 | Saturday May 13 Christ, Brighton's crowded. Everywhere, there are lines of people - queuing for buses, parking spaces, supermarket check-outs. It's so obviously run-down and poverty-inflicted, too. How can people enjoy existing like this? We go into Waitrose (formerly my favourite shopping experience, bar none) and rapidly become depressed by (a) the lack of fresh food, (b) the prices (three times as expensive as Melbourne) and (c) the sheer lack of choice. There's no one to help you load your bags up at the tills, and one rather gets the impression one would be banned from the store for even suggesting such a heretical move. Saw C's gregarious younger brother Richard and his girlfriend Emma - the one who either doesn't like me or else has developed a peculiar blindness when it comes to looking and speaking in my direction. He's a fine chap, easy to laugh and like. Like me, he'd move back to Australia given the chance. We spend the afternoon admiring each other's photos, and discussing C's and R's work prospects. Upon departing, we borrow R's Ali G video. Now we're into Britain's youth culture, innit. In the evening, the Eurovision Song Contest is on television. Oh glory! Latvia have an entry who clearly have watched too many Beck videos and mistaken them for Donovan. Their singer is a wide-eyed popinjay. Estonia present the indie Spice Girls - so indie that none of them are even into singing. (In tune.) Britain's is suitably dismal, Ireland as ever have a man singing a maudlin ballad hunched over a piano. Both Russia and ... oh, maybe this one was Estonia... go for Loaded-style looks over content. (Russia are rewarded with second place.) Germany miss the joke, as ever. Israel, clearly still basking in their transsexual success of two years back, present a shamelessly sexual, camp group which could've germinated in Jarvis Cocker's bedside dresser. They shout. A lot. Iceland go for Eddie-Izzard-meets-girl-from-Kenickie approach, and fail dismally to gain many votes. Terry Wogan is as laconic as ever - becoming all hot under the collar when he sees the girl from Russia shaking her booty, and making disparaging comments about certain countries' voting habits. The contest is won by two dull men with beards and guitars from Denmark or one of those nondescript countries from the north of Europe. © Everett True 2000 |
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