Before this post goes any further, watch this video of Romania's entry for this year's Eurovision song contest. And when you are done, watch this live version. It's even stranger.
The song consists of six men singing "I love you" in six different languages. The man in the picture sings in English, and I think the pipe is there to denote him as an "English gent". In the live version, he dons a tall top hat and removes it to reveal a dove - verging on a cross between Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Paul Daniels, which looks as wrong as you would imagine.
Yes, Eurovision is approaching. But while Britain weighs up whether Justin Hawkins, ex of the Darkness, or Brian Harvey, ex of E17, should represent the UK in the Helsinki final, the Israelis have learned the lessons of Lordi's 2006 triumph (that an upbeat and happy pop ditty isn't a necessary precondition for victory) and entered a song about nuclear annihilation.
The world is full of terror, if someone makes an error, he's going to blow us to kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers, they hide and try to fool us, with demonic technological willingness to harm
Watch the video to see for yourself. There is a theory doing the rounds that this may be a response to the Iranian nuclear programme. Perhaps so.
But it is not all about WMD. The Poles, for example, are entering what appears to be a Polish version of the Black Eyed Peas. The Londonist blog recently rounded up the best of the hopefuls, including Latin dancing from Norway and a Danish drag queen. Pipe-smoking Romanians, flamboyant Scandinavians. What a strange place Eurovision is.
.jpg?w=600)
