That said, swimmers tend to be chosen for their stamina and fitness, and relay runners for the dexterity of their handoffs, whereas the criteria that govern the selection of Eurovision contestants seem altogether less exact. You are entered by your proud nation, just as a swimmer or a relay squad is entered for the Olympic Games. Singers and groups don’t win the Eurovision Song Contest. That’s twice what you get with the average Super Bowl.
#God hand game flatten tv#
The TV audience for the 2002 final, held in Tallinn, Estonia, was around two hundred million. The EBU still runs the show, and what a show it is, broadcast live to every competing country and beyond Australia can’t get enough of it, though America has yet to catch the fever. The choice of Switzerland was not a random one it was the base of the EBU, whose president, Marcel Bezençon, dreamed up the idea of a contest that would not be a fight-a melodic antidote to the blood-soaked, strictly non-singing calamity that had ended a decade before. When the first Eurovision Song Contest was held, in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956, only seven countries took part. Think of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, add a blast of dry ice, and you get the idea. One of these is always the host country, in this case Norway the four others-France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom-go through unchallenged, on the highly artistic ground that their respective broadcasters pour the largest contributions into the coffers of the EBU.
#God hand game flatten plus#
There were seventeen countries in each semifinal, plus five that swept straight through to the final, bypassing the quicksand of the semis. This year, there were thirty-nine countries taking part, including some, such as Turkey or Azerbaijan, that you would not, with atlas in hand, immediately define as European admission is granted to any willing member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). In fact, it is an intra-European affair, held annually among a jostling mass of rival nations. It is a singing competition, in Europe, on television. The Eurovision Song Contest is pretty much what it says on the label. That itch has long been a notorious side effect of Eurovision, and anyone who grew up in Europe, as I did, with a television in the house, can never quite shake off the affliction, just as old Africa hands used to suffer malarial twinges for the rest of their lives. Trying to get them out of your head is like trying to dislodge an ant that has crawled into your ear canal. Shalalie shalala, it’s there when I get up in the morning. Shalalie shalala, I can’t get it out of my head
Shalalie shalala ik sta d’r ’s morgens mee op.Translated into what one hesitates to call English, this means: Shalalie shalala Shalalie shalala ’t gaat niet uit m’n kop No less dramatically, those of us who cling to Europe as the cradle of the Enlightenment, and who therefore applaud each triumph for probity and justice, went to bed with lighter hearts, knowing that never again, in public, would we have to listen to this: The euro rose 1.6 per cent against the dollar, the Spaniards having stanched, for the moment, any spread of Greece’s economic woe to the fifteen other countries-commonly banded together as the eurozone-that have adopted the euro as their currency. In Oslo, meanwhile, an eighteen-year-old girl named Sieneke, from the Netherlands, singing “Ik Ben Verliefd (Sha-la-lie),” was voted out at the semifinal stage of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. In Madrid, the Spanish parliament voted to approve an austerity package, proposed by the ruling Socialist Party, which is designed to cut the country’s budget deficit by fifteen billion euros ($18.4 billion). Two decisions, at different ends of the continent, did much to calm the nerves of anyone perturbed by its recent crisis of confidence. Art by Jimmy Turrellīy any measure, Thursday, May 27th, was an important day for the stability of Europe. A contest, not a fight: opposite, clockwise from top, 2010 contestants representing Lithuania, Serbia, Armenia, and Spain.