... I just about watch anything on the box that's got some kinda music performance in. I don't listen to the radio so it offers a chance for me to find out what ver kidz are diggin'. In fact, since the demise of the sublime Chart Show, and since the timely culling of Top of the Pops, I ain't got no easy route into the mind of pop no'mo. Eurovision is a ridiculous and camp reflection of what the entire world is listening to. It's the World Cup of pop... and of course, with that, we get efficient Germanic anthemic pop, as well as weird and wonderful trouts which serve as that guy from Zaire who messed up bad against Scotland in the '70s when he came charging outta the wall to clog a freekick standward.

I'm gonna tune in to Eurovision and so should you... it's miles better than the grimacing soaps that are on. Get lost in a fancy and frilly world of pop for an evening. Wogan will be sarcastic and getting drunker by the song. It's dumb, it's spectacularly stupid and candy floss for the eyes.

[Mof Gimmers]