That’s right. Eurovision night. I know Australia gets it a night late … but god isn’t it worth it? I pity the nations of the world that don’t get Eurovision on during prime time. To be honest there is far too much awesome in two hours of Eurovision to be included in one post, but I shall try.

This:

is last year’s winner. She appears to be some kind of Serbian Ellen de Generes and opens the show with some song and dance involving women dressed as brides. I like to think it’s a statement on gay marriage, and therefore say more power to her.

And we’re off! Thankfully this year SBS have edited out all the bits that involve the Serbian commentators, because their voices burn my brain, and kept all the bits of the legendary Sir Terry Wogan commentating and being brilliant.

For possibly the first time ever there is a LEGITIMATELY GOOD entry in Eurovision. It’s so fucking weird. This fierce pom dances and sings to a 70s funk-soul extravaganza in a glitter suit on a multi-coloured disco stage. It makes my feet happy, and obviously there is no way in hell that he will ever win.

FIERCE, no?

These three women all performed (I think) for three different countries. My eyes tell me they’re all the same person though, so I dunno. The one thing I know for sure is that they all had tasselled minidresses and at least four fabulous male back-up dancers and this makes me hopeful that maybe 2008 will be the Campest Eurovision Ever. Hurrah!

The Israeli Usher performs wearing a foiled silver vest with five fierce back up singers. (re: Camp, clearly I’m not wrong yet!)

Still not wrong! Sup Azerbaijan! This year is so drag, I love it.

Next comes a fat Turkish woman (there’s one every year) but I so can’t be bothered finding a pic.

Latvia comes on stage … and I cry tears of joy. Five old boilers in pirate suits sing to a song called ‘Wolves of the Sea’ with lyrics like ‘yo ho ho!’ and ‘ohhhh Jolly Roger!’ Amazing.

To be completely honest there are kind of a lot of old boilers in Eurovision, which is weird, because usually the pop music is all about the young people, right? Maybe it’s only the people who don’t have legitimate careers who try out to be national entries in Eurovision (surely that can’t be true!) Maybe it just takes a lot of years, a lot of living, and a lot of tanning to perfect the kind of skills that get you to the top in this arena. Who can say?

Speaking of boilers – oh hay Dina Lohan!

Oh Finland you hot bitches. If I didn’t have Sir Terry Wogan’s soothing tones washing over me right now I may implode from lust. While the rest of the Scandinavian countries all sit somewhere on a scale between ‘ridiculously cool’ and ‘clappy-clappy ABBA’, Finland exist in a weird parallel universe where everything is death metal, shirtlessness is acceptable, and leather flares are cool. They have a giant papier mache spiked club on stage with them as a prop, and I think that explains it all, really. If they’ve ever shown Spinal Tapp in Finland, I’m fairly certain they thought it was a documentary.

Wait, scratch that bit about me being an authority on Scandos. I have no idea how to explain this:

This is Sweden. Surely it’s a trannie. Isn’t it? A really hot trannie? Where does that fit in with ABBA? Jesus I’m so confused. Let’s move onto the indisputably awesome Denmark. Needless to say they sit on the cool end of the Scando-spectrum.

BEST OUTFIT EVER!

Totally adorable. Plus, little Simon Two-first-names from Denmark sings a little ditty called ‘All Night Long’. It’s not a patch on the Lionel Richie song of the same name, but nonetheless I end up singing along. Adorable in so many ways.

And before I get to my personal favourite, I’m not even going to get into the judging. It’s a total rort. All the Balkans vote for each other, because even though they spend the other 364 days of the year trying to shoot at each other and steal each other’s land, they still like each other more than they like the rest of Europe. All the Scandos vote for each other because they know they’re the shit.

Everyone votes for Ukraine because they don’t want to provoke them into stealing the gas from the gas-pipe again. Everyone votes for some shit act with a hot young girl shaking like Shakira (this year, it’s Greece).

No one votes for the UK because the UK has at some point conquered or invaded every other nation in Europe. That kind of thing tends to stick in the memory, I guess. Terry Wogan also tells me this year everyone will vote for Russia due to politics or something, and he is always right.

The only bit of the judging worth watching is all the crazy Albanian and Moldovan TV hosts smarming Welcome from Belgraddde! We love this year’s Eurovision so wonderful yesssss thankyou me. This year I especially love the Portugese correspondent who seems to be heavily sedated.

But if I was in charge, the winner with daylight behind would be France.

Oh, France! Will your fabulosity never end? A skinny Har Mar Superstar in sunnies riding a golfcart, backed up by five singers in fake beards, singing the happiest song to ever be sung on a stage on Earth. Spain tried to be quirky earlier in the night, but pretty much no other nation in Europe can pull off quirky but France. It really doesn’t get any better than this. Just watch, and enjoy:

Edit: Oh yeah, and Russia wins. WHATEVS. It’s no France.

* Direct quote from the Belgrade host. Oh yeah, I love non-native english speakers.

Can we talk about this 90210 ‘spinoff’? Awesome, thanks.

First of all, didn’t we already have ‘the 90210 of the new millennium’ that revolved around rich kids in California and a fish out of water scenario? It was called The OC, and it was shit. Second, how dare they try to recreate the sheer brilliance that was the original 90210? YOU JUST CAN’T DO THAT. I admit I’m pretty harsh on remakes and spinoffs but sometimes they’re not so bad – I’m a huge Degrassi fan and don’t mind The Next Generation, especially since it has some of the old cast in it including Joey Jeremiah and Caitlin ‘you were fucking Tessa Campanelli’ Ryan who totally got it on as adults. But this is not on. NOT ON.

Let’s look at the promo that’s just been released. “Cooler, sexier, more provocative”. REALLY? Do they not know that the very act of calling themselves ‘cool’ makes them deeply uncool? It’s like the Hanson of television. I also love that they’ve cast one of the most excruciatingly painful characters from Nip/Tuck (and that’s a huge call, for those of you who know your Nip/Tuck) – the girl with the curly hair who looks like she might have some sort of…syndrome. Nice to see she’s playing the ‘spoilt popular girl’. Girl has RANGE. She’s “a lot of fun”, apparently, which basically means she Gets Around ifyouknowwhatimean. Hang on, wait. One of the characters is named NAVID. Pronounced na-veed (or possible na-vee? Which is even better), which I will take great joy in pronouncing as nay-vid. Speaking of, apparently there is/was a guy on Home and Away named David who pronounced it Dar-vid. Bitch please, it’s Dayvid.

We also have a QUIRKY GIRL named Silver. We know she’s quirky because she’s named from the colour wheel and WEARS A SCARF ON HER HEAD! Craaaaazy. There’s also a young male teacher who ‘indentifies with the students’. Anyone who’s watched teen drama before knows a teacher who ‘identifies with the students’ is a teacher who ‘plays I’ll touch yours if you touch mine with the students’. And I think this quote from ONTD sums up the black dude

OMG this takes the alibi black kid to a whole new level XD. The only way he can be in Beverly Hills is through adoption. WTF?

They’ve also cast Aunt Becky from Full House and the amazing Jessica Walter who SHOULDN’T BE REDUCED TO THIS SHIT. ughhhhhh.

Anyway, I don’t think this monstrosity deserves any more of my blogging time. But I feel like I can’t leave without a screencap of one of the cool, sexy and provocative stars of The New 90210:

Says it all really.

If you haven’t seen the televisual brilliance that is Man vs Wild … you should. And if you’ve heard the rumours about how in between the rugged manly activities they catch on film, Bear Grylls actually stays in fancy hotels, they’re true. But they’re also irrelevant.

He might stay in the Sheraton a few nights a week, but you can’t fake the kind of awesome that Bear Grylls gets up to in between. I’ve watched our man Bear Grylls climb inside an animal carcass for warmth, drink water squeezed from elephant dung, and bite into a live fish.

Bear Grylls also does not walk. He may occasionally take a few slow paces across the African savannah while he explains something to the camera in his fabulous british public school accent, but other than that, never. Bear Grylls leaps and runs and commando-rolls and swims and scales cliffs, but he never walks.

Related note for people unfamiliar with Bear Grylls: Never ever call him Bear. or Grylls. He should always be addressed by his full name, Bear Grylls. It’s just more fun that way.

Lastly and most importantly, Bear Grylls is delightfully pervy. Searching “Bear Grylls shirtless” yields a selection of clips on youtube (sadly searching “Bear Grylls pantsless” is comparatively unsuccessful). He loves getting his top off, stripping naked and doing pushups, and gives commentary like ‘my thighs are BURNING’ as he climbs palm trees. Now that’s television.

* Obviously every time I say we love someone I do it without consulting anyone. So by ‘we’, clearly I mean ‘me’. The other girls can feel free to leave me comments about why we shouldn’t love them, but if they do, they would also be wrong.

So the American version of How To Look Good Naked started on Aussie TV last night. I missed it, but they have the whole first episode up on the website so I caught it there. I hate to put a downer on things (pfft who am I kidding, I love to put a downer on things) but I think it’s all a bit of a farce. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing that there’s a show on television that promotes a healthy body image and all that jazz, and Carson is kind of a doll and I think he truly does think women are beautiful even though he is being paid to say so. I just don’t think it’s possible to reverse those awful thoughts we have about ourselves so quickly, and it’s unfair to suggest that it is that easy.

I think most people probably realise that it’s TV Magic and the women’s turnarounds didn’t really happen that quickly, but I think it’s kind of shitty to basically put it out there that “hey, all you need to feel better about yourself is some strangers telling you you’re a hot bitch and some fierce new clothes (oh, and makeup. lotsa lotsa makeup)”. I’m sure that helps quite a bit, but it can’t reverse years and years of negative thoughts about your looks. That’s just unrealistic.

What happens when people watch shows like this and do everything Darling Carson says and still feel fat and ugly and gross? Are they then to blame, did they just not try hard enough? WHAT DO WE DO NOW, CARSON?

It just all kind of bugs me. It’s not that I don’t think messages like this should be out there, it’s that they’re usually presented in a really simplistic way that doesn’t really address much more than the clothes and hair and makeup you should be using to Look Your Best. Though, realistically, anything more than that would make for a pretty shit-boring TV show that felt like a therapy sesh.

Point is, it’s great that someone is attempting to make us all feel better about ourselves, but it’s also slightly belittling to essentially say that all you need to erase those years of low self-esteem is a visit from a fab gay fairy-godmother (though it’s true the gayz will always make you feel amazing – it’s in their blood), some hot lingerie and a bunch of strangers commenting on your body. Shit, I wish someone had told me that was all I needed to do to feel Sexy before I spent money on therapy. Could’ve saved me some dollars more worthy of putting towards a giant projection of my naked self on the side of a building.