May blog

Eurovision 2012 – 26 May

Nul points or The Grand National, but with singing?

You might be thinking, ‘pah, that Eurovision thing is not for men like me’ but beware. If you do decide to join the other 125 million Eurovision fans (yes really) worldwide and give it a whirl on 26 May you might just find it becomes an annual event in your household.

Why not make an evening of it. Invite a few like minded souls round and throw a bit of a Eurovision party.

Here at Rockface HQ, Eurovision stays firmly in the 1970s, however hard they try to ‘rebrand’ it, and party themes should follow suit. Dig out those flares and platforms and go for it!

Food:

We’re fond of cheese and pineapple on sticks (stick into a foil covered potato to be really 70s) and Primula cheese out of a tube on Ritz biscuits. Remember how fantatstic a bit of cheddar and tinned pineapple can taste? If you get hungry later on get pizza delivered. You’re going to be having far too much fun to cook anything.

Drink:

Start with a few cocktails to get everybody in the spirit – see what you’ve got in the cupboard and make your very own Eurovision drink – best not to have more than a couple though or the evening may not be as memorable as you would like…..continue with beers on ice and fizz for the ladies.

Voting:

We always have a sweepstake – think The Grand National but with singing. It’s amazing how a bit of competition turns the most apathetic of people into immediate Eurovision fans.

Put all the countries into a hat and then everybody picks until you run out of countries. Everyone sticks a fiver into the empty hat and winner takes all. Easy. You should be able to download all the finalists from the Eurovision website. If not, most newspapers will have the runners and riders in their Saturday issues.

So who is flying the flag for the UK this year? Hmmmmm. 75 year old crooner Engelbert Humperdink (originally from Leicester), that’s who and he’ll be singing a ‘soaring ballad’ apparently. We can’t wait.

Eurovision factoids:

The Eurovision facebook page has 454,000 fans

The strapline for this year’s Eurovision, which comes from Baku in Azerbaijan, is ‘Light your Fire’. Well quite...

Ireland has won 7 times, UK 5 times and Norway has been last 10 times

Eurovision started in 1956 and was 50 years old in 2005. To celebrate the 50th anniversary Eurovision decided to hold another competition to find the best ever Eurovision song – it was, of course, Waterloo by ABBA (who performed and won in 1974 and went on to sell 370 million records). ABBA did not attend the show.

UK wins: