It seems that the letter “V” has not brought Malta luck these last two years. For many, the letter “V” represents the sign of victory, but not for Malta, at least when it comes to the Eurovision Song contest. And, for those who do not follow what goes on in the competition or do not give two hoots about it, reference is being made to the fact that the last two songs Malta presented “in Europe” were songs with a one-word title starting with the letter “V” – Vertigo and Vodka.

For the second year running, Malta did not make it to the final night of the contest, which will be held tonight in Serbia. After Fabrizio Faniello finished last with his song I Do in the final of 2006, Olivia Lewis’ Vertigo failed to go through from the semi final last year and we followed it up with another elimination last Thursday. Apparently, Europeans prefer Russian vodka to Morena’s.

Now there will be the usual pointing of fingers as to why we didn’t qualify and what we should do to have a better chance next time. It will be said that Malta always stands to lose because it has no neighbours that will support it. And it will also be said that the song was not up to standard. It

wasn’t, and many are still trying to make out what the lyrics of the song are… unless they have seen a copy.

The thing is that we give excessive importance to a song contest that is nothing but… well, a song contest. With countries taking puppets to represent them, we still think that the Eurovision – because that’s what we call it, we never say Eurovision Song Contest – is the be all and end all of our life, our country, our future.

Come to think of it, perhaps we are right not to mention “song contest” when we refer to the event. This is because over the years the competition has grown to become anything but a song contest. It is a show, a spectacular show at that, but few, if any, of the songs make the grade. It is only those who eat and drink the contest all the year round who remember some of the tunes.

We have not yet realised that we give too much importance to the event. We also spend too much money on it – expenses which increase every year as the entourage accompanying the local singer grows bigger (nail technicians, hairdressers, make-up artists and so on... what next? a baggage

handler?) and we try harder to produce better videos (are they becoming better?) in the hope that we make it. Should the taxpayer pay so much for what is, after all, a storm in a teacup?

We then also get a nauseating dose of programmes on television and radio talking about the contest for months on end – the weeks leading up to the Song for Europe Contest and, once the Maltese song is chosen (this year earlier than usual because of the election), the dose increases right up to the contest itself. And now we’ll be getting the analysis.

The local participant goes through a gruelling period of TV appearances as all programmes of all stations want him or her to appear on their show – as if no show will be complete without Malta’s representative making a stop there – and this before and after the contest.

Thankfully, it will soon be over… until the next time. But we would be too optimistic to expect that, next year, things will be different. In all probability, there will be an even stronger and more expensive effort for Malta to go through.

Three years without a final would be a national disaster, wouldn’t it?