The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest: The Grand Final.

Back in August 2014 a petty thug named Micheal Brown attacked a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, US and got himself killed. Up and down the land college aged white girls who were desperate to get back at their middle-class parents rushed to protest Brown's death. They did this, well, they did this because their drug dealer told them to. However they justified it to themselves by romanticising the extreme violence and misery that plagues America's black communities as necessary for the creative inspiration for whatever tatty art school project or shoddy mixtape they were working on.

This is of course a nonsense because crime, particularly violent crime actually has nothing but an extremely corrosive effect gradually wearing away and destroying everything that it touches. In fact numerous studies have shown that when black Americans are rescued from their ghettos in places like Baltimore and Los Angeles their health immediately improves not only in terms of lower rates of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse but also in terms of physical conditions such as diabetes and hypertension that leads to heart disease.

To see the effect that violence and conflict has on creativity and artistic expression you need look no further then the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest which saw it's grand final last night.

In the year since the last Song Contest the Eurovision area has more or less had it's heart ripped out by the civil war in Ukraine. As a result this year's contest was little more then a procession of dark, Gothic dirges. Gone was the camp, glittery and frankly quite silly discussions of a variety of political and social issues that affect the Eurovision community to be replaced by a stark sectarian headcount to show on which side of the conflict everybody stood.

As the titular guardians of the Minsk Agreement that's intended to end Ukraine's war it fell on Belarus to set the tone.  They were represented by "Uzari" who is unashamedly a pop-music producer and "Malmuna" who is a classically trained violinist. Back at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and the subsequent Eurovision Song Contest that acted as something of a debrief the difference between low, pop-culture and high, classical culture was used as a way to distinguish between American and Russian influence.

Uzari and Malmuna claim that despite their vastly different musical backgrounds they were united by a shared love of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films and in the video Uzari wears Elven-style false ears in direct nod to the films. Peter Jackson is a New Zealander and these films were largely shot in New Zealand. For the first time this year Australia competed in the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite having a shared language, a shared Monarch and a European Union (EU) style borderless trade agreement Australia and New Zealand are in fact two, seperate nation states. However I think in Eurovision terms they count as "close enough."

Although people like Joss Whedon have really advanced the genre Sci-Fi/fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings are generally sneered at as a low form of art. Essentially they tend to make a few extremely basic observations about the human condition and then really hammer them home for the benefit of the - shall say - socially awkward. As such the genre can be used as an example of the low American culture which many of Russia's neighbours seem to have become obsessed with leading to a lot of conflict including Ukraine's civil war. In fact there's a rather famous story that during the 2009 US-led "Green Revolution" in Iran all Iranian TV stations broadcast all the Lord of the Rings films one after the other in an effort to bore the protesters into submission.

What people like Joss Whedon have managed to do is transcend the genre to use very fast dialogue to explore very complicated elements of philosophy and the human condition. For example in the show "Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" the two lab technicians are constantly referred to as; "Fitz Simmons." It takes you a while to work out if they are a guy called "Fitz" and a girl called "Simmons" or whether they're a married couple who've hyphenated their surname to form "Fitz-Simmons."

Once you've worked out that they're not a married couple this young, handsome black character called "Trip" appears and Simmons seems quite taken with him. This of course brings in all the issues of why middle-class white girls are so intrigued by black men sexually. However from the moment Trip arrives whenever Simmons starts to suggest some complicated scientific idea or plan Fitz automatically objects. This leads to lots of dialogue where you're not quite sure if Fitz is genuinely objecting to a bad idea that's far too complicated to understand or whether he's expressing his jealously at Simmons' apparent attraction to Tripp.

This type of highly coded artistic expression is something that Eurovision very much approves of and actively seeks to encourage. As a result there were quite a few S.H.I.E.L.D references this year. However it is the type of thing that censors in authoritarian states disapprove of. For example China bans any film that features time travel in case their censors miss any hidden metaphor. At the Cannes film festival which coincides with this year's Eurovision Iran have entered a films whose name escapes me but is described as a "Zombie Cowboy Sci-Fi fantasy.  

The Belorussian song "Time" intendeds to make the point that although a cease-fire has been reached in Ukraine there is still a lot of work to be done to fully implement the Minsk agreement and the more time that is wasted the more thunderous damage is done. As Ukraine's ethnically Russian population are undoubtedly being disproportionally impacted by the conflict most of the video shows Matuma - representing Russian culture - slowly being buried by the sand in a giant egg timer. However in the final sequence it flips with Uzari - representing American culture - becoming trapped in the egg timer. The message being that both sides in the conflict need to hurry up and fully implement the Minsk agreement because the current frozen conflict is killing them both.

Belarus were of course voted out in the first semi-final which could be viewed as anti-Russian sentiment. However my first instinct on seeing the Belorussian entry was to feel a bit sorry for them because they only provided the venue for the Minsk agreement. The actual negotiation was handled by Poroshenko on behalf of Kiev, France, Germany and Russia. This format is known as the "Normandy Four" having been established at the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Unlike in TV competitions such as "American Idol" or "X-Factor" failing to qualify in Eurovision doesn't mean that you are suddenly banished from the competition. Instead you're allowed to mingle quietly in the background away from the spotlight.


At around 12:20 on 24/5/15 (UK date) that seems a fair opening and I'll be back to add to what's looking like a minimum two day job.

Edited at around 14:30 on 24/5/15 (UK date) to tidy up the above and add; 

Although it certainly feels far longer I have spent most of the past week trying to disrupt the US' various attempts to muscle in on Eurovision. Their intention was to use the sectarian headcount over Ukraine to better marshal their forces in order to tear up the Minsk agreement and launch into a fresh onslaught against eastern Ukraine. Obviously then I am not going to assist them by listing how everyone lined up. However I think it is safe to have a look at who you could consider the usual suspects.

On Russia's side there was;

Russia: I know, shocking. The main message behind Russia's entry was them politely expressing their displeasure at the raw deal they tend to get - particularly at Eurovision where the gay-rights issues makes Russia getting roundly booed an annual event regardless of what else is going on.

Their singer "Polina Gagarina" is Russian through and through but lived in Greece as a child so speaks Greek fluently. Greece is a nation that more or less has a normal relationship with Russia with trade and people travelling back and forth. The US which has more of an insane hatred for rather then a normal relationship with Russia are not happy about this and have been putting extensive pressure on debt-ridden Greece to break of relations with Russia. During the contest this pressure manifested itself through the Savopoulos murder and arson case in Washington DC's "Ambassadors Row" neighbour which appears to have begun as a robbery/blackmail.

Polina's last name "Gagarina" is a variant of "Gagarin" as in "Yuri Gagarin" - the first man in space. Drawing this link obviously highlights Russia's scientific achievements such as winning the space race with the US. However if you are into astronomy and space issues you will be aware of a planetary body in Earth's solar system known as "Pluto." There is great debate as to whether Pluto can be considered a planet or not. One thing that counts against Pluto is that in terms of land-mass it is slightly smaller then Russia. Bringing up this fact helps to remind people that Russia is an absolutely massive country stretching from Finland and Ukraine in the west all the way to Japan and the US in the east. When you realise that Denmark actually shares a border with Newfoundland in Canada and much of the US' eastern seaboard suddenly the inclusion of Australia in the Eurovision area doesn't seem so unreasonable

Within Russia's vast land-mass there are approximately 143.3 million people of different races, religions genders, sexual orientations and political beliefs. I will agree though that "A Million Voices" scans better as a song lyric. Despite Russia's large and diverse population there is a tendency in the west - particularly in the US - to view Russia as simply one man - Vladimir Putin - a cartoon villain who decides everything that it said and done by any Russian anywhere in the world.

Just how ridiculous this belief is was highlighted recently by the Kredo dance school in Orenburg. During a performance that was supposed to be inspired by the children's story "Winnie the Pooh" a number of teenage dancers - some as young as 12 and 13 - took to the stage in skimpy costumes and started "Twerking" which is a highly sexualised form of dancing popularised by US pop-stars such as Rihanna. I have seen a great many things on the Internet but even I think that went too far. As you may have guessed from Ireland's Molly Sterling's apparent obsession with bee-keeping and honey, US President Barack Obama's announcement that he was going to protect the young bees as they're trafficked between Mexico and Canada, Norway's opening of a special corridor to assist migrating bees and Sweden's references to Butterflies which are pollinators similar to bees this produced quite a talking point at Eurovision.

The best bit was that it wasn't Russia's Eurovision entry nor was it even in the running to be Russia's entry. Instead it was just a local dance school trying to provoke a local discussion about the effect that sexualised US culture has on Russian children. In fact I get the impression we only got to hear about it because the Russian government was hoping we could explain it to them.

So yeah as with Israel despite all the boos Russia is one of those nations that really has to try and dumb it down for Eurovision.

My favourite moment of the Russia entry came right at the end of the video when everyone started throwing around paint powder as they do during the Hindu festival of "Holi." I took this as a reference to a long running argument with a US-based anti-Russian Twitter troll in January/February of this year. At one point I showed him a picture of Russian tanks being paraded through India's capital New Delhi and asked him if it was evidence that India needed to reinforce it's border with Russia to prevent a Russian invasion. We argued about this for the best part of a week but at no point did he pick up on the fact that India doesn't have a border with Russia. That really sums up the intellectual level of the arguments over Ukraine.

Moldova: As with its neighbour Ukraine Moldova has a large ethnically Russia population centred around Transnistria. In a effort to whip Europe up into an anti-Russian frenzy the US has frequently claimed that at any moment Russian troops could invade Ukraine in order to open up a land corridor to annex Transnistria. The only country that doesn't seem at all bothered by this is Moldova because they know that it's nonsense.

As a result their song "I Want Your Love" by Eduard Romonyuta was openly mocking the people like the Ukrainian nationalists who are so desperate for America's love they will believe any old nonsense. This was backed by a video that in a reference to American low culture featured a car chase that could have come straight out of a tacky Hollywood action movie.

The "Cops & Robbers" theme of the video was an attempt to mock the current waves of anti-police violence that the US is suffering from. Most of this violence stems from the Black Power/Pan-Africanist movement of the late-1960's/early 1970's that's encapsulated by "Malcolm X." With a little bit of help from Qaddafi in Libya this is something that the KGB just made up in order to unite Communist groups like the African National Congress (ANC) in order to de-stabilise US allied African nations and the US itself.

The fact that the Cold War has long ended but the US are still doing this to themselves because even President Obama actually believes it has got more then a few old Cold War dogs laughing their heads off in their armchairs.

Moldova was of course knocked out at the first semi-final and I covered them in more detail that the time. This clearly was a result of anti-Russian sentiment however with the US hammering on the police issue throughout the week including the Freddie Grey indictment Eurovision was certainly made to pay for its bigotry because as you may have guessed from all the references to bubbles there is a convention that at Eurovision you only talk about Eurovision.

Hungary: Their song "War's For Nothing" is so self-explanatory it seemed dangerously close to breaking Eurovision's "No overtly political messages" rule. The message was reinforced by the video that showed the singer "Boggie" walking into a city square which was meant to represent Kiev's Maidan Square to sing of peace. Over the past 18 months or so far too many people - particularly US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt - have used Maidan to sing a song of hate.

Czech Republic: This one surprised me because the Czechs are far from a traditional Russian ally. Although they were never formally part of the Soviet Union Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet Bloc and in 1968 the Soviets sent in tanks to brutally crush a popular uprising that was known as "The Prague Spring." This actually led to a famous moment in Eurovision history when this year's hosts Austria had their entry fronted by Czech singer Karel Gott in order to send the message that Eurovision stood with the people of Czechoslovakia.

"Marta Jandova" who represented the Czech Republic alongside "Vaclav Noid Barta" has very strong links with Germany having presented TV shows there and performed the 2011 Women's Football World Cup anthem. This seemed to be the Czechs signalling their confidence in Germany and its role in the Minsk agreement. The song "Hope Never Dies" seemed to be expressing the Czechs frustration at Ukraine and it's former Soviet Bloc supporters. The message being; "We know exactly what you're going through with your desire for revenge because we've been through it ourselves. However we grew up and let it go. We think you should too."

Although I obviously need to provide some order to my ramblings I wouldn't actually have classed either the Hungarian nor Czech entries as pro-Russian so much as generally expressing regret at Ukraine and the mess they've got themselves into. However such is the frenzied and paranoid state that the Ukrainian nationalists and their allies have been whipped up into any questioning of anything they're doing - no matter how reasonable - is almost automatically dismissed as 'Russian Propaganda.'

At around 16:15 on 24/5/15 (UK date) I'll try and be back later to cover the main pro-US faction or "The Baltics + Georgia" as they're more commonly known.

Edited at around 18:00 on 24/5/15 (UK date) to tidy up the above and add;

On the American side there was;

Georgia: As I mentioned during the semi-finals there was really nothing to this. Georgia was simply re-stating its desire to start a war between NATO and Russia in order to punish Russia for the brutal days of the Soviet Union. As you may have guessed from Georgia's most famous son Josef Stalin Georgians can be a little nuts. The song stole it's title "Warrior" from Malta's 2015 entry and it's sword wielding warrior queen motif from Israel's 2014 entry and didn't benefit from either comparison.

Latvia: They were represented by "Aminata Savadogo" whose African heritage leaves her resembling the US pop-star Rihanna. In an effort to more closely resemble her idol Savadogo has even had a massive tattoo done across her sternum between her breasts similar to Rihanna's "Isis" tattoo. I know some pretty hardcore Rihanna fans but I think even they would consider that going a bit too far. Through the selection of Savadogo Latvia was trying to make clear their utter devotion to the US and it's Rihanna obsession.

The song "Love Injected" along with Savadogo's sub-Saharan African heritage was a reference to Russia's growing HIV/AIDS problem which according to the Russians own figures could see 2 million new infections over the next five years. Russia's problem stems from very high levels of the use of intravenous drugs such as heroin amongst people who share their needles. Another part of the problem is that where in most of the world medical blood tests are administered by drawing blood with a hypodermic needle which is used once in Russia the traditional way is to cut the skin with a scalpel - which is often reused - and allow the blood to flow out under it's own pressure.

However amongst a section of Russia's 143.3 million citizens there is a desire to consider HIV/AIDS as a "gay plague" and blame it all on homosexuals. This of course won't solve the problem because it doesn't correctly identify the problem. This was the point the Russia government was making when it announced the details of its HIV/AIDS problem just before competition began.

Latvia though isn't interested in that. Instead all they're interested in is that Eurovision has a very large gay following. Therefore Latvia calculated that it could claim homophobia in an effort to whip the Eurovision crowd up into a massive anti-Russian frenzy.

Latvia also very carefully co-ordinated their entry with the US who supplemented it with the release of "Bad Blood" by "Taylor Swift." Lyrics like; "You made a really deep cut - And, baby, now we got bad blood" being incredibly specific to Russian blood testing procedures.

Obviously this very close co-ordination with a non-competitor nation is not really in the spirit of Eurovision and poses the question of whether Latvia is any longer a nation state or simply a vassal for the US.

Estonia: Their entry "Goodbye to Yesterday" by "Elina Borg and Stig Rasta" also made use of the Taylor Swift "Bad Blood" motif in the video that supported it. However it was primarily a break up song about a mis-matched musical odd couple. This seemed to express a desire by Estonia to follow Ukraine's example and purge the nation of it's ethnically Russian population. Obviously though they intend to blame the ethnic minority for bringing the break up on themselves.

Lithuania: Their entry "This Time" by "Monika Linkyle and Vaidas Baumila" was a clear attempt to mock the Belorussian suggestion that Kiev hurry up and fully implement the Minsk agreement. With lyrics such as "Round and round and round and round we go" they were also mocking the back and forth of the relationship with Russia because after all it's impossible that Lithuania could be responsible for any of the problems.

They chose to show their undying commitment to the US by using this Time Magazine article comparing the "First Kiss" commercial for US clothing company "WREN" to an awkward first date; http://time.com/21332/why-that-first-kiss-video-now-feels-like-a-bad-first-date/ Also the video featured a very pointed shot of someone drinking from a bottle of Coca Cola. Along with McDonalds and Levi jeans Coca Cola was one the big brands that people in the Soviet Union aspired to.

So although I disagreed with the point of view expressed by what I term the Baltic trio I think Lithuania's execution was the best. Unfortunately they spoilt it all with a gay-rights pink background to their stage show which featured a tedious gay kiss during the semi-final. Although they were trying to win over the gay vote by showing how much more gay friendly they are then the Russians what I heard was; "Gays aren't equal, they're clearly inferior and we can make them do whatever we like."

Sweden: Also a Baltic nation Sweden presented us with what was undoubtedly the most vile of all this year's Eurovision entries and possible one of the most morally repugnant entries in competition history.

Although it has been rather overshadowed by ISIL's atrocities what has been going on in Ukraine has been a full-blown civil war. One area where the fighting has been particularly brutal has been at Donetsk airport. Following an ill-advised assault at the behest of the US back in May 2014 a group of pro-Kiev troops became trapped at Donetsk airport eventually being rescued when the Minsk agreement was finally implemented in February 2015. During this time the trapped fighters there became known as "The Cyborgs" and celebrated as a proud symbol of Slavic resistance to Russia aggression.

This celebration of the Cyborgs permeated all aspects of life in the Kiev controlled areas of Ukraine with even school children being encouraged to draw pictures and posters of their exploits. Sweden's entry "Heroes" by Mans Zelmerlow which was accompanied on stage by childlike drawings was a clear celebration of the Cyborgs role in the conflict - particularly their propaganda role.

To my mind the Cyborgs highlight everything that it currently wrong in Ukraine because you have an entire population - particularly children - being taught that their countries problems aren't being caused by say epic corruption, inefficient subsidies on coal mining or even tax policy. Instead they're being taught that all the problems are being caused by an ethnic minority and once that ethnic group has been exterminated all the countries problems will be solved. Personally I'm not seeing a huge difference with ISIL and their infamous Cubs of the Caliphate.

Obviously Sweden will attempt to argue that rather then celebrating it they were simply raising the issue for discussion. Few will believe them though because along with the US Sweden has been, by far, one of the worst instigators of violence in Ukraine. For example in January 2015 a woman came forward to claim that thousands of Russian soldiers had been killed fighting in Ukraine. This was widely reported in the western media who chose to ignore the fact she was a well established agent of Sweden's intelligence service and the story was a complete fabrication.

Similarly in October 2014 Sweden claimed that a Russian submarine had violated its territorial waters and launched a massive search. Sweden's neighbours such as Norway and Finland joined in the search but soon started to point out that there was absolutely no indication of a submarine. So Sweden claimed that the submarine had sailed away and the search was called off. In April of this year Sweden declared that they had made a mistake and the submarine had in fact been a Norwegian civilian fishing boat. We are still waiting for them to formally admit that they made the entire thing up to justify more aggression against Russia.

With a lot of the political nuance of the discussion no doubt being lost on the wider audience by celebrating the Cyborgs I would go so far as to say that Sweden was trying to trigger a Kiev attack in violation of the ceasefire in order to cause the ceasefire to collapse. Sure enough on the day of the 1st semi-final (19/5/15) pro-Kiev forces on the Donetsk line got a little over-excited and violated the cease-fire with a massive artillery barrage.

Therefore it is a bit of a mystery to me how Sweden received any points let alone won this year. Obviously there are certain nations in the Eurovision community such as Poland who allied themselves with Nazi Germany and very much support Sweden's position on ethnic cleansing. Then there are nations such as the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands who want to see the EU destroy itself. They see a futile confrontation with Russia as a way to achieve this end so will also support Sweden regardless of the death toll.

I think what really carried Sweden over the line though was the public vote. They actually released this song across Europe a couple of months ago where it carried no political significance and simply resembled a budget version of globally popular Swedish DJ "Aviici." It clearly carried that support into the competition with voters not understanding the implications of what they were supporting.

19:30 on 24/5/15 (UK date).