Send for the Hoff!

So, another Eurovision Song Contest humiliation for the UK. Last place. Still, at least we didn't get 'null point'. No doubt this will result in anther post-mortem in the media, with yet more allegations of 'political voting' by the East European entrants to benefit their 'friends' at the expense of the likes of the UK. Unfortunately, the fact that Germany won this year's contest rather undermines such claims. The fact of the matter is that we entered a God-awful song, performed by an utterly bland singer. He was always going to come last because of that, regardless of any other factors. The problem underlying our consistent failure in Eurovision in recent years is our schizophrenic attitude toward the event. On the one hand we want to treat it all as a bit of a camp joke, on the other, we apparently want to win it, and get upset when we do poorly. This is reflected in the kind of songs we end up selecting: either they are a complete joke, like Scooch, which the rest of Europe clearly sees as patronising, or they're attempts at 'seriousness', which ultimately fail because they are bland, or just inappropriate for Eurovision.

The ridiculous thing, of course, is that British pop generally travels well, yet we can't seem to offer up a song for Europe that Europe actually likes. Of course, it might help if we actually had as our entry an established act who we knew was popular across the continent. After all, in the past we've been represented by the likes of Sandie Shaw, Lulu and Cliff Richard (to name but a few). However, many current acts are simply not going to want to be involved, fearing that association with Eurovision could hit their credibility. Moreover, even if they were willing to participate, they might decide that the risk of failure was too great - being seen to come last in Eurovision would be a huge blow to the credibility of any professional group or artist. Clearly, what we need is an established pop act that is well known in Europe, but which is also sufficiently desperate to be willing to risk the association with Eurovision. The answer is obvious - David Hasselhoff. OK, I know he's not British, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to be a citizen of the country you are representing. He checks all the other boxes - he has a good track record of selling records in Europe, particularly Germany. And not just any records, but exactly the kind of cheesy Euro-pop which always seems to win Eurovision. Ultimately, he's desperate. Let's be honest, since Baywatch, people haven't exactly been going out of their way to employ him, have they? He seems to subsist these days on reality TV programmes broadcast on obscure digital channels. For him, Eurovision would be the big time. Furthermore, as far as Eurovision is concerned, he'd be a big name. So I think , as of now,we should be begging the Hoff to be our entry in next year's Eurovision song contest. I implore you - start e-mailing him now! Hassle the Hoff to represent us! He's our only hope!