All done in the worst possible taste

It's that time of year again, when Europe throws the kitschest party on earth. Mark Cook looks forward to the Eurovision Song Contest

Come the morning of Sunday 10 May there will be bleary-eyed revellers up and down the country peering in their fridges at a particularly eclectic mix of leftovers. There might be a fetid piece of Edam, the scrapings of some taramasalata, a piece of salt cod from Portugal, maybe, or an alarming-looking bendy German sausage.

No, these aren't some assembled ingredients for Ready, Steady, Cook! but the remains of a very specific morning after the night before. The giveaway is that you're looking at a lot of roll-mops you don't need - it can only mean one thing: a Eurovision Song Contest party.

It's the thing, you see, to throw a Eurovision bash, a celebration of the annual kitschfest. Call it Post-modern, call it ironic, call it retro. Actually, let's just call it naff. Yes, it's a book - a companion for die-hard fans (like trainspotters only camper) has just been published. It's even been a play: Tim Luscombe's Eurovision, famously lambasted by the critics on its West End transfer, and Boom Bang-a-Bang by Jonathan Beautiful Thing Harvey, which is itself set at a Eurovision party.

There is also a Eurotrash record of cover versions - St Etienne, Edwyn Collins and 808 State - to tie in with Channel 4's own alternative tribute, for which Bananarama have reunited to record Waterloo. And student unions the length and breadth of Britain are to hold their own Eurotrash parties, sponsored by record company EMI and breweries.

Many celebrities are known to have delved into this hitherto untrendy mire of Eurovision parties, where each guest is assigned a particular country, required to dress appropriately and bring some food and drink from that nation.

Just as George Clooney is cringing at the video release of him as a transvestite go-go dancer, others tremble in their Eurovision closet. I seem to remember I invited the Guardian's current arts editor once, but she declined. Wise woman.

My first Eurovision party was 10 years ago (I hear the word "sad" being intoned over these pages) and climaxed memorably with an almost unrecognisable Celine Dion (whatever happened to her?), singing for Switzerland in a dress modelled on an avalanche, knocking the old Royaume-Uni into second place by one point on the last vote. The howls of anguish and the glee of the sweepstake winner pocketing 20-odd pound coins could be heard in downtown Bucharest.

This is, of course, the only way to watch Eurovision, with a horde of like-minded sceptics baying at the screen and the coiffeur cock-ups, dodgy costumes - nice to know what they're wearing in Tallinn this year - and even dodgier choreography. As a nation whose entries usually sound like they have been penned by someone incarcerated in a home for the terminally perky, Britain has nothing to be smug about.

The beauty of the party is that the guests do the work - they bring the food and drink. Expect a lot of cheese and somebody who will have diligently researched some unheard of Norwegian speciality. In terms of liquid refreshment, the party gives new meaning to the American "mixed drinks", and the consequences are perilous.

In the sartorial stakes, some merely wear the colours of the national flag. Others go for The Full Katie (Boyle). I have seen matadors swishing round my flat at the drop of a wide-brimmed hat, people in togas and a rampant cossack. I have a rubber chicken which was left behind by someone masquerading as the Muppets' Swedish chef, and what I thought was a Brillo pad but turned out to be a very bushy moustache worn by a Viking wannabe.

This is your basic Eurovision party, though those of a more sadistic bent can actually make their guests perform. And if that is not enough excitement, try a sweepstake, so that everyone suffers the indignity of rooting for songs they wouldn't waste spit on.

A vital decision as host is whether to view live or tape the transmission and watch it after it finishes. The latter has the advantage of being able to fast-forward through the worst excesses.

Personal favourites from the past decade of loopily ersatz Eurosongs include: Baby Doll from Yugoslavia, a histrionic flurry of peroxide and matching blue chiffon and eye shadow who would only see 40 again in a large rear-view mirror; a nine-and-a-half-month pregnant Dane backed by dancers with orange cardboard guitars; and a Turkish entry that sounded like a James Bond theme filtered through the souk and performed by a quartet, the male half of which had more than their fair share of left feet. I could go on...

So, what's in store at this year's event at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena - home of Gladiators, a show only marginally less camp than Eurovision - as 25 countries bid for the honour of seeing their winning song disappear into oblivion and spending millions on staging the thing next year.

There are the usual suspects, such as Terry Wogan, for whom this is the show that launched a thousand quips, and co-compere Ulrika Jonsson, clearly a roll-moppet for watching Scandinavians. Just how far she will have her tongue wedged in her fair cheek remains to be seen; perhaps Reeves and Mortimer will do the interval act, but I suspect that Eurovision is too surreal even for them.

There will be hi-tech and hi-tack aplenty, with the BBC coverage promising a televisual feast and more of the telephone voting fearlessly pioneered last year. Personally, I prefer the old crackly voice over the line from Ankara delivering the bizarre deliberations of an unseen jury, but then I can remember Kathy Kirby's lip gloss almost as clearly as Gina G's groin-length sequin number, thank you.

After last year's Croatian Spice Girls, Danish rap and the Icelandic offering of Gary Numan meets Hot Gossip in a deal of PVC and fishnet, there is the prospect this year of Dana International, a controversial transsexual from Israel singing a song called Diva. Talk about All Kinds of Everything. Shocked? I went to the foot of several stairs. Apparently, she beat off stiff competition from Arkadi and the Lemons singing Song of Hope, presumably the typical phalanx of clean-looking Israelis standing with their legs apart and singing something that was written during a period of conscription.

Plenty to relish then, but, as Eurovision fever becomes palpable, spare a thought for the party guest who draws first-timers Macedonia. Perhaps they could bring a macedoine of something or other. As long as it isn't roll-mops.