Last night was Madame V’s annual Eurovision party. I inadvertently upped the stakes last year by representing Azerbaijan in a red sari scarf and green Moroccan shoes, along with blue false eyelashes. Mostly, you’re required to dig something out of your wardrobe since the teams are only announced late on Thursday, so that tells you a little about my wardrobe. Books and clothes. That’s all I care about. Well, not that I buy loads of either, but I don’t throw them away. Thus, I have a lot to choose from.
Anyway, the goal posts had definitely been moved this year. I set out for Madame V’s as the representative of Belarus, dressed appropriately. Appropriately meant like a drunk Minsk cross-dressing peasant in a fur-lined hat who’d accidentally fallen into a vat of sari fabric. Of course.
How else would you have represented the country??
I was wearing red and green as per the country flag. Unfortunately, this was not that far removed from last year’s colours, so I decided to go with the green wellies rather than the Moroccan slippers. Coupled with a red dress, a green top, a green scarf, a red scarf, a plate of quiche, a fur-lined hat and a fur-lined cardigan, I was every inch the epitome of Eurovision style.
However, I was outdone by virtually everyone there, from Mme V’s pencil moustache (she was France) to Rachel’s German-cross-dressing-transsexual-meets-1980s-French-housewife and Sarah’s huge fake green eyelashes. Caroline was particularly resplendent in bright-green tights and legwarmers (totally putting my electric blue tights from last year into the shade) complete with green wig and braces. It was an homage to all things dreadful. Never have curtain tie-backs, French housecoats and green pompoms found better use. I think I’m going to start collecting things for next year right this moment.
This year, we had scoring cards, judging the talent on their merits. For me, it was Romania, Greece and Ireland, but none of these three even placed. The winner was Denmark. She didn’t even have a giant carry her on stage. She didn’t have a dancing shadow man in a box and she certainly did not have a dress that was made up of flames. I was most disappointed.
If you haven’t seen Cezar (great Eurovision name) with ‘It’s my life’, it’s like Rhyddian meets Rylan. Nobody else did a falsetto disco anthem dressed as a camp Sauron surrouded by men in barely-there shorts.
If you haven’t seen Greeks in kilts doing full-on Greek dancing WHILST playing the trumpet, you haven’t lived. They’re a kind-of crazy Gogol Bordello meets System of a Down. They’re that crazy.
Finally, Ireland. They came in last and I cannot understand why. To be fair, I don’t think the judges rank contestants on their hot leather-wearing tattooed dancers. Bonnie was a disappointment, of course. England need to up their game. If we can’t beat a Maltese doctor in a waistcoat singing about investment risks then we’re doing something wrong. The Maltese doctor was very charming, that is certain, but it comes to something when out of our island we can’t even find some new talent. Malta only has half a million people living there, so England needs to take a lesson and reconsider its position.
Anyway, as a thank you to Madame V, I gave her a gift of one of the two amazing things I picked up at a giant vide grenier a couple of weeks ago. A Demis Roussos album.
And, for Natasha, representing Azerbaijan in a combination of belly dancing outfits donated by Sarah and Rachel, I gave her a gift of Nana.
Between Demis and Nana, does anybody sum up the kind of wonderful joys European music can bring?
Here’s Demis in all his glory with Quand je t’aime
And here is Nana singing Only Love.
Nana is pretty much the reason I didn’t wear my glasses in 1985, since, having dark hair and a bob cut, one bitch had already called me Fergal Sharkey and I feared for my reputation if it got out that I looked not dissimilar to Nana. Yes, even I bowed to peer pressure and bitchy comments as a youth. Unfortunately, nobody could show me a mirror into the future where nasty girls would be revealed for all their hollowness and superficiality. Rocking a bob in 1985 was not easy when you were surrounded with rich girls with big hair and perms. Now I wish I’d carved out a signature look like she did with her glasses and long straight hair. I’m kind of annoyed I didn’t spend more time thinking about a look that could last a lifetime.
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