I’m told that’s what “Hasheket shenishar” means in English, and if you’re wondering now why I’m suddenly listening to music from Israel: yes, I’ve been watching the Eurovision Song Contest (a.k.a. Granprix Eurovision de la Chanson a.k.a. “Concours” in Switzerland) this weekend ;) . Remembering I was pretty bored the last few years (there are only so many skimpy costumes and untalented performers you can make fun of in one night), I fetched my old Lego from the cellar and build something while enduring over three hours of varying musical performance. The Greek song that won was so bland and characterless, it could have been from any country (and in fact the British song looked like a perfect clone) – I don’t really see why Europe voted for her. I would have preferred Malta or Israel…

A big part of the fun was switching between channels (as it is broadcast literally everywhere, I could choose between German, Austrian and Swiss channels): the German commentator mostly talked about the wardrobe, the Swiss constantly worried whether they would still make it in the top ten, and the Austrian was rather spiritless, perhaps because Austria dropped out at semi finals already. Anyway, most of the songs were surprisingly good, especially considering what I have seen in the past; it’s just a bit annoying that many countries give up to sing in their native tongue but instead think English will bring them more sympathies. Not always right, see Israel which made it to #4 with a song in Hebrew probably very few could understand.

And I can’t really say I’m surprised Germany came in last – that song was pretty mediocre. Let’s see what comes out of it next year, since we’re automatically taking part again (some lame-ass rule allows the biggest payers in Europe to participate everytime, no matter how bad their results were – incidentally, this year the last 4 countries were also exactly that 4 countries: Germany, France, the UK and Spain).