As you slowly leaf through this newspaper this morning, the hot national debate no doubt continues. Did Olivia Lewis deserve what she got up and down the final Eurovision Song Contest list last Thursday night, or did she not? Which nation was cruel to us this time round? Have we acted like morons again and given that same cruel nation our top vote?
Love us or hate us, alas, our obsession with this annual song festival that everyone else prefers to forget or ignore immediately the closing credits start crawling down, seems to have turned into an inexplicable malady of abysmal proportions. We just can’t help it. Our singers, writers and composers know only too well there are hardly any other opportunities where they can display their wares in front of an audience of 300 million plus. As a full member of the European Broadcasting Union, the national station is both the rightful sponsor and instigator of Maltese participation in the ESC but it has long surrendered that responsibility to the politicians and their favourite dudes.
As The Animals once sang, please don’t let me be misunderstood. On behalf of PBS I was part of the whole ESC circus in Birmingham when Chiara took part for the first time. You think you are able to distance yourself from it, but soon, grudgingly, find that you have been bitten by the bug too. Three actual realities remain stuck in my memory of that event in the UK Midlands nine long years ago, namely:
The commitment of all those concerned behind the scenes to genuinely see the Maltese singer succeed, though there have been occasions when singers understandably complained they felt like they were being transformed into speechless mannequins;
The gay atmosphere that surrounds the whole scene wherever the final night is held, and I mean gay in both senses of the word; and
The odd feeling that flying back to Malta was some sort of ritual which sometimes needed the protection of anti-riot gear and at others seemed more of a funeral service… depending on how a simple song had fared in the festival.
It is not easy for others to understand the national mania surrounding our ESC participation. Most of them wouldn’t even know who their singer was. For us, it has to be months of animated discussion, an endless analysis of both the singer and the song and an administrative cabal that is, more often than not, busily and tirelessly fighting with itself. We all remember the graces and disgraces of recent years.
And I am not trying to be funny. The same spirit in Birmingham caught me as I watched Chiara wow the local media I managed to organise for her. Inside the famous arena, I was also on tenterhooks as much as the rest of the delegation, in the end even acting reproachful towards Macedonia for not having voted “for us” and, in the process, denying “our singer” the desired prize. For most of the evening until that final vote, I actually had a PBS producer colleague sitting next to me and jovially pestering me to make sure I phoned Albert Marshall, then running the station, to start working “on those millions” we would need to stage the big event in Malta!
We came back to find half the island’s population waiting for us. For Chiara really. But it was so surreal. The girl deserved all the credit she got, but the rest of all that racket, as happened in later years when other good and, in one instance, better results were achieved, was all too disproportionate. I remember being unable to find my car for almost two hours to get out of the airport. The glamorous winner of that year’s festival, an Israeli boy turned girl, probably had it much easier, unless she was frisked as she passed through Customs in Jerusalem...
So will it go on and on forever? Sorry, you moaners, it probably will. People were again organising Eurovision parties inside homes and entertainment places. No self-respecting entrepreneur in Paceville and elsewhere all over the island would have opened for business minus the big screen notice on the blackboard outside his place.
Whatever result obtained by the talented Olivia (this column is being written earlier) though, the debate will resume in earnest. The new hospital can wait. After all, it has only been in the offing for the last 17 years, so what difference would a few more hours do? The on-going Valletta parking rumpus too can subside while we comment on who voted for us and who didn’t, who came up with that dress and that hairstyle and, hey, what of the choreography. The politicians will not monopolise the headlines this evening, unless a general election is announced.
As long as we have the Eurovision Song Contest, there is hardly any care in the world for us. At this moment in time every year, please do not disturb. In any case, I do not know why we bother. Most of the nation’s silver has now gone for a song, pun intended, which not only sounds appropriate but is also highly realistic. We just can’t help it.