Damn You Eurovision.

With 36 nations split across two semi-finals and 6 nations qualifying automatically for Saturday's (26/5/12) grand final it is simply not possible for me to comment on all the entries in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in detail. So here are some of the ones that have caught my eye so far;

Greece's song "Aphrodisiac" is sung by an attractive young Cheryl Cole lookalike in a short skirt so it's pretty obviously a Greek plea for stimulation - economic or otherwise. What's less obvious though is while I'm not accusing anyone of plagiarism Greece's entry sounds similar to the 2002 Holly Valance hit "Kiss Kiss" which started out life as the Turkish song "Simank." Therefore the Greek entry seems to be something of a peace offering to Turkey. Greek Cyprus' entry "La La Love" is similar in style to the Greek entry in a Cypriot effort to show the Turks how close Cyprus feels to Greece however it is not clear if the Cypriots understand that the Greek effort is taking an unusually friendly stance towards Greece. Although considered one of the favourites the last thing the Greeks want is to win because they simply can't afford to host the 2013 competition. The battle of influence between the European Union (EU) and Russia following the Eurzone's recent troubles is a major theme of many of the entries from the Balkan/former USSR states.

Israel's entry is the 1960's themed "Time" by Izabo. This is a nod towards the 1968 "Paris Spring" that became the "Summer of Love." Driven by student protests this was a hugely exciting time in western-European politics with the cauldron of radical ideas going on to form the basis for much of liberal, left political thinking over the next half-century. Although it ended violently with many of the 1960's radicals going on to become the terrorists of the 1970's (Red Army Faction etc) it is this spirit of revolution that many in the west have been trying to impose on the middle-east by dubbing 2011's revolutions "The Arab Spring." The Israeli stage set was dominated by images of clocks. This is both a reference to my apparent obsession with time (I'm a big theme in Eurovision 2012) and to the old Afghan Taliban expression. "They [the occupiers] may have the watches but we [the terrorists] have the time." Israel's baby-brained keyboard player looks a bit like British comedy actress Rebecca Front who although not Jewish plays a north-London Jewish mother in the Simon Amstell sit-com "Grandma's House" shown on BBC2. Combined all these things mean that their 2012 Eurovision entry is Israel trying to tell the world that the proposed NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan along with all the revolutions/civil wars in Israel's backyard has got them really stressed at the moment.

By way of light relief Austria's entry "Woki mit dem Popo" by Trackshittaz is built around the central idea that lots of everyday German words sound like English swear words. See also the Austrian village of Fucking. To emphasise the coarseness the Austrian entry was backed on stage by three pole-dancers who although stayed fully clothed had special lights on their costumes to draw attention to their lady-parts. One of those dancers looked a bit like ex-Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt who has gone on to become a favourite guest of live(ish) British lifestyle TV shows like "The One Show", "Sunday Brunch" and "Loose Women" because she's got a fun personality and always says yes. This interest in British lifestyle TV shows is something of a theme of this years Eurovision (see Latvia and Moldova) because if Eurovision acts want to sell records in the UK market they will need to get on this type of show in order to promote themselves. Kimberly Wyatt though is a special case because as a US citizen Britain has been encouraging people to ask questions about her work visa status in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. This is because in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics the Pussycat Dolls had a worldwide hit called "When I grow up" the video for which was hard to avoid and featured Ms Wyatt doing her signature dance move the vertical splits. At the time I was hugely interested in the limits of mobility of the human hip joint because my grandmother was undergoing hip-replacement surgery. Therefore I developed a bit of a weird fascination with Kimberly Wyatt and "weird" was also the conclusion of every orthopaedic surgeon, nurse, physiotherapist and occupational therapist that saw the music video.

As for the hosts Azerbaijan's rather repressive government and strong British ally is using the event to discourage it's citizens from smoking tobacco. Having dubbed Azerbaijan "The Nation Of Fire" they've made the slogan for Eurovision 2012 "Light Your Fire!" It is this message that is flashed up on screen every time the TV presentation goes to commercial break not so subtly mocking any smokers who had waiting until that point to go outside and have a cigarette. They have though got all the performances including the automatic qualifiers up on their website so I might get away with watching the football tomorrow before switching over in time for the results.