Bucks Fizz in 1981.
Eurovision: A party political broadcast on behalf of Euro-sceptics if ever there was one.
Anyone wishing to persuade their compatriots that Britain really should leave the European Union as a matter of urgency simply has tell them to tune into BBC1 tonight for this annual cheese-fest.
Masquerading as a music contest, this bloated televisual nightmare is simply an excuse for all the other countries of Europe (especially France) to show just how much they dislike us.
Mind you, we don’t do ourselves any favours, do we?
I mean, Bonnie Tyler is this year’s United Kingdom Entry. Really?
Don’t get me wrong I’m as fond as the next man of her massive Eighties hit Total Eclipse Of The Heart.
The video alone – with its weird imagery taken at an all boys school where nudity and the consumption of drugs which make your eyeballs turn into small suns seems commonplace – is frankly unforgettable.
But if we are reduced to wheeling out stars from 30 years ago then surely we’d be better off opting for Duran Duran or asking Wham to reform.
I’ve nothing against the Welsh warbler selected to champion this Sceptered Isle in Malmö tonight, other than that she appears to be somewhat past her best.
I guess we’ll see when the block-voting by members of the former Soviet Union commences this evening.
Maybe it’s my age but I don’t remember it always being a foregone conclusion that the UK would receive fewer points than Lichtenstein.
Although, to be fair, during the 1980s the countries taking part in the competition were at least in Europe.
Nowadays they’ll take anyone – including Israel, Cyprus and various intercontinental countries such as Russia and Turkey.
My first memory of Eurovision is of the year when family-friendly Bucks Fizz were the toast of Europe.
The grinning four-piece, with their daring outfit change, won the contest in 1981 with Making Your Mind Up – a song so bad all the other countries in Europe voted for it so that we were forced to keep listening to it and seeing the group’s garish outfits on Top of the Pops.
These days, Eurovision has its own website and there’s even an app to download – should you run out of chores to do – which allows you to immerse yourself in competition trivia and learn all the words to Moldova’s entry.
Of course, 30 years ago – even though the contest was well-established there was still a huge novelty factor when countries most of us only knew from O-Level or GCSE geography came together on the same night via the wonder of the small screen in our living rooms.
Back then we laughed at the idiosyncrasies of Europe’s smaller nations – until, that is, they started beating us with songs which sounded like they’d been made up by a drunken medieval peasant.
We didn’t mind so much when Ireland’s Johnny Logan kicked off the decade by winning with What’s Another Year. At least we could understand what he was saying.
But did the Aussie-born singer really have to return in 1987 and win again with Hold Me Now? Surely there should be rules against that sort of thing.
I bet Terry Wogan agrees with me.
Of course, Eurovision in the Eighties also introduced the watching public to a little-known, Canadian-born singer by the name of Celine Dion whose Ne partez pas sans moi won first place for Switzerland in 1988.
She was 20 at the time, years before she hit full diva mode with her epic theme from the movie Titanic.
That victory launched Celine Dion on the path to global stardom. Yes, it’s Eurovision’s fault.
Oh well, at least we can thank it for the music of Abba.
Pick up a copy of The Weekend Sentinel every Saturday for 12 pages of nostalgia.
