This Sunday I’m not going to be the one ranting. There’s way too many people doing that already at the moment and I’d just like to say…Get over it people! The Eurovision has only ever been a laugh and we’ve been taking it way too seriously for way too long!
People, some of them worryingly close to home, are calling the latest developments an insult to our national pride. I mean, get a grip. It’s been a long time coming and what happened to your sense of humour!
For anyone reading this and wondering what the hell I’m rambling about, Ireland every year gets really excited about the Eurovision Song Contest (if you really don’t know what I’m talking about the Eurovision is a contest that takes place once a year where acts from all over Europe, together with Turkey and Israel compete to see who can produce the best bit of europop. Ireland has been very good at this in the past. We’ve won seven times – more than anyone else. Consequently we tend to get VERY excited about it).
The problem is that in recent years things have changed somewhat. Eurovision has always been the home of blatantly geopolitical voting but since various countries from the more eastern reaches of Europe started taking part voting for your mates has become a bit of a problem.
Since the new countries joined in, the old guard, including France, Germany and the UK have found it hard to even qualify. The winner is usually from Eastern Europe. It’s got to the stage where France and Germany are threatening to withdraw funding and stop taking part all together.
As a seven times winner and something of a legend in Eurovision circles Ireland has something of a reputation to uphold (well until we started winning at rugby it was pretty much the only thing we were any good at). But there seemed to be a bit of a problem selecting winners – or even a half decent song.
People used to joke about it. The comedy show Father Ted even did an entire show on the premise that this was simply because if we entered a half decent song we’d be sure to win and it was just too expensive to play host to Europe all the time.
Problem is that was about a decade ago and the joke’s wearing a bit thin. When last years entry came last, narrowly avoiding the dreaded “nul pointes” people started really thinking seriously about what act to send this year.
They were thinking so seriously that when the final shortlist was unveiled by the national broadcaster we ended up with a genuine controversy. Last night the nation voted and despite loud booing from the audience the act of choice was the one that caused all the fuss.
And this is it…
Dustin the Turkey started out way back in the late 80s, long before the Celtic Tiger took up residence and we forgot what to do with dodgy politicians. He was on a children’s show called The Den…or more correctly back in those days…Dempsey’s Den.
The main attraction back then were a pair of furry aliens called Zig and Zag but a certain Turkey was what got all the students watching.
Even in the early days Dustin was pretty political. He was a dodgy builder who drove a Hiace van, came from the more working class northside of Dublin and named after Dustin Hoffman. But he would say anything. The Den must have been one of the very few children’s programmes in the world that had jokes about political bribes. And he hasn’t changed as he showed on Sky news yesterday.
Dustin’s popularity grew to the stage that his name has been used as a protest vote in both general and presidential elections. As far as I know he’s even run for Europe, or threatened to anyway.
That’s probably what’s upsetting so many people. The Eurovision was something we were good at. It should be treated with respect. Yeah right! It’s always been a laugh and high camp. There have always been novelty acts. Just because Abba started off in the Eurovision does not mean it’s a viable starting point for a musical career.
The fact that we still have people making a career out of the fact they won back in the 80s is not something to be applauded. I mean to put things in context, the Irish version of Pop Idol was run to select the Eurovision entry…maybe this is why we’ve inflicted so many boy bands on the world!
Dustin is simply doing what he’s always done. Ranting about it being an insult to our national pride is silly! We came last in 2007, that was way more embarrassing than entering a turkey puppet with a sense of humour.
People are getting excited the way they used to in the good old days when we used to win and Father Ted was still on. Hell, we may even win! But all in all the amount of vitriol that’s been spewed over this is ludicrous.
Winning the Eurovision seven times was not a magic spell that brought about our prosperity. Just because we put on a good show for a glorified talent contest did not persuade people to invest in Ireland or give us any extra credibility where it counted…it just showed we were a good laugh. Well that’ s all we’re doing this time.
It’s going to be a long time till May.
Added: 26th February
Seeing all the pictures of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova receiving their Oscars for best song on Sunday night really puts this all into perspective. Anyone who thinks the Eurovision is the pinnacle of Irish musical achievment really does need their head examined.
