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Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Friday, May 9, 2014

How to learn to love Eurovision: laugh at foreigners, unite, laugh some more

The joy of the mystifying song competition is that everyone's in on the joke, and nobody is on the outside sneering in

Poll: Does the Eurovision song contest make you feel patriotic?

There is a point in the lives of most European schoolchildren when they come to understand the continent's geo-political history in terms of the Eurovision Song Contest. What better way to comprehend the situation in Cyprus, for example, than through the lens of why Greece never votes for Turkey at Eurovision, even when the Turkish entry is this good? (Turkey withdrew from the competition in 2013, citing the unfairness of politicized voting blocs).

I used to hate Eurovision. Growing up, it struck me as too much of a good thing, like putting sugar on your ice cream, combining all the best bits of figure skating (the costumes), children's television (the earnestness), amateur singing contests (the public humiliation) and, for British audiences at least, the magnetism of the host, one of the few titans of BBC light entertainment who hasn't been hauled up on child molestation charges and who managed to have the same chuckly bonhomie that always made you slightly wonder.

I've got a cake to bake I've got no clue at all (cep, cep, cep, cep, cep kuuku)

I've got a cake to bake and haven't done that before (cep, cep, cep, cep, cep kuuku)

I melted the ice of the polar caps,

Found the raiders of the lost ark,

We've got a cake to bake and got no clue at all

We've got a cake to bake and haven't done that before

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READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com