"I can't stand the Eurovision contest," said the man in the flat cap with the glass of Guinness in his hand. "Can't abide the thing. No one can. That's why we all watch. But now I see your glass is empty. Will you not be having another, then?"

I was in heaven. It was Ireland, it was Eurovision, and someone was buying me another pint. This was all the brochures had promised, and so much more. As you may gather, I am not currently at home. I am writing this from Dublin's fair city. There is a fine rain drifting in from the Irish Sea, the River Liffey sighs and mutters as it makes its way to the bay, and the cobblestones glisten dark in the low light of the streetlamps.

But several nights ago I was on the other end of the country, in Galway City, watching the Eurovision Song Contest, live from Latvia, on the big screen in Sean Tierney's public house, enjoying the company of roughly a million Galwegians urging their boy, Mickey Joe Harte, onward to Celtic glory. Unless you have been in the company of roughly a million Galwegians, crammed into a public house that might comfortably seat 50, you can scarcely imagine the support the Irish can give their own.

"Local boy, is he?" I asked the barman. "Nah," he said. "He's from Donegal, the little eejit. But sure now, he's wearing the green, is he not? And sure the green can bring on a mighty roar." You may think I am inventing this to provide quaint local colour, but actually he was even more Irish than that.

The Eurovision contest is the world's most inexplicable survivor. The idea behind it, so far as there is anything as cohesive as an idea, is that the mighty nations of Europe nominate a singer and a song, and each nation's singer sings its song before a live television of squillions, all of whom then phone in to vote, at cellphone rates. Now that's putting the Euro into Eurovision.

Presumably if the European Union runs to its natural conclusion, in a year or so there will be just one song in the contest, sung with one voice by a ragtag band of previously solo vocalists in an uneasy harmony. One Eurovision song would take a lot less time. The pain would be intense, but it would soon be over.

As I watched, awash in noise and chatter and the cider someone had spilled down my back, the representative from Cyprus eased himself onto the big screen. I think he was running through the long list of the show's sponsors. From where I was sitting, there was only one real sponsor for the show: the European League for the Preservation of National Stereotypes. Your Cyprus representative was a certain Nicos, resplendent in white linen suit, white shoes and a squirrel stuffed down his shirt-front. No, wait! That was no squirrel! That was Nicos!

It must have been a warm night in Latvia. Nicos had seen fit to dispense with his shirt.

Nicos, with a waggle of one hip and a wiggle of the other, launched into a ditty called Keep Alive. Road safety education? Infomercial about the dangers of Far Eastern travel without your face mask? Poor translation of an old BeeGees song? Impossible to tell - everyone was loudly ordering the next round, in thirsty anticipation of Tatu.

Tatu were the Russian representatives - two teenage girls who have recently sold lots of records in the West by wearing school uniforms and kissing each other. Apparently, this is every western man's fantasy. Things must have changed while I wasn't looking. It seems like only yesterday, when I was a western schoolboy, that our only fantasy was that girls wearing school uniforms would kiss us.

There was much frenzied anticipation about Tatu. "I've heard they're going to sing naked," said a ruddy fellow ordering three pints for himself.

But when Tatu finally appeared, you could hear the whole of Europe exhaling in one disappointed breath. Tatu were not naked. They were not even barefoot. Out they came in jeans and white t-shirts, yowling something in Russian. They were not very exciting. They were just two schoolgirls in jeans and t-shirts, and you could see those anywhere.

The crowd in Latvia was just as unimpressed as we were. The Russians in the crowd cheered and yodelled, much as you would cheer and yodel if members of the Russian mafia were standing behind you wearing sunglasses and holding their right hands in the voluminous pockets of their overcoats, hissing: "Cheer, comrades. We haff a lot of money ridink on ze girls winnink." But for the rest of them, the Latvians were rightly disappointed. There is little enough to console you for living in Latvia, but when even teenage lesbians refuse to come through for you, you know it is going to be another long, hungry year.

So Tatu were a duff.

Next up was England. England was represented by a duo called Jemini. Jemini looked and sang and smiled as though they were two of Alvon Collison's backing dancers, auditioning for a margarine commercial. They landed on the television screens of Europe like a misdirected missile.

And as the song wound down to a thunderous silence, you could almost hear the ambassadors to the United Nations drafting resolutions to have England permanently excluded from the competition. They should be so lucky.

The joy of England receiving absolutely no votes whatsoever almost consoled the Irish fans for the disappointment of their Mickey Joe Harte popping up a distant something or other, far behind the winners, whoever they were. Deep into the night, well, all the way up to closing time, the Guinness flowed in celebration of their Mickey.

"Sure, he's a good boy," said my neighbour in the flat cap. "He put one over those English for you." And just for a moment, you could finally feel the nations of Europe uniting behind a single cause.