Hooray, it’s Eurovision Song Contest time again! Frank enthuses about the Irish and Montenegrin entries…
Watching the first Eurovision Song Contest semi-final earlier this week, I was pleased to learn that the Irish contestant was accompanied to Malmö for the occasion by his priest.
I learned other things, too, chief among them being that Montenegrin rappers dressed in spacesuits should, by law, be the only people allowed to rap. But let that pass.
I applauded the young Irish crooner for taking his priest with him. It struck me that, just as Gloria Steinem in 1993 instituted “Take Your Daughter To Work Day”, so “Take Your Priest To The Eurovision Song Contest” could be extended to “Take Your Priest To Work Day”. After all, few of us are likely to get the opportunity to perform at Eurovision.
The advantages of taking your priest to work are legion, and also blindingly obvious, so I will not bother to enumerate them. Suffice to say that priests are surprisingly adept at photocopying, refilling the paper cup dispenser, and celebrating mass. Everybody wins.
Unlike Eurovision, where there can be only one winner. My fervent hope is that the Montenegrin rappers in spacesuits come out on top. While waiting for the result, however, one question is playing on my mind. Who, exactly, are those teeming throngs in the live audience, cheering and waving national flags? I ask because I have never, ever met anybody who has attended the Eurovision Song Contest, nor anybody who knows anybody who has. And I am willing to bet that no Dabbleristas know of such a person either. It is a pretty conundrum, to be sure.
The Montenegrin rapper lass seems to be wearing Google glass specs. Interesting.
very important point there re. who goes to these things. Likewise I have never met someone who has been to a royal variety performance
Yeah, knock it on the head….
As I recall the contest was once held in the Harrogate Conference Centre. I lived in Harrogate at the time and even so I still never met anyone who attended the thing or recall the small town being thronged with enthusiastic flag bedecked foreigners. I reckon its all done with mirrors. How else could you find enough folks in the whole of Europe who don’t regard the whole thing as a bad joke. I rather blame Terry Wogan in that if he hadn’t turned it into an annual camp comedy it might have died off sometime in the early 80s.
I see two possible drawbacks to taking your priest to Eurovision. First, he might be tone-deaf. Second, he might not be tone-deaf. The second may not be that great a concern, for the man who can stand Catholic congregational singing can probably stand anything.
Strange to say, I’ve no idea how any of the priests I know are at filling paper cup dispensers. One Oratorian has a Ph.D. in philosophy, so he probably does know how to operate a photocopier.