Eurovision Drinking Game - 2022

 

Now, I apologise that I am so very late with the rules this year. The simple truth is that I got hit pretty hard by Covid-19 a month ago and I've still not recovered. Which means there is a chance that - whisper it - this might be the first year in quite some time that I don't play the Eurovision drinking game. Or I could just throw caution to the wind and decide that since my head is pretty addled already, what harm could one little 70cl bottle of vodka really do? 

Either way, this is also the first Eurovision since I ditched Facebook and Instagram so I won't be providing live commentary this year. I've not missed either in the five months since I left them behind, but I must say, I am going to miss being able to share my thoughts, as they inextricably degenerate through the evening...

But, enough about me - you're here for the rules, right?

Now, as with all the previous years, some of the rules are a tad UK-centric so, if you intend to play this in another country, just ignore rules 1 and 28 and knock back two shots before you get started for good measure. Or, watch it on BBC and pretend to be British for the night so you too can feel our pain.

Finally, I need to issue my (now) customary words of warning; this game is based upon the consumption of a great deal of strong alcohol. I cannot, therefore, be held responsible for your health (or lack of) if you stringently follow the rules of my game and drink yourself into oblivion. You play this game entirely at your own risk...

Requirements

A. A shot glass for every person playing (probably best to have a couple of spares in case people get overexcited).

B. The national drink of Italy is apparently Campari   which, frankly is a little tame for the hardened veterans of the Eurovision drinking game. I would therefore recommend avoiding Campari altogether and rely instead upon the ever welcoming support of vodka or tequila. The bottom line, pick something suitably alcoholic and to your tastes.

Rules

The rules are really very simple. You take a sip of your chosen spirit:

1) Any time the British entry - Sam Ryder - is mentioned. Drink an entire shot if they mention the fact he's a TikTok star.

2) The host(s) demonstrate that the secret of comedy is timing. By having none.

3) The host(s) attempts to sing.

4) The host(s) pretends to be surprised at something that's going on in what is clearly a vaguely-rehearsed piece of improvisation.

5) The host(s) loses track of their autocue or mess up their timing.

6) The video shown before an act manages to put you off the act before they've even taken the stage. Drink a shot if it seems they've just decided to reuse an old tourism advert.

7) The singer is barefoot.

8) A country is represented by a singer from somewhere else in the world. Drink an entire shot if a country is represented by what seems to be a random person (or persons) scooped up off the streets and then pushed out on stage.

9) The act involves people on stage banging large drums or objects acting as large drums. Drink a shot if person playing aforementioned drum is bare chested.

10) An item of clothing is removed on stage. Drink an entire shot if it is removed by someone else.

11) The act is bald. Drink an entire shot if they are also female.

12) The act possesses a large moustache. It has to be said, there has - in recent years - been a dearth of large moustaches. I may have to start a petition soon...

13) Someone is wearing sequins.

14) The act is dressed in leather. Drink an entire shot if they are dressed in leather and have a large moustache.

15) If you hear a language used other than that of the nation who is singing (for example, English words in a song by Ukraine). One sip per language. If in any doubt, just take a sip.

16) You recognise the song immediately as being a blatant rip off of a previous winner of Eurovision.

17) The song is clearly an attempt to be 'hip' and 'contemporary' - and thus sounds like something that might have charted at the outer reaches of the Top 40 more than a decade ago.

18) The song is an ode to world peace. Drink three shots immediately if children appear on stage.

19) There are dancers on stage who, by their movements and lack of synchronicity, appear to have perhaps had three dance lessons as a child and have never heard the song before tonight. Take a shot if they're wearing an especially outlandish costume.

20) People are pretending to play instruments on stage. Drink an entire shot if they take a pretend solo.

21) Every time there's some kind of pyrotechnic on stage.

22) Every time someone employs the use of a wind machine.

23) If the act attempts to distract attention from the paucity of quality in their offering by getting some kind of celebrity on stage with them (for reference: see Germany in 2009 who employed the services of Dita von Teese to absolutely no effect whatsoever).

24) Every time you come to the realisation that the light show/LCD screen is considerably more interesting than the act that's currently on the stage.

25) Every time a former Eurovision entrant appears during the interval act.

26) Every time there is an awkward silence and/or miscommunication between the hosts and the people reading out the votes. Drink an entire shot if the votes get mixed up. 

27) Every time one of the people reading out the results of a country’s voting attempts to secure their 15 seconds of fame by babbling on incoherently and generally delaying things and winding a few hundred million people up. Drink an entire shot if they try to milk things even further by singing.

28) Every time it’s "Royaume-Uni? Nil point!". Drink a shot each time, at the end of a voting round, the UK is in last place overall.

29) Every time a country gives top marks to someone for geographic, political or ethnic reasons.

30) If there is any alcohol left once the show is finished and you’re physically capable of coordinating the movement of alcohol from the bottle to your mouth...take a sip!

As ever, have fun and please don't blame me for the excessive pain and misery you will have to endure...not to mention the apocalyptic hangover you'll be suffering the day after!!

Farewell Facebook and Instagram!

 

So, if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, then you may have noticed that I'm not there an awful lot anymore. This is not an accident.

I've gradually come to the conclusion that 2021 will be my final year on both Facebook and Instagram.

If you'd like to know why, you can carry on reading. If you'd just like to find out how to stay in touch with me beyond 2021, you can skip to the bottom of the page. And, if you really don't care about either, then I'm guessing you ended up here accidentally while looking for Eurovision drinking game rules...

So, why are you doing this Oliver? 

Well, my malaise with social media probably began during the divisive 2016 period where the world (in my opinion) went a little mad and voted for both Brexit and Trump. The levels of vitriol rose across the board. The ability to have civil conversation and discussion diminished. And, while I made a pact with myself not to delete anyone simply because I disagreed with their views, that wasn't the case for a number of my Facebook 'friends' who deleted me when I wouldn't accept their (alternate) facts.

But, by 2020 with Covid-19 in full swing, I had to abandon my policy of not deleting people because I just simply couldn't deal with all those people in the early days insisting coronavirus was a 'hoax' or 'less harmful than the flu' or 'invented by Bill Gates as a means to vaccinate us with a chip that would allow us to be tracked by 5g' (I'd love to pretend this wasn't real). 

So, that's part of the reason. 

Then there's the fact that it seems difficult to reconcile my feelings on how humanity should be building towards a better future with my continued usage of a platform that knows the damage it is causing and seems to simply not care as long as it's profitable.

But, amid all those vaguely noble intentions, is the simple fact that I just don't really care enough about it anymore.

I've been with social media since the early days; Friends Reunited, Myspace, even Google+; but - to quote BB King - the thrill is gone. 

So, there you are. Vitriol, ethics, and boredom if you want to boil it down to keywords.

Should you want to keep in touch with me, then I'll still be keeping my LinkedIn open (for now) - so, feel free to add me there if we know each other professionally.

I also will be keeping this blog running (and possibly finding time to update it a little more frequently).

And, I also have a more work-centric website that I update far too infrequently but which I hope to find time to work on slightly more frequently in 2022.

And I have email; so if you'd like to stay in touch through the power of the written word then you can always contact me via this blog (or message me on Facebook/Instagram) to get my address.

And that's about it. I won't attempt to proselytise.

Curiously, there's a small degree of nervousness as my finger hovers over the button that will publish this, but I guess that's natural when you've been on social media for more than two decades. But it makes sense to me, so I guess I'll see some of you elsewhere in 2022 and some of you not at all. Best of luck, no matter which group you're in! 

Eurovision Drinking Game - 2021 Rules!

So, here we are again. After a whole year without the musical madness that is Eurovision, we're now only a week away from Eurovision 2021 and the Netherlands having a chance to show the world it can Eurovision with the very best of them! 

Now, there may be some of you who say but is it really the same with only a fraction of the fans and with pre-recorded backing vocals? Is it the same when Australia's entry isn't even going to be on the same continent, let alone the same stage?

And to those of you, I would say - who cares? Let's ignore the things that have had to change, and let's focus on enjoying what we have. For one night, and one night only, let's try to put all the Covid-19 business to one side and just have some fun.

Now, as with all the previous years, some of the rules are a tad UK-centric so, if you intend to play this in another country, just ignore rules 1 and 28 and knock back two shots before you get started for good measure. Or, watch it on BBC and pretend to be British for the night so you too can feel our pain.

Finally, I need to issue my (now) customary words of warning; this game is based upon the consumption of a great deal of strong alcohol. I cannot, therefore, be held responsible for your health (or lack of) if you stringently follow the rules of my game and drink yourself into oblivion. You play this game entirely at your own risk...

Requirements

A. A shot glass for every person playing (probably best to have a couple of spares in case people get overexcited).

B. The national drink of the Netherlands is allegedly Jenever (which I don't think I've ever actually tried in my time here), but if - like me - you prefer to stick to the old favourites of the Eurovision drinking game, then I would recommend the ever reliable support of vodka or tequila. The bottom line, pick something suitably alcoholic and to your tastes.

C. If you're feeling particularly brave, why not add to the Dutch feeling by serving up a plate of a true Dutch delicacy: bitterballen. What on earth is in a bitterbal, you may ask - but, frankly, you probably shouldn't. It's best not to know. It's also best not to pop a whole one inside your mouth, unless you want to experience a feeling akin to molten lava exploding, coating you, and then incinerating you from the inside. Actually, the more I explain bitterballen, the less confident I am in my recommendation. You can always fall back on cheese cubes and mustard if I've scared you off...

Rules

The rules are really very simple. You take a sip of your chosen spirit:

1) Any time the British entry - James Newman - is mentioned. Drink an entire shot if they mention the fact he won a Brit Award in 2014 for co-writing the British Single of the Year.

2) The host(s) demonstrate that the secret of comedy is timing. By having none.

3) The host(s) attempts to sing.

4) The host(s) pretends to be surprised at something that's going on in what is clearly a vaguely-rehearsed piece of improvisation.

5) The host(s) loses track of their autocue or mess up their timing.

6) The video shown before an act manages to put you off the act before they've even taken the stage. Drink a shot if tulips or windmills are in shot at anytime during said video.

7) The singer is barefoot.

8) A country is represented by a singer from somewhere else in the world. Drink an entire shot if a country is represented by what seems to be a random person (or persons) scooped up off the streets and then pushed out on stage.

9) The act involves people on stage banging large drums or objects acting as large drums. Drink a shot if person playing aforementioned drum is bare chested.

10) An item of clothing is removed on stage. Drink an entire shot if it is removed by someone else.

11) The act is bald. Drink an entire shot if they are also female.

12) The act possesses a large moustache. It has to be said, there has - in recent years - been a dearth of large moustaches. I may have to start a petition soon...

13) Someone is wearing sequins.

14) The act is dressed in leather. Drink an entire shot if they are dressed in leather and have a large moustache.

15) If you hear a language used other than that of the nation who is singing (for example, English words in a song by Ukraine). One sip per language. If in any doubt, just take a sip.

16) You recognise the song immediately as being a blatant rip off of a previous winner of Eurovision.

17) The song is clearly an attempt to be 'hip' and 'contemporary' - and thus sounds like something that might have charted at the outer reaches of the Top 40 more than a decade ago.

18) The song is an ode to world peace. Drink three shots immediately if there are any images of children on the screen in the background.

19) There are dancers on stage who, by their movements and lack of synchronicity, appear to have perhaps had three dance lessons as a child and have never heard the song before tonight. Take a shot if they're wearing an especially outlandish costume.

20) People are pretending to play instruments on stage. Drink an entire shot if they take a pretend solo.

21) Every time there's some kind of pyrotechnic on stage.

22) Every time someone employs the use of a wind machine.

23) If the act attempts to distract attention from the paucity of quality in their offering by getting some kind of celebrity on stage with them (for reference: see Germany in 2009 who employed the services of Dita von Teese to absolutely no effect whatsoever). Take three shots if San Marino actually manage to persuade Flo Rida to join them on stage in Rotterdam.

24) Every time what's showing on the LCD screen behind the act, or in the augmented reality effects, is considerably more interesting than the act that's on the stage.

25) Every time a former Eurovision entrant appears during the interval act.

26) Every time there is an awkward silence and/or miscommunication between the hosts and the people reading out the votes. Drink an entire shot if the votes get mixed up. 

27) Every time one of the people reading out the results of a country’s voting attempts to secure their 15 seconds of fame by babbling on incoherently and generally delaying things and winding a few hundred million people up. Drink an entire shot if they try to milk things even further by singing.

28) Every time it’s "Royaume-Uni? Nil point!". Drink a shot each time, at the end of a voting round, the UK is in last place overall.

29) Every time a country gives top marks to someone for geographic, political or ethnic reasons.

30) If there is any alcohol left once the show is finished and you’re physically capable of coordinating the movement of alcohol from the bottle to your mouth...take a sip!

As ever, have fun and please don't blame me for the excessive pain and misery you will have to endure...not to mention the apocalyptic hangover you'll be suffering the day after!!

Eurovision Drinking Game - 2019 edition!

It's less than two weeks to go until Eurovision 2019, which means that you also have less than two weeks to stock up with enough alcohol to dull the pain of watching it. This year we're heading to Tel Aviv and, after Lisbon's ban on LED screens, we're apparently set for a stage with all manner of technical wizardry. But, enough about that, let's head straight into the rules section...

As with all the previous years, some of the rules are a tad UK-centric so, if you intend to play this in another country, just ignore rules 1 and 27 and knock back two shots before you get started for good measure. Or, watch it on BBC and pretend to be British for the night so you to can feel our pain.

Finally, I need to issue my customary word of warning; this game is based upon the consumption of a great deal of strong alcohol. I cannot, therefore, be held responsible for your health (or lack of) if you stringently follow the rules of my game and drink yourself into oblivion. Play this game entirely at your own risk...


Requirements

A. A shot glass for every person playing (probably best to have a couple of spares in case people get overexcited).


B. The national drink of Israel is an anise-flavoured drink called Arak which is surprisingly alcoholic (usually about 50%), but which is intended to be drank watered down. If, however, you are like me and can't face the thought of spending the whole night drinking liquorice flavoured alcohol then I would recommend the ever reliable support of vodka or tequila. The bottom line, pick something suitably alcoholic and to your tastes...






Rules

The rules are really very simple. You take a sip of your chosen spirit:

1) Any time the British entry - Michael Rice- is mentioned. Drink an entire shot if they mention the fact he won the first season of All Together Now.

2) The host(s) demonstrate that the secret of comedy is timing. By having none.

3) The host(s) attempts to sing.

4) The host(s) pretends to be surprised at something that's going on in what is clearly a vaguely-rehearsed piece of improvisation.

5) The host(s) loses track of their autocue or mess up their timing.

6) The video shown before an act manages to put you off the act before they've even taken the stage. Drink a shot if it also comes across as a bad tourism advert for Israel.

7) You are not entirely sure whether the singer is man who looks like a woman, or a woman who looks like a man.

8) The singer is barefoot.

9) A country is represented by a singer from somewhere else in the world. Drink an entire shot if a country is represented by what seems to be a random person (or persons) scooped up off the streets and then pushed out on stage.

10) The act involves people on stage banging large drums or objects acting as large drums. Drink a shot if person playing aforementioned drum is bare chested.

11) An item of clothing is removed on stage. Drink an entire shot if it is removed by someone else.

12) The act is bald. Drink an entire shot if they are also female.

13) The act possesses a large moustache. It has to be said, there has - in recent years - been a dearth of large moustaches. I may have to start a petition soon...

14) The act is dressed in leather. Drink an entire shot if they are dressed in leather and have a large moustache.

15) If you hear a language used other than that of the nation who is singing (for example, English words in a song by Ukraine). One sip per language. If in any doubt, just take a sip.

16) You recognise the song immediately as being a blatant rip off of a previous winner of Eurovision.

17) The song is clearly an attempt to be 'hip' and 'contemporary' - and thus sounds like something that might have charted at the outer edges of the Top 40 about a decade ago.

18) The song is an ode to world peace. Drink three shots immediately if there are any children on stage at any time during the song.

19) There are dancers on stage who, by their movements and lack of synchronicity, appear to have perhaps had three dance lessons as a child and have never heard the song before tonight. Take a shot if they're wearing an especially outlandish costume.

20) People are pretending to play instruments on stage. Drink an entire shot if they take a pretend solo.

21) Every time there's some kind of pyrotechnic on stage.

22) Every time someone employs the use of a wind machine.

23) If the act attempts to distract attention from the paucity of quality in their offering by getting some kind of celebrity on stage with them (for reference: see Germany in 2009 who employed the services of Dita von Teese to absolutely no effect whatsoever).

24) Every time what's showing on the LCD screen is considerably more interesting than the act on the stage.

25) Every time there is an awkward silence and/or miscommunication between the hosts and the people reading out the votes. Drink an entire shot if the votes get mixed up.

26) Every time one of the people reading out the results of a country’s voting attempts to secure their 15 seconds of fame by babbling on incoherently and generally delaying things and winding a few hundred million people up.

27) Every time it’s "Royaume-Uni? Nil point!". Drink a shot each time, at the end of a voting round, the UK is in last place overall.

28) Every time a country gives top marks to someone for geographic, political or ethnic reasons.

29) If there is any alcohol left once the show is finished and you’re physically capable of coordinating the movement of alcohol from the bottle to your mouth...take a sip!


As ever, have fun and please don't blame me for the excessive pain and misery you will have to endure...not to mention the apocalyptic hangover you'll be suffering the day after!!

Day 8 - A Childhood Memory

Christmas was always special when I was a child.

The tree would go up in the week before Christmas, decorated with strands of tinsel and all manner of homemade decorations that had been fashioned out of cardboard and glitter. As the week wore on, the presents would start to pile up around its base as they arrived in parcels from our many relatives (there were certainly advantages to having aunties and uncles in double figures – although my parents would probably have disagreed considering the huge number of cousins they needed to buy for in turn). And so, beneath the tree, a plethora of different styles of wrapping paper, and all sorts of shapes and sizes of presents; but you weren’t allowed to touch and you certainly weren’t allowed to peek at the label to see who a present was destined for.

The open fireplace would be cleaned out and we’d have some logs or coal, the fire blazing away on the evenings; the Christmas cards we’d received would start filling the walls and paper garlands we’d made at school would be hung along the ceiling. Christmas was the only week of the year that we’d buy the Radio Times, containing the list of all the TV programmes over the Christmas period, and my sister and I would take turns to go through it and circle all the films that we wanted to watch. It was a different era; before streaming and before our family could afford a video recorder, so this would be our first chance to see many of the movies listed. And, if we were really lucky, my dad was able to borrow a colour TV from work for the Christmas holidays and we’d have a chance to watch things in glorious technicolour.

By Christmas Eve it was time to write our lists for Father Christmas and I’d always be wildly optimistic and ask for whatever cool toys I had seen in the catalogues. At the time, I genuinely believed I was writing to Father Christmas and that he would bring me what I asked (although my mum would tell us that what we ask for is just a guide, and Father Christmas knows best what to give us). We’d hang our stockings (actually, usually football socks) and we’d leave a mince pie and a glass of sherry or brandy on the fireplace for when Father Christmas visited. We even thought of Rudolph and left a carrot for him as well.

Then it was time for bed and the agonising difficulty of getting to sleep. You wanted to sleep, you needed to sleep (because Father Christmas only comes when you are asleep!) but it was so difficult and so I’d huddle beneath the quilt and try to look asleep just in case. Sometimes I’d wake up an hour or two after I’d gone to bed and check the sock on the end of my bed – still empty – and then have to go through the whole tortuous process of getting to sleep again. My imagination, ever fertile, would occasional think it heard scraping sounds on the roof or the jingling of sleigh bells. But, eventually, my body would give in and I’d fall into a deep sleep….

…only to wake at a ridiculously early hour in the morning and, fumbling in the dark, realise that the football sock on the bed was bulging with presents and would quickly jump out of bed and turn the light on. When I was very young, I shared a room with my sister and we’d both clamber out of bed and drag the present sacks that had been left for us onto the bed and begin the process of opening.

There was a clear and defined order. First, the socks had to be emptied. They would be filled with tiny presents (a pack of cards, a bouncy ball) as well as a satsuma, and a little plastic mesh bag containing nuts and raisins. Then, with the content of the socks strewn over our bed covers, we’d take it in turn to pull out presents from the sacks. That they rarely matched what we’d asked Father Christmas for didn’t matter; they were always amazing – books, board games, sometimes even a totally unexpected present like a remote controlled car. It was always this joyous adventure, just seeing what you would get next. And, once all the presents had been unpacked, it was time to run into our parents’ room and wake them to tell them that Father Christmas had been!

Looking back, I don’t know how they managed to do it. We weren’t a rich family by any means, quite the opposite in fact, but we always had so many presents from Father Christmas. So many that I was one of the last children to lose belief in Father Christmas – after all, wasn’t Father Christmas so much more believable than the idea that my parents managed to scrape and save enough money together to buy all of these presents for us? You can only appreciate those kinds of sacrifices in retrospect. In the moment, I was just so glad that Father Christmas had decided I’d been a good boy (after all, if I hadn’t, he’d have just left me a piece of coal!).

At this point, it was 5 or 6am and our parents would tell us to calm down and go back to sleep. Which, of course was utterly impossible. But we’d pretend to – and quietly play with our toys or read our books – and they’d pretend not to know we had stayed up before we finally all met for breakfast a little later in the morning.

Bacon and eggs. One of the few times in the year we would have it, my mouth still waters at the thought of it because it was a true luxury breakfast. We’d eat bacon and eggs, and talk about the presents that we had got, and then we would go and spend the morning and early afternoon playing with our toys and occasionally watching something on TV (although my mum was never keen on us watching TV until after dinner on Christmas Day).

But what about the wrapped presents beneath the tree? Well, they still stayed there like that until after dinner. It was tradition; only after Christmas dinner had been eaten could the presents be opened. Some years it was harder than others, but usually the distraction of the presents from Father Christmas was enough to get us through the day; and, besides, I always looked forward to Christmas Dinner.

Roast turkey. Roast potatoes. Carrots. Sprouts. Stuffing balls. Little sausages wrapped in bacon. All smothered in gravy. It was the best meal of the year, by far. We’d pull the turkey’s wishbone and make a wish. We’d pull crackers, read out the bad jokes inside them, and wear paper party hats. And, after dinner, we’d eat Christmas pudding with custard and see who found the foil wrapped coin hidden inside their portion that was meant to bring us luck.

Finally, utterly sated, we’ve move/waddle from the dining room to the living room and the tree. Someone would be in charge of handing out presents (in the early years my dad, and my mum after he left) and it was conducted in a methodical fashion – one present given to someone, unwrapped and looked at, then another present to someone else. On some afternoons it would take over an hour to get through all the presents, with the biggest present of all always being left to the very last.

Then, after a few hours of playing with a new batch of toys, it was time for tea – cold turkey sandwiches, homemade sausage rolls, and thick slabs of rich fruit Christmas cake (covered in white icing that was rock hard). Maybe a Christmas movie on in the background, the fire crackling away merrily in the corner.

It was always the most perfect of times, always special. I smile inside every time that I think back to it.


* * *

The man stirs lightly in his sleep, but doesn’t wake. My glamour binds him to the world of dreams, whether he likes it or not, and he will only wake when I wish it.

I rest my hand lightly on his chest, my long black nails trailing against his delicate skin. He has provided me with such nourishment these last few weeks but these childish memories are the sweetest of all; I devour them like scooping marrow from the bone. His joy a brief light inside me until it is swallowed up by my infernal darkness.

He is nearly spent now; little more than a withered fruit on the vine. Oh, outwardly he might look fine, but inside he is now grey and hollow. I have slowly savoured each happy moment, night after night, stealing away the light inside of him in order to briefly sate my hunger, but he will soon be of no use to me.

Maybe those around him have noticed the change in his demeanour; the way that he no longer is quick to laugh or smile; the way he keeps his eyes down and trudges his way through life. Some go on like that forever after I am done with them, an endless empty march to the grave. Others sense all that I have taken from them, even if they can’t quite grasp it on anything but the most abstract of levels; they often end it themselves in order to escape the torment of their existence. What will happen to this one, I neither know nor care.

I saved the childish memories until the very end, determined to preserve the sweetest of treats for as long as possible. I remove my hand from him, drawing the last morsels of the memory into myself before slinking, an inky shadow, away into the walls to savour the taste.

After all, childhood memories are the most special of all.