Discovering another culture is more than eating the food and watching the films. It's observing, analyzing, questioning and understanding why things are the way they are. Living in Sweden has given me a fine opportunity to compare and contrast. And so we come to the Swedish obsession with Eurovision. Where in other countries it is a big joke - even more so since the eastern bloc joined and voted exclusively for other eastern bloc countries - but in Sweden...

'Yes, it IS a joke. But it's joke we take seriously.' said my boyfriend.

So yesterday evening then I spent 2 hours watching 'Melodyfestival'. No, it's not Eurovision. It's an event that takes place over 6 weeks with four rounds of competing musicians - some of Sweden's finest talent, most of them famous within Sweden if not internationally - performing songs to qualify for the Swedish entry INTO the Eurovision. 

'Are you serious? There's actually been a competition for the public to select the Eurovision song? ' I asked incredulously of my boyfriend. Secretly thinking, 'And that's the best they could come up with?'

But of course my benchmark is the English standards of song in the Eurovision. It shone a light on our attitude to Eurovision, our middle class disdain for Europop in general and our superiority about our music vis-a-vis many other international or alternative genres. Yes, in this particular case trying to understand the culture of another country actually meant understanding my own. Here are a few views from my compatriots:

'It's always been a bit of a joke, and accordingly nobody with remotely serious ambitions as a recording artist has wanted to be associated with it.'

'The vast majority of Eurovision winners just do it for a shot at brief fame and are soon forgotten, and quite rightly so'

'In essence, its a music competition where the music isn't important and any real talent wouldn't been seen dead near.'

'The brutal answer is that the show is seen as a joke in the UK, and probably everywhere else, and that even if the show was seen as being serious, the vast majority of popular music emanating from the continent is shit, so the quality would barely improve.'

How very proud I am to be English in these times.

Of course everyone has their right to an opinion. My opinion is that next Saturday night I will be watching Melodyfestival with my beautifully unpretentious boyfriend. Don't get me wrong, I think the quality of the music is questionable and certainly not to my taste. But I prefer to re-examine my opinions, because I do not want to be defined by bias from my inherited views. In the world of Eurovision, it appears that we are in the minority and not one - as it turns out - that is particularly admirable.

I started an online consultancy. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.

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