I had accidentally flipped from my Twitter feed onto a news site and suddenly disturbing headlines and pictures from Ukraine overwhelmed me and Melodifestivalen seemed very unimportant in comparison.
The political situation in Europe is very tense and very worrying and during the last week, whenever I felt like posting something on this blog, I couldn't help thinking that a little song contest is a very trivial thing in the big universe.
In short: is it OK to use your time and energy caring about Eurovision under these circumstances?
The answer I came down to is: Yes. It is. It isn't just OK, it is even pretty important. Necessary. This is my defence speech on why that is so.
In 2012, I wrote a column I was pretty pleased with about what was wrong with the contest in Baku. How it stole the fun away from us, how we suddenly talked very little about songs and key-changes and choreography and turned our full attention to politics of all sorts.
In my opinion, the ESC is our joint coffee break where all of Europe can take a little time off from everyday life and just have fun together. Do something light-hearted, listen to some songs, look at some performances and just feel like we were one unit for once.
So this is my disclaimer for the rest of this season as well as for all eternity: I will keep blogging about Eurovision even if it is a bit trivial. Because trivial is what we need to get by. Whatever happens in the news, I hope the Eurovision Song Contest will be the last european institution standing.
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