"The European Broadcasting Union, which organises Eurovision, is like the European Central Bank: whenever it’s called upon to make an important decision, you can rely upon it to make the wrong one, and it’s wholly dependent on the mixture of goodwill and inertia that leads the international community not to go on about it. Its bet is a generalised feeling of “Oh well, it made the wrong call again. Never mind. Better luck next year/ next global financial crisis”, and it’s one that mainly pays off. This time next week we’ll have forgotten that it wouldn’t let Volodymyr Zelenskiy address the contest, in lieu of Ukraine hosting it, because it didn’t want the event politicised. So I just want to pause for one second to remark how dumb that was.
Inevitably, Ukraine was all anyone was talking about: it was the surtext and subtext, from the opening song, Stefania by the Kalush Orchestra, last year’s Ukrainian winners, to a rousing rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 19, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 19, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
