“Ding A Dong” — Teach-In

The world of popular music has a long and noble history of writing nonsense in song lyrics.

“Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard is one of my favourite songs, but I think most people would struggle to make any sense of its lyrics. I’m not even sure they made much sense to Little Richard as he wrote them.

For many years, a great place to find plenty of nonsense lyrics has been the annual Eurovision Song Contest, which is happening again this coming weekend.

In the old days it was Terry Wogan’s job to gently make fun of some of the strange acts and songs which make it to the Eurovision finals, now it’s the slightly sharper-tongued Graham Norton who takes on that role.

I’ve always thought it was odd that the British Broadcasting Corporation should turn to two Irishmen to poke fun at a pan-European singing competition…but then, that’s not the strangest thing that’s happened on our shores in the last few years…

When I was growing up it was very fashionable to sneer at the Eurovision Song Contest. But now that fixture of the annual music calendar is widely celebrated at house parties across the land as people tune in to see what’s going on this year.

Popular activities include dressing up in different national costumes, getting guests to each bring a dish which represents the national cuisine of a different participating country, and something similar but with alcoholic beverages. For extra points, and a very sore head on the following Sunday…