Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst has been crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest held in Denmark's capital, Copenhagen
reports the BBC (video at the link) which decided to stay clear of Bruno jokes.
The singer, whose real name is Tom Neuwirth, won with the song Rise Like a Phoenix, collecting 290 points.
I'm all for voting for a bearded transvestite's song if/when it is the best. Austria's song wasn't bad. But it wasn't fantastic either. Like the Swedish entry, the Dutch entry, and the Russian entry.
It was political correctness all the way around. With gays all over the continent voting for Conchita and with all the Soviet ex-republics voting systematically for one other.
BBC watcher Andy Den Haag adds,
Update: And Hervé adds:Oh the Austrian guy's [gal's?] name - rather rude isnt it? Conchita is spanish for Vagina and Wurst is german for sausage
Singing a song called "Rise like a Penis".
That's all you need to win the Zerovision.
Furthermore, the CBC quotes a Thomson Reuters story on the creeping in of geopolitics:The Eurovision competition, which has been held annually since 1956, was created to help foster unity after World War Two and is meant to be non-political. But political strife slipped between the cracks at this year's contest.
Many in the audience booed when the Russian contestants, the 17-year-old Tolmachevy twin sisters, were presented at Saturday's opening ceremony and again when they were awarded points from other, mostly neighbouring, nations.
… Ukraine's song was voted the sixth best of the 26 songs, and Russia's came in at seventh.
Since politics had played a role in the voting in the past, half the points are now awarded by professional judges and half by the public via phone and SMS.
