eurovision

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So Germany is not going to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest in a fit of pique at being voted into last place with a measly quatre points in Kiev last week.

The mind boggles, it really does. The Big Four Eurovision countries – France, Germany, Spain and the UK – have been whining and crying like despicable sissies since last Saturday just because the rest of Europe thinks their songs were rubbish. Somebody needs to apply to the European Clue Agency for a shipment of clues from the European clue mountain to be delivered to Madrid, London, Bonn and Paris.

There’s not actually a conspiracy at all, though who could blame the thrusting new statelets of Eastern and Central Europe if they did decide to band together? Better than slaughtering each other, surely. I take my conviction from what is probably the only scholarly article on the Eurovision Song Contest, published by Victor Ginsburgh and Abdul Noury of the Centre for Operations Research and Econometrics of the Free University of Brussels in November last year.

Ginsburgh and Noury conclude, “Though the votes cast may appear as resulting from logrolling, we show that they are rather driven by linguistic and cultural proximities between singers and voting countries.” And they go on using mathematical equations that cannot be reproduced on the human keyboard to argue their case: that cultural proximity plays more of a role than politics ever will. Hence, Turkey gives Greece 12 points; Ireland gives the UK eight points. People of similar cultures like each other’s music. People with similar languages are biased in favour of each other when compared with utter gabbling barbarians. Our own Urban Trad were pipped at the post, but they inadvertently hit on the secret with their entry in 2003, by writing the lyrics in a totally made-up language. Now we see why the competition has been littered with hits like Boom Bang-a-Bang, Diggi-Loo-Diggi-Ley, La La La and Ding-a-Dong.

But there’s one important factor our ULB academics have overlooked:

The Eurovision Song Contest forbids people from voting for their own country’s entry. Whatever its justifications, this has two results:

One, a Belgian can’t vote for a Belgian even if you think it’s the best song there is.

Two, the votes from each country’s population (I think only Albania still has a jury as such) all have to go to other countries. What this inevitable means is, that voting bloks within Belgium are competing to maximise their votes for other countries. Expect, therefore, votes from Belgium to go to Turkey, Portugal, Italy and so on, assuming those countries are taking part.

So who voted for Greece? Answer: not the Greeks in Greece, because they’re not allowed to. So it must have been Greeks in other countries (I believe there are one or two) or quite simply fans of the song (the only ones who get the point, let it be said). So does this explain why the UK, France, Germany and Spain came last? Well, ask yourself how may French expats there are living in countries like FYR Macedonia or Latvia. And of those, how many would pick up their phone to register a vote?

I think you see the problem. The Eurovision is like a French presidential election, only the French people can’t vote, and the people of Moldavia, Germany and Ireland can. And then there are complaints when they fail to elect a Frenchman.

So there’s the answer. Be nicer to your immigrants, allochtones, gastarbeiders, whatever you want to call them. If you want to get their votes when May comes around, you’re going to have to be nicer to them the rest of the year. Create some of that all-important cultural proximity.

And if it doesn’t work, and they still won’t vote for you because your entry is pants? Well then get better songs, or at least stop grizzling about it. It’s only a Song Contest, for heaven’s sake, not the bleeding Congress of Vienna. Nobody dies. And nobody, other than the ULB and the EBU and me, even cares.