The reddest of red-letter days...

We are just approaching what is certainly the most important day in the recent life of our islands. Yes, it is the day when we must all take an earth-shatteringly important decision. We must decide precisely what and who... will represent Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2013.

It is extremely important that they should all be totally useless musicians

Forget the general election, this is far more vital to the national well-being. Are we going to hurtle headlong into yet more national humiliation? Or are we going to sit down and make a coherent, rational choice?

One thing we must be clear about is that in the unlikely event that we manage to get through the preliminary rounds of the ESC proper – and even if we wait for the next millennium – we are never, ever going to win the thing; no chance! Because as long as the organisers insist on maintaining the current ludicrous system of voting (friends vote for neighbouring countries and neighbours vote for friends), then the contest ceases to be one. It reduces the whole process to nothing more or less than a rather tacky farce.

So if we accept that we are and always will be no-hopers, what can we do to at least not look like total losers.

Well, as I see it, there is one of two things we can do to improve our chances of... at least respectability. We can either hire some of the best songwriters in the business: not really an option since the cost would be totally prohibitive. Or – we can go completely the other way and stage the crappiest act ever seen on the ESC.

Some may well say we’ve already done so; but remember the Ukrainian outfit of a few years back in the masks and goth gear?

They were just about average dreadful... and they won. OK so they were helped in no small way by the mindless idiots from adjoining countries who voted for them. However, if we accept that we’re never going to compete on quality or geography... then off-the-wall it has to be.

So what I’m suggesting is this: Cobble together four or five of the worst musicians you can lay your hands on. Trawl the band clubs, shouldn’t be a problem finding suitable candidates. It is extremely important that they should all be totally useless; from a vocalist who can only sing off-key to a tone deaf keyboard player; the lead, rhythm and bass guitarists should all preferably be playing different tunes... at the same time.

Incompetence should be the watchword. By the way, if you need an inept keyboard player, there’s a guy who lives near me who practises tuneless dirges on the piano in his front room most evenings who I’d like to put forward for consideration.

Dress up the band in ill-fitting evening dress; dye their hair bright turquoise and comb it over their faces to make recognition – ergo blame – impossible.

Give them some totally inappropriate name... such as Wan-Direction or Take Dat or Wastelife; then put the publicity machine into overdrive.

As for the actual song; it doesn’t really matter what you select... as long as it is loud and discordant. For lyrics, well, you couldn’t do worse than use some of the people described as the ‘authors’ of our fairly recent offerings. Banal and mindless is what we are aiming for... and we can really do banal and mindless.

Book the band onto every single crappy local music TV programme. Get them out there where they will be seen and – hopefully – ridiculed.

Bear with me on this, because when they do eventually appear on the Eurovision Song Contest they will be totally immune to derision.

Incompetence on a grand scale should be what we are seeking. Erm... but, on reflection, we have already managed both of these in our recent ESC offerings, so we might just as well leave things as they are.