It is one of my favourite times of year, and I'm not even European.
The Eurovision Song Contest
to Australians is a strange mix of bad 80's music, songs about "joy",
"love" and "unity" (it's a good drinking game to take a shot every time
one of those words are said), amazingly good looking hosts with amusing
English skills, scantily dressed Eastern Europeans and reality TV
winners from Western Europe. For the first time in my life, living in
the UK I get a chance to vote for the winner and watch it live instead
of having to ignore radio reports (of course it's all over the news)
till the Sydney Sunday evening replay.
The voting of Eurovision
is a complex interaction of politics and voting blocks. Each country
votes in a popular vote, in which they can not vote for themselves, and
each country has equal voting power. The voting is often based on
politics and the whole system is a complex interaction of objects
(countries) who interact with each other by giving each other points. A
statistical analysis of the system can then give some insight in the
nature of the interactions. For example, it can show whether certain
countries form cliques that always vote similarly, or whether a
country's voting is "in tune" with that of the whole group.
