God, but I wish I was joking.
Let’s start with 551 for 6 declared. They surprised me really quite a lot by putting together a very engaging little performance – they start standing off in a line, they wander around as they’re singing, form a little crowd towards the end to start getting the audience clapping along (which even this cynical crowd did, astonishingly), and then reform their original line for the big finish. It’s obviously still something out of the Siegel/Meinunger Let’s All Be Lovely catalogue, but it’s genuinely likeable and far from the worst we’ll see in the final.
Actually, I think it’s about 45 seconds from the worst we’ll see in the final, because Moldova’s a car-crash. It still fades out with the Arse talking rubbish over the top, but with the addition of them all singing “Arsenium for the new millennium”, or something equally bizarre. She’s got long blonde hair and looks really nice if you like that kind of thing though, so it has possibilities if Europe turns the volume down and puts a bit of cardboard over half the screen.
Oh, as for the staging – they have a great big thin fabric screen shaped like the sail of a boat which has a hole in it that they walk through and walk round. There’s also going to be a little mini scooter involved in some way, but really, the assembled press corps had abandoned ship before they brought that into play. It’s so close to being a decent little modern track, yet at the same time it’s such a long way away.
Swiss woman representing the International Organisation of Lovely People has just told the Swiss press conference how great it is to be sharing this experience with all these wonderful talented people and Ralph. The assembled press corps is currently picking itself off the floor.
I guess I’d better summon up more of my reserves of resolve and steely determination to go and see Eddie Butler and Cosmos. Why DO I do it to myself?