16. ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...EUROVISION

The absolute very first time I remember watching the Eurovision Song Contest was in 1974 on one of the many occasions the event took place in the UK because, in those days, we usually won it the previous year. Our own entry was performed by Olivia Newton John who was an Aussie but qualified as British because of her Welsh dad and the fact that Cliff Richard needed a year off.

Apparently her song, Long Live Love (be wary of any alliteration using ‘l’ – it’s a crap letter), was chosen by the public via postal vote and she didn’t get a say in it. That might explain her lowly 4th place because, thanks to Royal Snail Mail, she probably didn’t find out what we wanted her to sing until a couple of days before the show. They should have simply let the BBC choose the song as they have done more recently with such noticeable success (by which I mean none at all).

Nowadays we pay exorbitant sums of cash into the Eurovision coffers to get a free pass straight into the final so that we can be ritually humiliated in front of millions of Europeans rather than quietly fade off the scene in the semi-finals. In the old days, that money would have been handed over in brown envelopes to the judging panel to ensure we reached the Top 3 at least. If we wanted to be guaranteed top spot, we'd send over Cliff and Katie Boyle for a threesome the night before.

1974 was the year that Abba won with Waterloo (no shame there for ONJ…although she did finish behind a couple of dodgy Italian & Dutch tunes too). They sang in English so I assumed at the time they came from the UK (ONJ sang in Australian - I'm not joking - so I assumed she didn’t). Also, Sweden sounded like it was somewhere in Wales…although I think I was getting mixed up with Swansea (both cold and faraway so an easy mistake to make).

I remember Katie Boyle presenting the show and repeating everything in French which seemed a little unnecessary since everyone watching (and most of the performers) spoke and understood English perfectly well because, ever since the end of World War 2, they had been forced to do so under international law. Making the rest of Europe sing in English was meant to give us an unfair advantage (which we rightly exploited in the 60s & 70s with our string of first and second places) but, in 1974, we met our match with the Swedes who had grown up watching British TV and so could speak the language better than most of us.

Until a recent rekindling of my interest in the competition (thanks to Terry Wogan and Graham Norton taking the piss out of it), I only paid attention to Eurovision for a relatively brief period in my younger days before I found better things to do on a Saturday night (so, no surprise that I'm watching it again now). This happened to coincide with us taking the competition seriously and entering some absolute classic tunes…..all of which either won or were robbed of 1st place by some dubious decisions proving that Greece/Cyprus 'reciprocal douze points'-type deals were alive and well even in those days.

‘Congratulations’ in 1968 sounded like a sure-fire Eurovision success, even if it was sung by Cliff, but he somehow contrived to lose on home soil to Spain’s entry (sung in Spanish – the natives were already growing restless) called “la, la, la” (that’s “the, the, the” surely?). He even managed to repeat the trick with Luxembourg a few years later (his ‘Power to all our Friends’ proving ironically accurate) despite the country having a population of just 7 or 8 people of which only 2 could actually sing. One of them pipped him to the top spot in 1973 and, amazingly, the other one beat the New Seekers the previous year even though it was up against the majestic Beg, Steal and Borrow. Presumably that’s what Luxembourg did and converted it into a massive bribe to win the competition. Despite their victory, they got us to host the event the following year because they were skint which pretty much proves my theory.

The performance in the interval of the show (while the votes are being counted and final financial, political and sexual favours are traded) is meant to be a showcase of the host nation’s talent and a chance to show the opposition (by which I mean our European friends obviously) who’s boss. Look what Riverdance did for Ireland in 1994. It knocked the spots off every single song in the actual competition and I’m surprised it didn’t win regardless of whether it was entered or not.

And which source of cultural and national pride did the Brits use to showcase our considerable talent to Europe and the world in 1974? The Wombles. I’m not kidding. Introduced by Madame Boyle (in French too – Les Wombles – classy), we got to watch a film of some blokes dressed in rat costumes wandering around Brighton and picking up litter before one of them strolls into the TV studio holding up a sign hilariously asking for people to vote for them. If they weren’t going to bend the rules for Michael Flatley and the Riverdance crew, they sure as hell weren’t going to do it for a bunch of jobbing children’s entertainers in fancy dress, no matter how environmentally-friendly they were. By the way, isn’t it nice to see us Brits virtue-signalling about green issues long before it became fashionable in the rest of Europe?

It was a bit like Boris (and Becks) on the bus at the end of the Beijing Olympics kicking footballs into the crowd and giving an excellent impression of someone who was promising the world that his city would make a right Horlicks out of running the event 4 years later and reduce the whole country to a laughing stock (much to the amusement of the Chinese media apparently). Amazingly though, London 2012 ended up being an absolute triumph (so, up yours, Beijing), thanks to dozens of athletes, thousands of volunteers and, our trump card, Danny Boyle (Katie's lad). We weren’t so lucky with Eurovision 1974 though.

Our golden era in the competition - Sandie Shaw, Lulu and Brotherhood of Man (no, Cliff, not you, sunshine) - was rounded off in 1981 by Bucks Fizz ripping off some skirts, warning us not to be taken from behind and asking if we’d be making our minds up without being totally clear what about. You can re-watch the original performance (here). Despite taking place in an era of relentless lip-synching, it’s clearly live (with John Coleman giving that old warhorse, Ronnie Hazlehurst, a night off from leading the orchestra) and therefore not as slick as modern Eurovision productions but, let’s be honest, the proportion of the song being sung live nowadays is probably not much more than the ‘thank you, Lisbon/Rotterdam/Tel Aviv’ at the end.

Clearly, it’s difficult to finish this blog post without mentioning James Nilman Newman who managed to score nul points for us in the 2021 competition, partly because of anti-UK sentiment in Europe but mostly because it was such a crap song. His reaction to this abject failure though was heart-warming and many Brits are rightly proud of this latest plucky loser who once again proved our nation’s ability not to take ourselves too seriously.

That said, it would be nice if, every once in a while, we tried to win the bloody thing again by drawing on the spirit of the 70s and sticking a generous wodge of cash into the pockets of the organisers. Failing that, we could threaten to get Cliff to sing our entry. In French. Or just send him around the night before for some 'mistletoe and wine', if you know what I mean.

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Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...THE ITALIAN JOB