Charlie J Forrest

I want to talk about Eurovision. With that in mind, let’s get the bigotry out of the way first.
Sod the dutch.
Seriously, what a ridiculous country. Wooden shoes, non-latin-based language. Loading it over the rest of Europe with their effective public transport, thriving international trade and the world’s least efficient air conditioning systems…

It’s just a sorry excuse for a thriving first world state without the balls to call itself Scandinavian.

Ok, done.
It’s no secret that the best song is seldom the winner at Eurovision. (for the record the best entry this year was Greece’s pop take on Rage Against the Machine) but instead is a barometer of the political climate.

At one end of the spectrum was the “We are Slavic girls” song, complete with erotic butter churning. Well, I say erotic, downright saucy if you’re a twelve year old boy… and it’s 1993… and your family have been transported through time from the late Victorian period.

The crude titillation made me think of Vladimir Putin. No, not like that. Rather that it’s something that worked well once in the world of twenty or thirty years ago, but has been superseded by the modern world. What interest do pubescent boys have in condescending cleavage when there phone can provide near limitless hypnotic porn at the tap of a screen?

Speaking of Putin I was half expecting Ukraine’s entry to be a group of spetsnaz guys in insignia-les uniforms. But perhaps satire isn’t dead.

Anyway.

At the other end of the spectrum the Dutch were beaten off (hurrah!) by Austria’s Conchita Wurst. Lots of cheers, everyone gets a big pat on the back, well done.

Welcome to Level 2.

You see it’s not that transphobia is dead. Wurst’s victory has spawned countless umming-and ahh-ing commentaries that, in the majority of cases, tend to come down to the same thing. People going ‘it’s a bit weird’ but having the common sense and intelligence to dress it up as something else.

So if, in the coming days, someone makes mutterings as to whether someone with a beard putting on a dress is a caricature to reinforce gender stereotypes, or a valiant crusader against social conformity, just remember that, first and foremost, it’s someone looking fucking amazing, who held the attention of a continent in the palm of her hand for an evening.

Conchita Wurst is a human being, just like everyone else. We are all expressions of Dharma, all beautiful ripples in the fabric of the universe.

Except for the Dutch.

Sod the Dutch!

(not really… some of my best friends are Dutch)