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Worst. Eurovision. Ever
When some plunky underdogs from Moldova unexpectedly won the Eurovision Song Contest, the show's organizers were instantly worried about how they were going to hold the following year's competition in such a small and little-visited country. But the location was the least of their worries as a procession of unlikely artists begin to be chosen, and everything from Norwegian black metallers, a Saudi Arabian prince performing for San Marino, and an Icelandic bloke dressed as a dog caused a cascade of complications before a note had even been sung. Can they keep all the egos in check, or is the whole thing going to come tumbling down around them?
498 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 30, 2022
For a guy who is on a mono diet of punk (in all it's shades and forms though) reading a book on the Eurovision song contest seems like the oddest thing to do.
If you bear in mind that Roy Hacksaw is playing drums in Chaotic Discord and in his own band aptly named Hacksaw, and he's organizing the Hackfest (this year is #5 with Dead Sheeran and the Butt Plug babies playing amongst others) then it starts to make a little bit more sense why I gave this book a try. But still... the f*cking eurovision...
I've never been too fond of that. Anyway, I was hoping for a Ben Elton kinda take on the subject.
It was funny alright, but i think that Hacksaw has too high regards for the contest to really take the p*ss out of it. There was potential for even more mayhem than presented in the book but still it was a fun read.
Two things bugged me though :
1) the editing could be a bit tighter. Why have all these short paragraphs? It doesn't make it a better read, especially when sentences are cut in half and spread over two paragraphs.
2) The conversations in the book (and there's plenty of them) all sound so British, it's like overhearing a conversation in Wetherspoons. It's cool on the one hand that it all sounds so genuine, like how people actually talk in real life, but on the other hand the Kazakhs, the Moldovans, the Swedish.. they all sound like they're from Bristol rather than from their native country.
But these are minor details that should not stop you from reading this book.
Here you can see Hacksaw in action. They have a thing with bogrolls :-) As far as street credibility goes you can't get much better than that. Check out their songs as well on bandcamp. It's hard to believe we're talking about the same guy who wrote this book..
If you bear in mind that Roy Hacksaw is playing drums in Chaotic Discord and in his own band aptly named Hacksaw, and he's organizing the Hackfest (this year is #5 with Dead Sheeran and the Butt Plug babies playing amongst others) then it starts to make a little bit more sense why I gave this book a try. But still... the f*cking eurovision...
I've never been too fond of that. Anyway, I was hoping for a Ben Elton kinda take on the subject.
It was funny alright, but i think that Hacksaw has too high regards for the contest to really take the p*ss out of it. There was potential for even more mayhem than presented in the book but still it was a fun read.
Two things bugged me though :
1) the editing could be a bit tighter. Why have all these short paragraphs? It doesn't make it a better read, especially when sentences are cut in half and spread over two paragraphs.
2) The conversations in the book (and there's plenty of them) all sound so British, it's like overhearing a conversation in Wetherspoons. It's cool on the one hand that it all sounds so genuine, like how people actually talk in real life, but on the other hand the Kazakhs, the Moldovans, the Swedish.. they all sound like they're from Bristol rather than from their native country.
But these are minor details that should not stop you from reading this book.
Here you can see Hacksaw in action. They have a thing with bogrolls :-) As far as street credibility goes you can't get much better than that. Check out their songs as well on bandcamp. It's hard to believe we're talking about the same guy who wrote this book..
September 28, 2023
This is a lot of fun for a Eurovision fan. I follow the author on twitter and found out about this book from him there. I was intrigued by how the plot would work. It's so fun to see real bits of the contest that I know and love translated to fiction, and even more fun to guess how much of the Behind The Scenes bits might be an accurate portrayal of how the contest is run.
I really took my time with this one - dipping in and out over several months because I didn't want to rush it. I'm glad I did that - it was nice to save a lot of it for that point in the season when the songs are selected and the artists are doing their final preparations for the contest, when everything goes a little quiet just ahead of the big spectacular of final rehearsals and the main shows.
I really took my time with this one - dipping in and out over several months because I didn't want to rush it. I'm glad I did that - it was nice to save a lot of it for that point in the season when the songs are selected and the artists are doing their final preparations for the contest, when everything goes a little quiet just ahead of the big spectacular of final rehearsals and the main shows.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews