I'm not officially guest blogging until tomorrow, but couldn't resist commenting on the Eurovision Song Contest . I have always thought that this contest was an example of how very bad a harmonised European culture could be. And these days this harmonised European culture is often expressed in English. But it never really seemed to matter – after all, no-one has to watch the thing. This year, however, it may matter more because of the imminent Dutch referendum on the EU’s constitutional treaty. EUobserver cites an article in De Telegraaf on 21 May which reports angry Dutch reactions to the contest based on the prominence of Eastern European countries in the final. Just one more piece of evidence that the referenda on the constitutional treaty may in fact be referenda on enlargement (although odd because a number of the Eastern European Eurovision participants are not members of the EU).
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Also, most of the Eurovision stuff is horrible. One exception, though, is the Moldovan band Zdob Si Zdub. The mostly sing in Russian (and mostly play in Russia) but are really great- a weird mix of ska, punk, and Moldovan folk music- full of energy in concert, and nice guys. Thier second (I think) album “Agroromantica” is better than their earlier one. They finished 6th, but are clearly better than most of the crap that was above them. Do check them out if you can.