http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ead61774-bcf8-11e2-b344-00144feab7de.html#axzz2TZVSAqsh
The thought of my annual pilgrimage to Eurovision makes plenty of my British friends nauseous. They can’t deal with the kitsch factor and inevitably moan about their ears bleeding. But they miss the point. As an American who moved to London at the age of 24, I find the lunacy of Eurovision irresistible. The mish-mash of cultures – and varying notions of good taste – remains distinctly European, as does the presence of schlager and Turbofolk, esoteric music genres I discovered far too late in life. Drawn into the Eurovision orbit in 2007 – when the Ukrainian drag queen Verka Serduchka lost to a Serb of Romany descent – the songs started to matter less to me than the thrill of the competition itself. In subsequent years I’ve also found people who share my obscure – and severely stigmatised – interest.
