false 210332 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg 210332 3 203578 2006 Nul Points total:17|5:4|4:3|3:7|2:3| 17 59 30 10 40978 3.71 371 86 19182062 1044330 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.50 16 2006 5 0 false Tue Nov 20 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Apr 01 05:38:22 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 05 10:32:13 -0700 2008
Polarising it may be, but Eurovision has no shortage of performers beating a path to its tinsel-decke...more...]]> 59651163 2060881 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 3 0 false Mon Jul 13 07:21:54 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 15:53:06 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 07:21:54 -0700 2009
update: I have read about the first two nul-pointers so far, but have had to pause reading this while I gather all Eurovision entries from 1956 today onto my ipod. this is taking a super-long time, but once it's done I can start in again and appreciate t...more...]]> 52368701 2196240 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 3 0 false Sun Apr 12 02:13:59 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 02:15:19 -0700 2009 ]]> 57437210 115625 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 2 0 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue May 26 18:33:38 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 18:34:50 -0700 2009 kill you. ]]> 26436058 979798 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 5 0 false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Jul 06 09:52:44 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 10:03:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 19361967 844726 1482245 0099492970 9780099492979 2 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144m/1482245.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144s/1482245.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1482245.Nul_Points 3.00 1
Fifty years after Jetty Paerl took to the Lugano stage and burst into “The Birds of Holland,” the Eurovision Song Contest is still luring 450 million Europeans to the sofa on a Saturday night in May every year. But where once they settled down to admire the “top-quality original songwriting” that the contest was inaugurated to showcase, the Eurovision Song Contest, throughout the post-Abba decades, has come to mean “entertainment” for all the wrong reasons: magnificent foolishness and stubborn reinforcement of the crudest national stereotypes, and a scoreboard shamelessly corrupted by cross-border friendship and hatred.

And as post-modern connoisseurs of showbiz meltdown, the audience has shifted its focus from the blandly competent winners to the spangled, hapless losers. It is here that the gold standard of farcical failure, the benchmark of badness, is to score NUL POINTS, and where sympathetic understanding is replaced by brutal guffaws.

Darkly fascinated with those whose lives are shadowed by the entertainment world’s most grandiose humiliation, Tim Moore sets off to track down the thirteen Eurominstrels who have come and gone without troubling the scorers. From Lisbon to Lithuania, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, Moore travels the continent to hear their stories — “poignant, ludicrous and heartwarming in equal measure” — recounting as he does so the history of that towering cathedral of cheese, the Eurovision Song Contest itself.]]> 2006 3 0 false Tue Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 07:38:44 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 17 13:10:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 404805 37458 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 3 0 false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Mar 23 23:02:11 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 23 23:11:43 -0700 2007 If you don't know it, you won't get it. If you do know it, you'll be laughing at the memories of dire songs, awful artists and technical ineptitudes.
Not Tim Moore's...more...]]> 28241920 1348628 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 5 0 false Fri Jul 25 03:19:03 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 25 03:20:10 -0700 2008
Gripping in that schadenfreude way...]]> 1710813 118361 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 3 0 false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Jun 06 08:31:31 -0700 2007 Wed Dec 16 20:51:16 -0800 2009 25414070 6463 1482245 0099492970 9780099492979 2 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144m/1482245.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144s/1482245.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1482245.Nul_Points 3.47 17
Fifty years after Jetty Paerl took to the Lugano stage and burst into “The Birds of Holland,” the Eurovision Song Contest is still luring 450 million Europeans to the sofa on a Saturday night in May every year. But where once they settled down to admire the “top-quality original songwriting” that the contest was inaugurated to showcase, the Eurovision Song Contest, throughout the post-Abba decades, has come to mean “entertainment” for all the wrong reasons: magnificent foolishness and stubborn reinforcement of the crudest national stereotypes, and a scoreboard shamelessly corrupted by cross-border friendship and hatred.

And as post-modern connoisseurs of showbiz meltdown, the audience has shifted its focus from the blandly competent winners to the spangled, hapless losers. It is here that the gold standard of farcical failure, the benchmark of badness, is to score NUL POINTS, and where sympathetic understanding is replaced by brutal guffaws.

Darkly fascinated with those whose lives are shadowed by the entertainment world’s most grandiose humiliation, Tim Moore sets off to track down the thirteen Eurominstrels who have come and gone without troubling the scorers. From Lisbon to Lithuania, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, Moore travels the continent to hear their stories — “poignant, ludicrous and heartwarming in equal measure” — recounting as he does so the history of that towering cathedral of cheese, the Eurovision Song Contest itself.]]> 2006 0 0 false Wed Jun 25 08:36:35 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 08:36:56 -0700 2008 this cool Flickr photo]]> 69425721 2683967 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 5 0 false Sun Aug 30 06:54:49 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 06:54:49 -0700 2009 62163923 2385935 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Sat Jul 04 18:50:52 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 18:50:52 -0700 2009 59853115 1028316 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 4 0 false Wed Jun 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 00:30:20 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 00:30:52 -0700 2009 57228190 2020239 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 4 0 false Mon May 25 01:16:55 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 01:16:55 -0700 2009 51516241 938799 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Sat Apr 04 16:23:10 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 16:23:10 -0700 2009 50766762 2163219 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Sat Mar 28 20:20:04 -0700 2009 Tue Dec 08 16:01:39 -0800 2009 42874886 1858131 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Mon Jan 12 23:48:35 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 12 18:12:55 -0700 2009 42730919 390242 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Sun Jan 11 17:50:48 -0800 2009 Mon Oct 26 13:06:28 -0700 2009 40822006 1828977 210332 0224077805 9780224077804 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173m/210332.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172718173s/210332.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210332.Nul_Points 3.47 17 2006 0 0 false Wed Dec 24 06:53:26 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 06:53:29 -0800 2008 40442546 1816222 1482245 0099492970 9780099492979 2 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144m/1482245.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184062144s/1482245.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1482245.Nul_Points 3.47 17
Fifty years after Jetty Paerl took to the Lugano stage and burst into “The Birds of Holland,” the Eurovision Song Contest is still luring 450 million Europeans to the sofa on a Saturday night in May every year. But where once they settled down to admire the “top-quality original songwriting” that the contest was inaugurated to showcase, the Eurovision Song Contest, throughout the post-Abba decades, has come to mean “entertainment” for all the wrong reasons: magnificent foolishness and stubborn reinforcement of the crudest national stereotypes, and a scoreboard shamelessly corrupted by cross-border friendship and hatred.

And as post-modern connoisseurs of showbiz meltdown, the audience has shifted its focus from the blandly competent winners to the spangled, hapless losers. It is here that the gold standard of farcical failure, the benchmark of badness, is to score NUL POINTS, and where sympathetic understanding is replaced by brutal guffaws.

Darkly fascinated with those whose lives are shadowed by the entertainment world’s most grandiose humiliation, Tim Moore sets off to track down the thirteen Eurominstrels who have come and gone without troubling the scorers. From Lisbon to Lithuania, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, Moore travels the continent to hear their stories — “poignant, ludicrous and heartwarming in equal measure” — recounting as he does so the history of that towering cathedral of cheese, the Eurovision Song Contest itself.]]> 2006 0 0 false Fri Dec 19 03:34:33 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 19 03:34:33 -0800 2008 8 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=210332