Eurovision...and the brotherhood code

The Eurovision Song Contest strikes again!

I wonder if the commenters who are not based in Europe are aware of this singing competition?

To me, and to most Brits, it's a hilarious song contest in which the best (or worst, it seems!) talent is put on display every May in the capital city of the previous year's winning country.

For most Brits, it's a waste of an evening. But I know that it is taken very seriously by most other countries in Europe. It is quite the Springtime live TV event in homes everywhere in mainland Europe.

And to be fair, it has launched the careers of many pop singers: Swedish group Abba won it in 1974 with 'Waterloo' and Celine Dion won it for Switzerland in 1988 with 'Ne partez pas sans moi' (Don't go without me).

Why do Brits have this view of this song contest?

I'll come clean. It boils down to jealousy. Pure and simple.

We haven't won it since 1997. So we might as well ridicule the whole thing.

This attitude works for us.

Whole countries have rationalisation hamsters too ;)

But seriously, the reason that Britain hardly ever gets a look-in in this competition may be totally explicable. The rules of the game are this: Every country can award 3 scores of 12, 10 and 8 points to the top 3 countries of its choice and then 7 to 1 points for the rest, in order of decreasing excellence. No country may award itself any points, of course.

At the end of voting, the country with the highest tally wins.

Simple enough.

But what annoys the Brits is the 'tactical voting' that seems to go on.

Eastern block countries are deemed the worst culprits when it comes to this. At least, in collective British eyes.

Last year, the contest was won by Azerbaijan. So this year, its capital city, Baku played host. As ever, each Eastern block countries seemed to be awarding points exclusively to one another.
Sometimes it is so blatant as to be absolutely hilarious.

Scandinavia is another culprit. Norway and Denmark always give their highest scores to Sweden and Iceland, and if they feel like it occasionally, to Finland :-) 

This year's event was won by Sweden.

Britain has no friends in Europe it seems :-(

Except perhaps Ireland, but only because they also speak English :-) So these two countries vote for each other a lot.

France never votes for Britain. Britain always returns the favour :-)

One year, Britain came away with the dreaded 'nul point' - the ultimate disgrace where no country thought that the British entry was worth even a single point.

All this makes me think of 'taking sides'. This happens a lot in the school playground.
:-)

But by the time we are adults, it seems this is one thing we don't leave behind.
In the SMP, and especially in the Manosphere, we are divided up into 'Team Man' and 'Team woman'.

All of which is vaguely amusing considering each party would like nothing better than to 'get friendly' with the other party :-)

The worse of the two culprits here is...men!
(Sorry, gentlemen).

This whole 'brotherhood' thing and the 'bros before hos' commandment that they saddle themselves with...

Who came up with this?
The girlfriend-less omega or the honour-bound alpha? :-)

We women of course, as a rule, don't concern ourselves much with this hullabaloo.

There is no such thing as the 'sisterhood' except for a very small minority.

Mr. Alpha makes an appearance and suddenly, our best friend is relegated to the ranks of the unknown...('Jane who'?)

Just teasing...

But there is some truth to this.

A woman's greatest critic is another woman. We all know this.

In this regard, I am as guilty as the next woman if I am honest.

Women are also very good at 'building each other up' if the recipient so merits it.
Again, guilty as charged.

And what about men? From what I have noticed, men are actually very loyal to each other. But a man will also beat down his fellow man, even if it is dressed up as 'harmless' fun. Sometimes it looks quite vicious (at least to an observing woman).

But if it is not resulting in death or permanent injury, then I guess it's fine :-)

Outside of the SMP, we see this evidence of 'taking sides' all the time.

We will soon be innondated with images of the Olympics from my homecity.

The World Cup football.

Any sporting event at all.

Men and women everywhere want to kill each other over a game.

Sometimes hilarious and endearing, sometimes tragic and fatal, what is it that is so intriguing about 'taking sides'?

A man caught between wife and Mum.
A child caught between Mum and Dad.
A woman caught between boyfriend and Father.

Even if there is no detectable difference or barrier, human beings will invent one such that 'taking sides' can be executed.

Am I even within my rights to question this tendency?

Or perhaps my 'let's all be calm and give ourselves a big hug' mindset is untenable for men who are born to compete and women who are born to outshine the next woman...

Or...is it that for the first time in history, men are competing against women because women started competing with men?

Did the innocence of 'taking sides' take on a sinister turn when we weren't keeping our eyes on the ball, so to speak?

So all of a sudden, we had 'Team Man' and 'Team Woman' where previously it was 'Team Human' against 'The Aliens', or 'Team Family' against 'The Government', or 'Team Workers' against 'The Union'...

And suddenly, there are people who are getting 'nul point' even though they didn't know they were being judged...

Has the SMP become the proverbial contest where we all have to sing for our dinner now?
'Dinner' being a euphemism for something else?
:-)

This song (Hold, be strong) performed by Maria Haukaas Storeng and composed by then 15-year old Mira Craig, only came 5th for Norway in 2008, in Belgrade.
Even the Brits were outraged on behalf of Norway, which was the highest ranked non Eastern-block country that year.

I like it. I thought it was better than the winning song, personally. But then I would.

I have my own version of 'taking sides' going on here.

:-)

But alas, I am not consistent in my 'taking sides'. (What's new? :-)
For when Norway won it the following year with Alexander Rybak's 'Fairytale', this failed to excite...