I know it is very cheesy, and very uncool for me to admit this, but I love the Eurovision Song Contest and look forward to it every year. Of course I don't take it seriously, the majority of the songs are simply terrible, but I love the spectacle and the myriad of cultural differences when it comes to entertainment and music.
Now the contest has become a barometer for national popularity. With so many people from so many countries voting it has always been the case that certain countries will favour their neighbours: It has always been the case that the Nordics stick together, as do the Balkans. But I was interested and not a little disappointed to see that in the voting this year those factions were even more pronounced than ever.
What was even more interesting is how unpopular the UK is in our ever expanding European Union....Poland can always rely on Hungary to give them a vote and Serbia can always rely on Belarus. The UK can't rely on anyone (perhaps ireland)..we clearly have no friends.
I'm not saying our entry deserved a lot of votes but it was certainly a lot better than many of the others and didn't deserve to come 2nd last. We clearly, in our stance over Iraq, have alienated the majority of our fellow European countries. What I don't understand is if we are so disliked, why do so many of the people from those countries want to live here?
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