A Baltic showdown

A reader reminds us that we have inexplicably failed to blog about Europe's finest cultural event, the Eurovision song contest. We think it's a sign that Ireland has matured a bit that we don't anchor our national self-esteem to the winning and/or hosting of this contest anymore. But there was a time when a more demoralised nation used our bizarre success in the Eurovision as a collective upper. This tendency was evident with the years of euphoria following the victory of Rosemary Scallon, Member of the European Parliament, in 1970. She was not a MEP at the time, and was known as Dana -- a name since confusingly coopted by a transexual Israeli pop star. Ireland then embarked on a seemingly effortless streak of victories in the contest beginning in the mid-1980s -- and since the winner in one year hosts the next year, the national broadcaster RTE came to curse our success. Nevertheless, fortunes were made from the hosting years, most notably because the intermission show one year was used to showcase a then novel act called Riverdance. The rest is (some kind of) history. Anyway, this year's proud host is Latvia, and in a brilliant PR stunt, the contest has attracted much needed controversy via the Russia entry, the supposed teenage lesbian duo called Tatu. They are er...hot favourites to win. Indeed, as the BBC says,

Tatu's manager had asked whether the girls, 18-year-olds Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, had to wear clothes while playing their song in the 48th Eurovision Song Contest.

I don't think he cared what the answer was.