Supporting The Hump

We had an email a few months back asking if we would be showing the Eurovision Song Contest in the bar. After checking that it didn't clash with anything important like football we said yes. It transpired that a group of friends from Scotland and England get together each year to watch the annual humiliation of the UK.
As you know we are a country that has produced the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Robbie Williams to name but a few but cannot find a "cracking tune"  to appeal to our European neighbours.
(this of course assumes that the voting isn't political because if it was the UK being everybodys friend would win easily, wouldn't it?)

So yesterday evening the five ladies arrived in time to see Botox man Englebert starting the show from the hub of European music Baku  Azerbaijan.

To say they were keen is an understatement. They arrived with a list of rules for their contest and each had a score sheet.

Each of the five had been allocated "events" such as key change, pyrotechnics, costume change, unnecessary people on stage, national costume, singing in English etc etc

As each of the 26 countries did their stuff, the girls were looking and listening out for their events. The bar was full of shouts of "key change"   "pyro" and the like as points were added to individual score sheets.

The ladies also felt it their duty to comment loudly on anything and everything and the air was full of shouts of 

"unnecessary people, unnecessary hair, unnecessary shoulder pads etc"

For those of you that didn't see the contest, here are the "highlights".

• Englebert looked plastic 
• Israel has joined Europe
• A Swedish Kate Bush won
• Spain entered but didn't want to win as they would have to host in 2013 and haven't the money
• Russia had six grannies singing and baking biscuits
• One country had a boat made out of people clothes
• Jedwood need to be humanely put down for their own and the world's good
• There was a little political voting but not much. For example Croatia gave its top 3 scores to Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia.
• Graham Norton managed to predict most countries scoring
• The winner got 372 points, England and France came fairly close with 12 and 21 respectively.

So the evening came and went, we enjoyed the company and would willingly do it next year  but overall the evening can be summed up in one overused word  UNNECESSARY 

Saturnia pyri

Just before we closed last night, about 11.30pm, we had a visit from a Giant Peacock Moth. This is the biggest moth found in Europe. We had never seen one before and this one came and settled on the bar door and then on the floor.

It was about 120mm (5inches) and the photo shows it next to J's hand

Danny

Danny an occasional visitor to the bar passed away last week. He was 38.
RIP