Lost in Europe: Eurovision 2008

So last night, I had the joy of experiencing Eurovision 2008. For those American types who like me have no idea what this is, allow me to explain. Eurovision is a multinational talent music contest conducted every year with representatives from a series of countries throughout Europe, Russia and (strangely) Israel. Basically, it's like American Idol for the European continent. However it only takes place on one night. So all these countries hold their preliminary contests locally (although some apparently just pluck a group out of the ether) and the on a single night, they broadcast the performances throughout Europe. Each country is then allowed to vote (but they can't vote for their own country) and a winner is named.

We watched a broadcast of the contest commentated thstrange talent contest commentated by a very funny British newscaster, who filled the gaps between performances with snarky commentary on the trend of Eastern Block countries only voting for each other, thus the ongoing run Eastern European countries coming out tops. In the meantime I was treated to performances featuring strange Pirates of the Caribbean singing, overly plastic surgeried Swedish performers, Retro Frenchmen and a very strange Spanish man who was truly terrible. Most of the songs were in English, but a few groups bucked the trend by singing in their native language. At the end of the performances, the lines are opened up and people from all the participating countries are allowed to vote for 30 minutes before the winner is finally announced.

At the end of it all, the winner is Russian singer Dima Bilan who I believed my lovely commentator referred to as Michael Flatley on rollerskates.