Eurovision 2017

The Boy with the Ice Cream Face...Isaiah Firebrace - A Song for Australia and Europe

Kiev, May 14, 2017

The Varnished Culture can’t reveal the results of our unique Eurovision drinking games, but we can report upon our patented ‘Euro-Points’ results.

You’ll recall that Euro points are given for:

1. Dry ice

2. Contortionists

3. Bad Dancing

4. Any item of Clothing being Torn Away

5. Dwarves

6. Angel Wings or Mock Flying

7. Clowns

8. Piano as Furniture

9. Bearded Ladies

10. Puffs of Smoke

This year was marked by really bad dancing (Norway even had a cavorting gimp), poor retro fashions, the odd dopey prop (Belarus perched on a fake hovercraft; a chap from Moldova pretended to play a sax; pre-final favourite Italy featured a dancing ape and a backing chorus dressed like Wiggles) and mediocre songs. The Hungarian entry, warbled by a chubby fellow in a gold-braided toreador jacket and man-bun, was P’s choice (and friend Grant’s) for worst song of the night, but competition was fierce. (Our special Euro-Gold-Commode went to Azerbaijan, combining a truly awful song with the spectacle of a horse-headed man up a ladder). And the most euro-points were accumulated by that great country, closely followed by Hungary and Belarus.

The night was opened by a muscle-boy from Israel with T-shirt and no sleeves, and the fashion crimes escalated throughout. Armenia sang the most interesting song but undermined that with incredibly bad pants; the Netherlands had a Three Degrees style trio in non-matching spangled pant suits; Croatia wheeled-out a pint-sized Pavarotti; Ukraine tried a rock ‘n’ roll number (bad call, druzi!) and Romania combined toy soldiers with yodelling. It seemed to this viewer that the only ones taking it seriously were Denmark, Australia, UK, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden, France and Bulgaria, but we expect that the real success of this event is, nobody takes it seriously.

Oh, and by the way, Salvador Sobral won. Portugal broke her Eurovision duck with a milk-and-water Cole Porter knock-off called Amar Pelos (Love for Both). This unlikely piece won both the jury and televotes, so we can’t grumble like we did last year, when Australia’s Dami Im was unfairly deprived of victory. But it did cause The Varnished Culture to renounce love for both because (despite friend Melanie’s opinion to the contrary) it was not in my view worthy of surviving the semi-final. However, it at least differed to a degree from the rest of the bland, by-the-numbers ditties.

Australia’s Isaiah Firebrace did his nation credit with the average song It Don’t Come Easy, but though he was the jury’s 4th best, the popular vote bumped him down to 9th. Europe’s teenage girls must have been otherwise engaged that evening.