As a child, whenever anybody mentioned Norway I’d immediately think of ‘nul points’. I imagine that my association of Norway with being inherently unmusical means that the Eurovision Song Contest must have made a real impact. So much so that when golden boy Morten Harket hit an incredibly high note in Take on Me in the mid-1980s, I remember thinking: could he really be Norwegian? Surely not!*

Back then it was a contest of mostly western European nations, although Turkey and Israel also featured. Someone once said to me at the time – rather confusedly – that this was all part of an ‘Islamic-Zionist plot’ to get Israel and Turkey into Europe. So even in those days juvenile minds saw hidden agendas beneath the fake smiles.  

The contest started in 1956 with only 14 entrants. For the next 30 years it remained very  manageable with about 20 participants. In the 1970s I always seemed to be in the Algarve when the contest raged and Portugal (another perennial loser) seemed really exotic. Now, of course, the competition is home to all kinds of places that we would once have dismissed as being ‘over there’, inhabited by people we used to think looked just like Borat. But, guess what, they’re actually pretty similar to us...

If recent history has proved anything it’s that you can’t separate politics from entertainment. Eurovision is supposed to engender harmony.  I don’t think that even ardent fans would pretend that it does  that. In fact, it seems almost de rigueur that whenever an event is billed as  ‘transcending politics’ it does just the opposite. Football – of course – ceases to become a mere game and become a titanic battle to the death once players wear their nation’s colours.

Not that it stops there. Adorn dogs with their nation’s flags, enter them in a competition and suddenly debate about which pooch has the prettiest pout would doubtless have Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel re-fighting the Battle of Britain – and everyone in their respective countries in a frenzy of jingoistic fervour.  

Countries, you see, simply can’t dissemble when they are bitter enemies. Even the BBC’s longstanding Eurovision commentator Terry Wogan, who has now voluntarily abdicated from the fray, described last year’s contest as a "debacle", adding that it seems to be all about national prejudices.

From Russia with love...and a little recrimination
This Saturday’s May 16 contest takes place in Moscow after Dima Bilan won in Belgrade last year. Entrants will compete at a stadium that, ironically, had been built for the 1980 Olympics – another sporting occasion mired in controversy.

In the run-up to this year’s event former comrades-in-arms had a very conspicuous spat. Georgia, whose relations with Moscow have been on life support following Russia’s invasion of South Ossetia,  withdrew after refusing to change its song, entitled We Don’t Wanna Put In. The subtle dig against the Russian prime minister meant that the song was branded political.

It didn’t stop there. Ukraine’s would-be representative Anastasia Prihodko then broke some Eurovision protocol and now finds herself singing for Russia. Except that said songstress doesn’t really feel Russian at all. In fact, she dislikes Moscow and prefers Kiev and has been...er...a bit too willing to divulge her other likes and dislikes in the past.

Let’s just say her views hardly conform to the politically correct image Eurovision would like to propagate.
The Israeli entry, on the other hand, is perhaps a ground-breaker for reconciliation. It’s a duo composed of a left-wing Yemeni Jew - Noa - and Mira Anwar Awad, who is an Israeli Arab, the daughter of a Palestinian father and ...a Bulgarian mother. So Bulgarians have a back-up if their representative Krassimir Avramov – already controversial amid allegations of vote rigging – doesn’t win.  Needless to say, however, Awad has drawn criticism from her (Arab) constituency by seeming to ‘legitimise’ the event through her participation.

Artistically, the less said, the better. Very few songs linger in the mind. Most are aspiring singers who tend to regress into the obscurity from whence they came. A notable exception this year is the French entrant Patricia Kaas who’s been an international superstar for 20 years. Other than that, it’s the usual round of cheesy and anodyne lift music.  
Having said that, I’ve been known to sing along to Save All Your Kisses For Me when I hear it. I know, I know...Long live Eurovision, a monument to bad taste but strangely hypnotic nevertheless.

*I hasten to add that I’m sure that Norwegians have more than their fair share of musical prodigies and, as I write this, Norway is favourite to win  on Saturday with singer Alexander Rybak, 22, and his ditty Fairytale.