Ukraine is one of those countries in Eurovision that will qualify with just about anything. And end up in the top 10 in the big Saturday final. They could probably send a bunch of tone-deaf grannies who barely remember the words and just manage to stand up straight for three minutes without their walkers, and still continue their string of respectable placings. Or wait a minute, that’s Russia. But yeah whatever, would an audacious version of David Guetta’s When Love Takes Over, sung by a stunningly beautiful and bodacious babe and simultaneously serving as the official anthem of the 2012 Euro Football Championship do the trick? Sure thing!
And for a while there we accept the invitation to join the party and sail happily onboard Gaitana’s party cruise. She’s the perfect hostess that makes everybody feel welcome and well taken care of. She tops off your drinks, refills the snack bowls and talks politely to everybody. But after a while we start to feel that the hostess herself takes up a little too much space. She enjoys to be the centre of everyone’s attention and you feel obliged to laugh at her jokes and compliment her on her decorating skills. And when she dims the lights, switch off the music and starts wailing old Whitney Houston hits a capella, you realise it’s your key to leave.
After what feels like the 86th “You can be my guest” before the song is halfway done, we know that we are dangerously closing in on our limits on how much we can take for one night. It’s starting to feel a bit excessive. It’s like when someone is pleading for you to come to his extremely fun party, you just know it’s probably a boring one that you should stay away from. And with the reports coming in from what goes on in Ukraine nowadays, we don’t find it to be very festive. So much for Eurovision bringing change to a country, it doesn’t seem like a whole lot has happened there for the better since 2005.
So there you have it. Thanks for the invitation Ukraine, but we think we’ll take a rain check.