Eurovision

Saturday was the Eurovison Song Contest. It is a bizarre event. If you know it you don't need me to tell you that and if you don't know it you might not believe me.

Britain has done very badly in recent years. Mostly its our fault for putting forward awful performs. Scooch, a couple of years back, was an embarrassment. This year we put forward Engelbert Humperdinck singing a loverly simple song.



For once I wasn't embarrassed, disappointed, or ashamed. Our song was well performed and the dancers complimented the performance. Yet, for some reason, we didn't get the votes and came last but one.

Part of the reason for this is that we're Britain. The rest of Europe doesn't like us very much. We also went on first so perhaps the song was forgotten by the time it came to the voting.

Some years I understand the winner: Hard Rock Hallelujah was brilliant and so was Satellite. Some years however I find myself thinking: 'What?' It was like that for me this year. Sweden won Eurovison and when the singer came on to perform, the winner always performs again, I couldn't really remember having seen it.



I voted for Denmark and Denmark came very near the bottom.



So you can never quite tell what's going to happen. More often than not the ones I like aren't anywhere near the winners.

This year the series was hosted in Azerbaijan. I found a recipe for Azerbaijani Lamp Pilau - I'm going to add to our family tradition of watching Eurovison by cooking a dish related to the host nation - I guess its meatballs next year.

Oops

I've just been looking over some old posts and realised I've made a bit of a mistake. I ended two posts recently saying what I would discuss in the next post. Then I um... didn't.

The first of these was with regard to my writing life. I stated:

'My life is writing and I don't do it as often as I would like to but that's a topic for another blog.'

I have to work. Work, for me, is just a means to an end. I need money to live it is the fact of life. The dream would be to find a job in writing or, at the very least, enjoy. My currant job does not fit this particular bill.

I don't yet know how I could start to make money from writing. These ramblings are certainly not going to do it.

Another post ended with:

'Slightly off topic I've recently joined a dating site. This is in the hopes that I can avoid the 'friend zone' or not being thought of 'in that way.' This subject will form the basis of my next post.'

In someways I don't like the term 'Friend Zone' but it is a real phenomenon. I have always felt that when it comes to dating I like to get to know someone. So approaching a girl in a pub or club because she looks 'hot' would not be my style. In the interest of full discloser it doesn't help that I'm short and could be compared to a Klingon who's lost his ridges. Also I don't like clubbing so if I go to a club I would meet people who like clubs. I like book shops but people don't expect to be asked out at a book shop.

So before I ask anyone out I'd want to get to know them. That process can take a while and then you find yourself trapped as a friend. In someways dating sites are good for overcoming this because when you contact someone you know that dating is the reason for the communication. Thought the friend zone is still a possibility as your liable to find them on facebook, friend them, and never speak to them again!

Well time will tell and I may expand on this further in the future.    

Writer's Blog: Don't Apologise For What You Like

My MP3 player contains songs by S Club, I like almost any TV program with Star in the title, I don't like football and I'd rather spend my evenings reading than dancing.

So from this I guess you infer that I'm horribly uncool. Maybe you're right but what is cool? Its a question that I've often wondered about. I suppose the obvious answer is that its articular. 

I suppose coolness begins at school. It is expected that boys will like football and that those that don't are a bit strange. For some reason liking science fiction is seen as odd and is coupled with the cliché of basements and virgins. What this misses of course is that anyone and everyone can like anything.

At school I was bullied, not specifically about this, but it was one more thing that made me different. The strange thing about bullies though was that sometimes they acted as friends. One sports day practice they were quite encouraging and during a pot luck quiz people appreciated my knowing that William Shatner played Captain Kirk.

Even now that I'm 24 I still find myself hesitating to say what I like. It feels risky in a way that I can't quite pin down as to why. My dvd shelf contains: Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bones.

I also have three Star Trek: Enterprise T-shirts. These were a set and a gift some years back. These seem especially risky to wear. People who don't like Star Trek will know you like it and people who do like Star Trek will know you like Enterprise!

In all seriousness don't apologies for what you like. The world would be pretty boring if everyone agreed on everything. So while I now tell people I write science fiction, join discussions about science fiction, if they occur around me, and have just bought a The Big Bang Theory t-shirt, I still have the feeling of being apologetic in my mind. It would appear this is the final frontier I need to over come.

Live long and prosper.

Below is a nice nerdy video to close this out.