Douze points, twelve points is a new Dutch book about Eurovision by Geert
Willems. It was presented this Sunday in the city of
Nijmegen. My bicycling reporter Robert was present in the party - and is present in the book as well!
You can whine and make fun of the Eurovision Song Contest but in The
Netherlands (and many other countries) it is a national public entertainment. The
final in May last year was the most-watched television broadcast of
2013. The song festival phenomenon deserves serious consideration.
Therefore Geert Willems, a journalist of the newspaper "De
Gelderlander" came up with the idea to write a serious book
about the contest.
Prejudices around and about the festival are rarely based on facts. Douze points, twelve points will change this!
Willems
writes about how the festival has played a role in the unification of
Europe, the relations between East and West and how the festival
plays an important role in the emancipation of the gay scene even today. And
also the varying performance of the Netherlands through the years,
avid fans, the alleged favoritism in the scoring, politics and the
development of the festival are addressed.
Among the guests present were Sietse
Bakker from the EBU, Marga Bult (NL 1987) and Eddy Ouwens (lyricist of Ding-a-dong). For now the book is only available in Dutch.
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