The opposite

Tonight, millions of people across Europe – and even beyond – will be huddled in front of their TVs watching the Eurovision Song Contest. For many people, the event has become as important an annual fixture as the Cup Final, the Rose Bowl or even Christmas.

I’ll be one of them. Not because I particularly like the music – in fact I most often hate the music – but for the sheer unpredictability and predictability of the contest. The Eurovision Song Contest is unpredictable because, with very few exceptions, it’s certainly not the best song that wins. Very often it’s the song that you marked down as a complete no-hoper that sweeps up all the points, while the song you were absolutely certain would carry all before it comes nowhere at all.

Greece showing what 3,000 years of culture can do for you.

On the other hand, the contest is completely predictable in many ways. For example, you can be totally certain that all of the Scandinavian countries will dutifully vote for each other, as will all the countries of former Yugoslavia; the Greeks will give maximum points to Cyprus and vice versa. Great Britain, which dominated the contest for many years when British music was still acknowledged as the coolest around, may pick up a few points from Ireland but will otherwise do very poorly. This has nothing to do with the song, and everything to do with Iraq, which isn’t even in the contest.

Similarly, you can be fairly certain that Germany will give either 10 points or 12 points to Turkey. This is not a reflection of the military alliance of the First World War or a German fondness for kebabs. It’s simply because 2.5% of the country are of Turkish ethnicity and they all vote en masse for Turkey while the Germans themselves vote for hardly anyone – Germany has won the contest only once and that was in 1982.

1996 and the contest ends in a controversial tie for last place.

And then there are the French, God bless ‘em. In the early years of the Eurovision, they did quite well but they haven’t actually won it since 1977. Naturally, being French, they were a bit miffed at this and in 1980 they even pulled out of the contest completely for a few years declaring that it was “merde” or something equally Gallic. However, it has to be said that they have otherwise done their best to subvert the traditional Eurovision song, most notably in 1990 with Serge Gainsbourg’s song “White and Black Blues”. Gainsbourg should have known better really: a song about racial harmony is the last thing that’s going to win the Eurovision Song Contest (although it did come second).

So what is the typical Eurovision song? Well, it certainly isn’t “Waterloo”, which is a quality song however you look at it. As I see it, the Eurovision song is either a cheap exploitation of popular sentiment (Norway’s infamous “Brandenburger Tor” celebrating the downfall of the Berlin Wall, for example) or something mindlessly happy and bouncy (Spain’s highly complex exploration of post-modern angst “La la la” springs to mind).

2010 and the Spanish entry gives rise to rumours that his guitar may not be plugged in.

In fact, it’s well-known in the music world, and outside, that there is such a thing as the “Eurovision Song” – ideally a lumpen piece of Europap that will appeal in equal measure to the inhabitants of Belgrade and Bolsover. It is rarely, if ever, a reflection of current musical tastes and cuts neatly through the problem of lyrical complexity by resorting to the sort of words that most of us left behind at the age of three. This monstrosity is usually accompanied by inane dancing and costumes left over from an amateur version of Saturday Night Fever.

John Travolta

As if the musical content of the Eurovision were not bad enough, we have the presenters. Traditionally these are a man and a woman who, one hopes, are in no way representative of the population of the host country. To keep the French happy, they do everything in French and English, which gives the French-speaker a chance to show off and the English-speaker an opportunity to show why he or she could never make it in stand-up comedy. In fact if there is one thing worse than the Eurovision Song, it’s the Eurovision Joke, which was probably put together by a committee in Brussels from some spare jokes left over from the Second World War.

For many years, the only real saving grace of the Eurovision was the commentary by Terry Wogan. Terry, quite clearly enjoying the hospitality thoroughly on more than one occasion, seemed to be the one person involved in the Eurovision circus who actually knew what was going on. He knew when a song was drivel (roughly 90%) and when the presenters were complete idiots (possibly 95%). In 2001, he famously endeared himself to people everywhere by accurately calling the Danish presenters “Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy”.

Dame Terry Wogan having a good smile.

So why, you may ask, do I continue to watch the Eurovision Song Contest in spite of apparently detesting it? Well, I watched it as a child and loved it; I spent many years not watching it at all because it was uncool and I didn’t have a TV anyway; and in the mid-nineties I rediscovered it as the perfect kitsch entertainment that it so obviously is. It’s as much a contest as the Grand National is a boat race and the word “song” should not be taken too literally, but it remains riveting and at times hilarious entertainment. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Of all of the insects in the world, there are none quite as lovably stupid as the bumble bee. On what do I base this statement? Well, for starters, this is an insect that gets up early in the morning, while all other insects are quietly snoring under their duvets, on the principle that the early bird gets the worm. Not that the bumble bee is a bird, and it certainly doesn’t eat worms, but it’s clearly an insect in which the work-ethic is deeply rooted. No, the bumble bee feeds on pollen and nectar, which come from flowers, which are open for business all day from sunrise to sunset. Is there a shortage of flowers? No, not particularly. But the bumble bee gets up early anyway, just in case there might be.

Cor! Lovely bit o' pollen in 'ere!

The bumble bee also appears to be very short-sighted. Assuming that it’s mostly interested in flowers, why does it spend so much time buzzing around me? I don’t look remotely like a flower - not even in my best moments. It’s also, as far as I can see, very interested in various sorts of garden furniture.

Considering that the bumble bee is so work-oriented, why is it so fat? It’s so fat that it can hardly lift itself, never mind buzz effectively. Are we talking about the couch-potato of the insect world? Is the only reason why it gets up so early that it wants to get the tedious business of working over with as quickly as possible so that it can lounge on the sofa scratching its fuzz, watching reality TV and eating pizzas? Is this the chav of the insect world?

Oi! Who are you lookin' at?

But what really defines the bumble bee as stupid – if lovably stupid – is its total inability to come to terms with windows. Now there are many insects out there, some of them much smaller, that seem to have no difficulty with a window. Okay, I admit that there’s the daddy-longlegs that even has problems with a wall but most insects seem to recognise glass when they see it and try a work-around. Not so the lovable bumble bee that simply smacks into the window repeatedly in the hope that it will eventually dissolve. It will continue to do this until either the glass does indeed dissolve or it drops dead of exhaustion…

The bumble bee's arch-enemy: Southwark.

Not that this stops bumble bees from trying every means possible to gain entrance to your house. In the summer, it’s wise to leave no gap open to the outside world because as sure as oeufs are oeufs the bumble bee will find its way through. And what will it do when it gets its way through? Yep, smack into the windows until they dissolve or it dies of exhaustion. Not a wise career move for a couch-potato, I think you’ll agree.

The bumble bee lives in a nest with other bumble bees. However, lacking the architectural skills and social organisation of the honey bee, much less the ant, he has never managed to build anything that will house more than about fifty bees at a time. Not that the bumble bee would actually want to live together with more than fifty other bumble bees anyway. In fact, if it were possible to live entirely alone or, at the very least with the wife and couple of kids, the average bumble bee would leap at the chance.

Female bumble bee - click for actual size.

You see, the bumble bee is essentially a loner. You never see a couple of bumble bees pass the time of day with each other, let alone sit down for an in-depth conversation. This may explain why they repeatedly smack into windows – because no other bumble bee has ever bothered to explain that it’s a waste of time. On the other hand, because no bumble bee has ever explained the facts of life to another bumble bee, every day is probably a voyage of discovery, with totally new things to explore and enjoy. And because the bumble bee has a poor memory – as in no memory at all – the totally new things of yesterday will certainly be the totally new things of today and tomorrow too.

I imagine that living in a bumble bee’s nest is probably like living in an old people’s home but having to get up unreasonably early and go out to work every day. You return home in the evening to sit with other bumble bees, chewing your gums and saying nothing. Occasionally, one of your fellow bees will have an unfortunate encounter with a window and not return to the nest but no one seems to notice.

A hive on a day out to Blackpool.

In fact, apart from a deeply rooted work ethic, there’s not a lot that gets a bumble bee excited at all. The main object of its life is to find flowers, by a slow process of elimination, and then extract the nectar. It has a sting, but can’t really be bothered to use it.

So next time that you see a bumble bee smacking into one of your windows, do spare a thought for those less fortunate than ourselves, and gently help it on its way. But before you do so, be sure to explain to it thoroughly exactly what glass is. You won’t get a word of thanks, of course.

I invented Tomism on a beach in Greece about nine years ago when I first met the delightful woman who, four years later, proved herself lunatic enough to marry me. She’s Norwegian. Like many Norwegians, she has a name that is almost impossible to pronounce correctly by anyone who isn’t Norwegian – and even by some who are.

I’m sure there are many of us who have met a person to whom we are really very much attracted but whose name we have difficulty in remembering. That’s bad enough, but it’s much worse when you do remember the name – well, sort of – but are unable to pronounce it. So, I solved the problem by calling her Tom. And so that she wouldn’t feel that I was picking on her, and also to cover up for the fact that I couldn’t pronounce her name, I called everyone else Tom too.

A beach. Well, just a beach really. Not in Greece or anything.

Unexpectedly, this caught on. I guess there were other people on the beach with a similar problem. For the rest of the holiday, quite a large number of people called each other Tom on a more or less regular basis. Unwittingly I had stumbled upon a revolutionary idea and one that I feel will certainly have a massive impact on society as a whole: Tomism.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Tomism is just about calling everyone Tom. Well, actually it is but it’s the effects of Tomism that are important and not the name. The name might just as well be Dick, Harry or even Lucinda and the overall effect would be fairly similar. But not the same. You see Tom is a name that it is not only impossible to mispronounce but also very egalitarian – you find Toms at all levels of society. Admittedly not many of them are women but that will soon change.

A real Tom.

Call everyone Tom and you confer on them a shared responsibility. This responsibility may be positive or negative. In other words, you are taking an active share in humanity’s successes but also its failures. Who painted the Mona Lisa? Tom. Who started the Second World War? Also Tom. Who ended the Second World War? A load of Toms.

However, Tomism not only means that you’ll suddenly excel in general knowledge quizzes but also that we’ll finally have the answers to all of those nagging questions that have plagued us for generations. Who invented the wheel? Who invented sliced bread? Who was the first person to set foot on the American continent? Who will be the first person to set foot on Mars? You see, you can simplify history and predict the future at the same time.

Tom.

In an economic sense, Tomism will solve the problem of world poverty. Just got an unexpectedly large bill that you don’t know how to pay? Simply find the richest Tom in the neighbourhood and pop it in his post box! Wars of conquest will become a thing of the past. After all, why go to the trouble of invading a country that you already own?

But it’s in the question of religion that Tomism really comes into its own. Who created the world? Tom did. Let’s not go into how long it took him or how he did it – the name is the most important thing. If all adherents of every religion in the world worship a deity, or multiple deities, called Tom, there’s absolutely no point in arguing about who’s got it right. They’ve all got it right. Naturally the leader of the forces of evil is also called Tom which will shed a new light on Manichaeism.

On a more mundane, practical level, we shall finally see the end of name-dropping. “As I was saying to Tom the other day…” will lose its force entirely.

Tom.

As with any good idea, there are, of course, one or two slight drawbacks. Such as “Where’s Tom?” for example. This question now shifts from the geographical to the philosophical; the correct answer being “Who do you actually mean by Tom?” But, as you can see, it now encourages us to describe that person in more depth. Paradoxically Tomism now presents us with a lot more information about the person in question, such as “The female Tom with the squint who was born in 1977, lives in Salford, Greater Manchester, England, and had two kids with the Tom who worked in the builder’s yard and another with the Tom who was Undersecretary of State for Education in Tom’s last government”. Beats Sharon Philips every day.

Crime, of course, will virtually disappear. We have already successfully dispensed with the profit motive by popping unwanted bills in rich Tom’s letter-box and anyone wishing to gain notoriety will be doomed to disappointment. Crimes of passion become pretty meaningless when your partner has been having an affair with…you. Naturally there will be the odd fully dysfunctional Tom but it’s not a perfect world. Yet.

Another Tom.

And the more you think about it, the more benefits to Tomism there are. Want to go on holiday? No problem. All the tickets are made out to Tom, as are all the passports. Want to be an Olympic Gold Medal Winner? Forget about the training – you already are one. You can win an Oscar, be a best-selling writer (after all, every writer is now a best-selling writer) and even win Mastermind by answering questions on “Famous people”.

And finally, when you meet someone new on holiday, you no longer need to rack your brain to remember their name, much less pronounce it. We’re all Toms. Easy.

As the seventeenth-century English poet Andrew Marvell wrote,

But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

Which is not exactly cheerful, but old Andy did have a point: with the Grim Reaper sharpening his scythe, it’s not a bad idea to take a look at what you might conceivably do in the few years left to you. After all, wouldn’t you like to leave some mark on the world before you pop your clogs? When you’re finally pushing up the daisies, wouldn’t you like someone to say “Well [your name here] was a total waste of space as a human being but he/she did invent [your choice of invention here].

Of course, finding something really worthwhile to do with your remaining time is no easy matter, so to make the choice a bit easier for you, I’ve come up with ten suggestions of things to do before you die. I’ll admit that ten is a fairly arbitrary number – it could just as well have been a hundred or even a thousand – but you can always look at it as a starting point. So here goes.

1. CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST. Yes, I know it’s a classic but it’s still worth doing anyway. Apparently climbing the highest mountain in the world is now so popular that there’s a waiting list and traffic jams at base camp so all the more reason to get cracking before they install a lift. Naturally, it helps enormously if you have some sort of physical defect or are prepared to do it backwards, barefoot or waving an inflatable banana.

Mount Everest - vastly overrated.

2. FIND OUT WHO INVENTED MAYONNAISE. The Majorcans say it was them, the French, as always, claim that they did it. The Germans have been quiet on the subject, which is unusual, while the Italians couldn’t care less as long as it’s made with extra virgin olive oil. Find out who did it, acquire the copyright and sue Heinz for millions.

3. LIVE. All right! I know! It sounds easy but there are very few people who have mastered the art. What it really boils down to is that whatever you choose to do before you die should actually have been done much earlier.

4. DISCOVER A CURE FOR SOMETHING. It doesn’t matter what – there are plenty of useful diseases out there so you can more or less take your pick. It doesn’t even have to be an effective cure as long as it will fool people for a few hundred years (the placebo effect is a great ally in this). Personally I’d play safe and go for something that is not life-threatening, such as athlete’s foot, for example.

Python Foot - also worth a try.

5. INVENT A NON-ESSENTIAL GADGET. Let’s be honest – most of the essential things have already been invented so that only leaves the non-essential ones. As they’re non-essential, the field is fairly open here. But whatever you choose to invent, be sure that when it comes to naming it you stick an ‘i’ in front, as in the iAutomaticHamsterBacksideWasher. You’ll probably get sued by Apple but that can be another claim to fame and will use up all the dosh you made after copyrighting mayonnaise (that will teach you).

6. BECOME AN OLYMPIC ATHLETE. Tricky at first glance but it’s really dead easy. All you have to do is choose a sport that your country is useless at and register yourself as the only competitor. Examples that spring to mind are the Ethiopian cross-country skiing team or the Vatican City marathon team. After all, who’s the Winter Olympics athlete that everyone remembers? Yep, Eddy “The Eagle” Edwards!

But the Vatican synchronised luge team is not to be messed with.

7. WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE. Now some might argue that you actually have to be good at something to do this but nothing could be further from the truth. Finding out who discovered mayonnaise might help but the smart money is on the Peace Prize. If Jimmy Carter and Al Gore can win it, you must be in with a chance. Failing that, you could do worse than the Nobel Prize for Literature. Just write something incomprehensible and mention ‘peace’ a few times and you’ve got it.

8. WRITE A MILLION-SELLING ALBUM. Easy-peasy! If Alanis Morrissette (who’s as wet a Canadian as ever drank a litre of Perrier) can do it, so can you! 33 million copies of Jagged little pill? You must be joking! It takes 33 million jagged little pills to listen to it! So buy a guitar and learn a few chords. And you can use the earnings to discover who invented mayonnaise and then give all the profits to Apple.

Alanis Morrissette disguised as a rubbish bin (extreme right).

9. SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF WORLD POVERTY. This is not quite as easy as it sounds as it calls for a bit of investment. Namely in plane tickets and a gun. Make a list of all the offshore tax havens, go to each one and go into each bank. Hold the gun to the head of the manager (don’t worry, he’s used to this – he gets it all the time from his customers) and ask him to empty out all the safe deposit boxes, etc. and send the proceeds to the Third World. The only catch is that it will probably end up back in the offshore tax haven. But the Third World is not a perfect world.

10. HAVE THE LAST WORD. Ever been frustrated because that snappy comeback occurred to you 3 hours after the confrontation with the rude sales assistant? This is for you. It is perhaps your greatest challenge and one that cannot be left to chance. Clearly the whole thing will have to be carefully engineered and stage-managed. Invite a select group of friends around to your place, work to a script and make sure that no one opens his or her mouth after you have spoken. And make sure you have that snappy, off-the-cuff comeback prepared days in advance. Canned laughter is a nice touch.