Eurovision Song Contest Drinking Game

A brief guide to TV drinking games

Television drinking games are celebrations of cliche. The idea is to have a small drink every time a cliche is shown, and a large drink every time a cliche is broken. The original TV drinking game was allegedly the Dallas drinking game, where you had to match any drink that any character was shown having. Dangerous stuff.

In this drinking game, there are three sizes of drink; in ascending order: sip, slurp and chug. Please scale these to the drink you're having. For beer, they would be about a swig, a full mouthful, and three gulps respectively. For spirits, they would be about a quarter, a half and a whole shot glass respectively.

Have fun, but know your limits!

The Game

Unless stated otherwise, all events listed below deserve one sip.

Presenters

There are always two presenters on screen, a Host and a Hostess. Each broadcaster usually provides an additional Commentator to provide voice-over translations, background information and witty sarcasm.

• The Commentator makes a satirical comment that no-one laughs at
• The Host and Hostess try and fail to be funny
• The Host and Hostess sing
• The Host and Hostess speak in rhyme
• The Host and Hostess gaze into each others eyes
• The Host and Hostess kiss: chug
• The Hostess changes her dress
• The Host changes his outfit: slurp
• Presenters having a time-wasting conversation that no-one can follow, understand or care less about

Performances — general points

• Song has a tacky or nonsensical title (shoo-wop etc.)
• Politically-related metaphor (e.g. breaking out of chains, shedding a black cloak to reveal white clothes)
• Lyrics are literally demonstrated in the performance
• Act steals ideas from Eurovision acts from previous years
• Use of props (e.g. candles, ribbons, dummies, mobile phones)
• Use of pyrotechnics or lasers; if they go wrong: chug
• Interaction with the audience; if the audience is unusually passive: slurp
• Any time the song goes up a key
• France conducts a musical experiment
• France sings in English: chug
• A country from Former Yugoslavia has a depressing song
• Germany's song mentions peace, harmony or love (one sip each)
• A country borrows any performer from another country
  • if the borrowed performer is Irish: slurp
  • if the country doing the borrowing is Ireland: chug

For future reference (see Judging below), make a note of any:

• predictions that the Commentator makes about the song
• acts where the attractiveness of the performer(s) is the only thing going for it

Appearance of performers

• Retro/out-of-date clothing and hairstyles
• Bad dress-sense; if utterly offensive: slurp
• Experimental make-up
• Indecently revealing or figure-hugging costumes: slurp
• Overt displays of cleavage
• Codpiece(s): chug
• Faked blond hair (East European countries only)
• Hat(s); if horned: chug
• Sunglasses
• Moustache(s); if female with moustache: chug
• Main singer is grossly overweight
• Malta: male singer does not have a hairy chest: slurp
• Mid-performance costume change

Singers and back-up vocalists

• Sing in a language other than their native tongue, English or French
• Perform through the medium of rap: slurp
• Wink at camera
• Drop to their knees
• Flick their hair; if they flick non-existent hair: chug
• Make a victory/peace ‘V’ sign
• Wave their arms above their heads whilst singing
• Punch the air
• Put excessive emotion into their singing
• Sing out of tune
• Emit high and loud obnoxious noises
• Play or mime along with musicians during instrumentals; if they play badly: slurp
• Resemble someone you know
• Resemble another famous person
  • if that person is present in the audience: slurp
  • if the camera zooms in and lingers on that person: chug
• Flirt with the camera after finishing

Dancers and musicians

• Play an ‘ethnic’ instrument (includes panpipes)
• Play piano while standing
• ‘Ethnic’ dancing
• Hip-hop style dancing: slurp
• Dancing that detracts from the performance
• Dancing that surpasses belief and credibility
• Pretend fighting: if martial arts, chug
• Contortionist: chug

Television coverage and venue

• Transmission goes a bit wonky
• Preview video is completely pointless
• Preview video is full of gormless smiles
• National symbols are seen somewhere
• Helicopter shots
• Sped up or slowed down film
• Prolonged video mixes
• Colour replacement effects
• Any special effect better than the songs

Judging

• Bad time delays during video/audio link
• Host/Hostess overlap with voter during video/audio link because of the bad delay
• Host/Hostess have to hurry a voter for wasting time with pointless wittering
• The Commentator's predictions come true (one sip each)
• The Commentator is genuinely surprised by a decision
• Bad acts receive high (8+) points due to attractiveness of lead singer
• The Commentator makes a snide comment about regional voting (see below for the usual offenders). Bonus sips for any of the following phrases:
  • block voting
  • mutual voting society
  • still getting used to democracy
  • vote for your neighbour contest
• There's a discussion why Israel is involved
• Reference made to Norway having null points
• Norway gives points to Sweden but Sweden does not give any to Norway
• Norway does not give Sweden any points at all: chug
• Cyprus gives Greece 12 points or vice versa
• France does not give United Kingdom any points
• Monaco gives France 12 points
• Germany gives any points at all to Austria: chug
• Greece gives any points at all to Turkey: chug
• United Kingdom gives Ireland 12 points or vice versa
• United Kingdom comes second or last
• Ireland win yet again
• Acts are on their mobile phone to their family during voting
• If the winning country declines to hold the event for any or all of the following: chug
  • Financial reasons
  • Political reasons
  • Personal reasons
  • Moral reasons

Optional extras

• Begin each act with a shot of a drink native to that country
• Choose a country to support and
  • if it receives 1 to 7 points on any given vote: sip
  • if it receives 8, 10 or 12 points: slurp
  • if it wins: chug throughout the reprise

Participants

25 countries will compete in the final: France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom; the host country; and ten countries from each of the semi-finals, held on the Tuesday and Thursday before the final.

For more details, try Wikipedia.

Semi-finalists 2009

First semi-final: 12 May 2009

Second semi-final: 14 May 2009

Finalists 2009

Scores from 2008

Here are the positions and scores of the finalists in the 2008 contest.

Regional voting?

Here are some of the alleged ‘mutual voting societies’ to look out for at the Contest.

• British Isles: Ireland, Malta (ish), United Kingdom.
• Western Mediterranean: Andorra, Morocco, Portugal, Spain.
• Scandanavian area: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland.
• Baltics: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
• Former Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine (and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).
• Balkans: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova (ish), Romania (ish), Turkey, and the former Yugoslav states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia.

This page is part of the Aleth Web site created and maintained by Alex Ball.
Last updated: 16 May 2009.