There’s often a bit of eye candy for the ladies at Eurovision too, so it’s only fair!
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I’ve always taken the general view that we enjoy much the same sort of music as our ancestral neighbours. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland for example, Greece/Cyprus also, Spain and Portugal.
We also have a tendancy to support our near neighbours - it’s sort of a natural human response. And moral support for neighbours-in-need was evident last night.
Watched it for about ten minutes or so which was more than enough to remind me of why I haven’t watched it for fifteen or so years.
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I have to agree, but that is the Eurovision Song Contest.
For me it’s all soon forgotten pop, very little that I call music. Visually it’s spectacle rather than spectacular, then the long drawn out stuff after the performances & the even longer drag out of voting with those over excited adults acting like demented teenagers to camera.
Whatever, it was decided that ‘we’ will watch it last evening, the UK has a good chance of doing well & it seemed the right thing to support Ukraine. We watched for about 4 or 5 songs, then the boredom set in & we moved on .
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Some interesting omissions there! Of course it begs the question of who “we” are as the collective population of UK as a participating Eurovision country.
As for enjoying the sane sort of music, I’m not sure that British popular music over the 66 years since the start of Eurovision had been much aligned with that of even the ancestral countries you mention…
The Serbian entry was pure unadulterated bonkers madness. Marvellous.
I turned the tele round on its wall bracket and read the labels on the back far more entertaining.
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I should have typed “I’ve always taken the view that people enjoy much the same sort of music as their ancestral neighbours” and then made is clearer that I was only illustrating my view with three specific groups of such neighbours. There are other such groupings within Europe. Scandinavians like Scandinavian music, etc Naturally, that’s where they put their votes.
Concise and accurate. 
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Apart from the Norwegian entry which was an act of Dadaistic Genius, the entirety of the rest was a bunch of over-camped-up drippingly tedious bunch of “sensitivity-signalling” drivel.
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Not sure why lots of people are piling into this thread to tell us the music is crap. We know it’s crap. It’s always been crap. This is not a secret. The music is not the point. It’s the event itself and you either luxuriate in the whole camp silliness of the event or you don’t
Edit - it’s also a way for millions of people across lots of countries to get together for a shared, joyous occasion and god knows we need that right now.
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The ten minutes or so that I watched I wouldn’t have rated it that highly?
Well summed up!!
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I guess being involved in a war makes you a great performer 
My best mate and I had a few friends over last night to enjoy Eurovision, one was Serbian, she had a blast during their number. We all had a great time.
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As Collywobbles said “Nicely summed up”
Occasionally, just occasionally, there are one or two good songs, well performed. But it’s the overall event that counts. As you say, some enjoy it, some don’t.
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The social highlight of the year for my mum, dad, aunt & uncle was holding a party for Eurovision, hosting it at each others house on alternate years.
As youngsters, my aunt & uncles son & I were forced to attend & came to enjoy the event solely for the huge amount of enjoyment the adults got from the evening & how seriously they took the event. I will never forget my dads annual apoplectic rage at the political voting each year!
When we both married & moved away we still got a call the following day to discuss the result.
When the event was held in Birmingham in 1998 we surprised them with for tickets for it & they couldn’t have been more thrilled if we had won the lottery & given it all to them!
Sadly, they are all no longer with us &, whilst not particularly enjoying the overlong event, we now watch each year in fond memory of all four of them.
So, I have a good idea of the fun you all had.
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A lovely memory, @Canaryfan. Yah boo to those who seem to think their negativity and cynicism is in any way original or informative.
I was shaken out of my anti-Eurovision silliness as a later teenager by my then-girlfriend’s family making an evening of it, including everyone scoring each entry for a) how much they liked it and b) how likely they thought it was to win. It was approached with just enough mock-seriousness to make it genuinely enjoyable.
A few years later, I remember some very well-oiled Eurovision parties we had as undergraduates. Well, I remember the first hour or so, at least.
Mark
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Over the years our family developed a complex and very silly scoring system. For example, points were awarded if an item of clothing was removed during a performance, if a dancer with a mask appeared in the act, use of fire etc. It gave us a lot of laughs
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For me the Eurovision Song contest is a lesson in bias, European politics and I would guess a lot of playing instrument miming. I did not watch it this year but was surprised that UK came second. I looked up the song and must say this Sam Ryder has a good voice all he needs is the other half ‘a decent song’, together he could go places. When Tom Jones was discovered he was very lucky as he sung some very good hit songs to boost his career, if no decent song the singer just fades away…