I tell you now, this cat is going into hiding away from any TV or radio and especially away from She Who Must Be Obeyed Editor and her trusty butler.
All they seem to bang on about for the past three weeks is the Eurovision Song Contest. I even heard them discussing THEIR outfits for the big event and they are only watching it on TV! I will need my sunglasses on for the Spandex on show.
And there was a time when to avoid the Eurovision Song Contest, you just made alternative arrangements for Saturday night.
Now you have to avoid Tuesdays and Wednesdays as it has morphed into the European Championships with semi-finals. The BBC has been banging on about it for weeks now, basking in the glow of being awarded host broadcaster status with this week’s breakfast TV taken over by this tawdry spectacle.
Let’s get down to basics, it masquerades as a ‘song contest’ but it isn’t. The type of song they sing in Armenia is totally different and incomparable with a song from the UK or France.
On the subject of Armenia, at least we are spared the battle with their neighbour, barely on speaking terms, Azerbaijan, who were denied a final place, and whose previous acts have been a barely concealed attack on the other, and where politics came to the forefront.
But, hey, the organisers won’t allow President Zelensky to speak because it would make it ‘political’! Too late for that, I fear.
It started as an excuse for all the nations connected by the Eurovision network to come together to prove they could, well, come together, that the technology worked and they could beam into Warsaw to hear the crackly sound of the Polish judges give their dziesięć punktów or Paris and their nil point pour les Beefsteaks.
And speaking of awarding points, it has nothing to do with how good the song is, it is all about rewarding your neighbours in the full expectation they will reward you back. It’s political, not musical.
But it has expanded beyond any thought of European. Australia is not, never has been or ever will be in Europe. For that matter neither is Israel or Cyprus but at least they are unlikely to have a song that bangs on about kangaroos, digeridoos, swagmen and billabongs sung by a poor version of Crocodile Dundee wearing a felt hat with corks hanging from it.
Speaking of outfits, would Making Your Mind up have ever won in 1981 if Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston hadn’t whipped their skirts off?
And speaking of winners, no disrespect to Ukraine, but would they have won if Putin hadn’t had his ‘special military operation’? Was their song THAT good?
This year, the UK is hosting in Liverpool and we are represented by a singer who has stated, in the past, she hates this country and is planning to apply for a German passport. Presumably she is singing for her career.
Well, I don’t know if I will love or hate your performance, Ms Muller, because this cat will not be watching.
I will instead sneak She Who Must Be Obeyed Editor’s phone and text a large donation to the Cats Protection League every time she fill her glass with Prosecco while I gorge on my stash of Dreamies and Edgar Alan Poe spins quietly in his grave.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, now, back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
