www.bella-close.co.uk/drinking/eurovision.html

Accept no substitutes!

Once a year, the people of Europe suffer the evil that hides under the media-friendly face of the Eurovision Song Contest, or Eurosong as it has now been renamed. Unfortunately the name is the only thing that's changed. The songs remain the same, the presenters remain the same, the effects remain the same and the crap judging by the European judges remain - amazingly - the same. Despite its shortcomings, EuroSong is like a bank holiday Bond film. It has to be watched. There is a way to get through the torture with your sanity and ears intact. And it, happily, involves drinking. This is the unofficial drinking game for EuroSong. We don't know how you managed to find it, but if you want to tell us then please drop us a line. As this is the the only drinking game on the internet for this particular event, we pretty much regard it as the official game Judging by the interest that it generated during the run-up and days following the 1997 event on the 3rd May this certainly is becoming the official drinking game for the EuroSong contest. It was, according to an Austrian guy who emailed us, all over the papers and radio in Austria! It's also been read by people in Australia who don't even enter the contest but have it screened there a couple of days after we see it (hello to all the readers from Oz!)

If you decide to play this game 'seriously' then we recommend that you print out this page and give a copy to your mates about a week before the event is screened so you can all learn the rules off by heart and not have to fiddle around with beer-sodden pieces of paper during the programme when you should be concentrating on the drinking. One thing that we discovered during the 1998 event was that if you're in the UK and have a teletext-enabled TV set, turn the subtitles on!!! You can see what the people are actually singing, only translated into English. This might work for other countries but we can't say for sure. In 1997 we added a few extra rules which were sent in by a Norwegian reader. After the competition in 1998 we had more sent in from Anna and her friends in Sweden. Since then we've had ideas and messages from all over the globe, including Ireland, Australia, Norway and Malta. If you have any rules that you think should be in, please email us and we'll consider adding them for you. If you have a page and would like to put a link in it to this page, then take a look at our link banner that we'd like you to use. This page has been moved to a new address, so make sure that your bookmarks have been updated. If you find a page that has the old address in it then please let us know and we'll get in touch with them to let them know about the move. Cheers. You know, since setting up this drinking game we've been inundated with offers of free beer, cheap fags, the chance to go on TV and meet Terry Wogan and Ulrika Johnsson (whahey!) and even a trip to Dublin to watch the proper contest. However, whilst all this is very nice, what we really want is money. So if you appreciate this page and would like to make a donation to our beer money, please send it to us. We're not going to put our addresses online in case anti-lager fundamentalists track us down, or something, so if you want to send us some money, email us first. Remember, the only official unofficial Eurovision Drinking Game is here at Cowgate Cottage in the good ol' United Kingdom. Accept no substitutes. Please remember to play safely. It is unsafe to consume large amounts of alcohol !!

MSN Group - Discussion of the game, pictures and stuff

Drink two fingers...

Presenters

• Terry Wogan makes a satorical comment that no-one laughs at.
• Presenters try to be funny.
• Female presenter changes her dress
• Male presenter changes his dress - drain your glass
• Bad time delays during video/audio link
• Presenters overlapping with voter during video/audio link because of the bad delay
• Presenters having a time-wasting conversation that no-one can follow, understand or care less about.
• Tezza's predictions come true.

Performers

• Performer resembles someone you know.
• Performer resembles another famous person. Drink four fingers if that person is present in the audience. Drain your glass if the camera zooms in and lingers on that person.
• Singers wave their arms around whilst singing.
• Singers put excessive emotion into their singing.
• Tacky and nonsensical song titles (shoo-wop etc.)
• Main singer is grossly overweight.
• Singers try to join in with musicians during instrumentals.
• France does not conduct a musical experiment.
• Retro/out-of-date clothing and hairstyles.
• Singer from eastern Europe has faked blond hair.
• Bad dress-sense. Four fingers if it's blatently offensive.
• Visible/prominant nipples/genitalia.
• The Maltese performer does not have a hairy chest.
• High & loud obnoxious noises emitted from singer during their act.
• Unnecessary dancing.
• Act steals ideas from Eurovision acts from previous years
• Interaction with the audience. Four fingers if the audience is unusually passive.
• Dancing that surpasses belief and credibility.
• Foreign acts sing in English.
• Singer flirts with the camera when she has finished her song.
• The song goes up half an octave in the last refrain.
• A style of music that would be ruined by appearing in EuroSong.
• A country from Former Yugoslavia has a depressing song.
• Countries where the lead singer is not a native of that country.
• Use of atmospheric panpipes

The judging

• Reference made to Norway's null point.
• Cyprus gives Greece 12 points.
• Every time Norway gives Sweden any points but not vice-versa.
• Every time there is an Irish performer in a foreign act.
• France gives United Kingdom null point.
• Acts where the lead singer is attractive and receive high (8+) points and the act is crap.
• Surprising voting - you judge what's surprising!
• United Kingdom come second.
• Ireland win yet again.
• A question about Israel's presence.
• Politically-related effects during the act (eg. Croatian singer removing black gown to reveal white dress signifying "coming out of the darkness and into the light").
• Acts are on their mobile phone to their family during voting. Increase to a whopping four fingers if they're on the phone during their act.

Television coverage & venue

• Bad telecommunications link.
• Preview video is completely pointless and/or a blatant fragmented tourist advert for the host country
• Preview video is full of gormless smiles.
• National symbols are seen somewhere.
• Special effects are:
  1. Cheesy
  2. Better than the song
• Both (obviously this is a case for four fingers' worth)


Drain your glass...

• If the winning country decline to hold the event next year due to:
  1. Financial reasons
  2. Political reasons
  3. Personal reasons
  4. Moral reasons
  5. All of the above
• If Germany spares one single point for her southern neighbour, Austria.
• If your own country comes first.
• If Norway does not give Sweden any points.
• Drink everything in sight if the United Kingdom come first and you're British.
• If Greece gives Turkey any points then stop drinking!. This is very unlikely to happen so you must be veeeeeery drunk at this time. GO TO BED.
• Germany's song does not mention peace, harmony or love...

Of course, it's always a good idea to try and consume a single shot of alcohol native to a given country.

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