It’s hard to believe that after eight years of international humiliation the Dutch Eurovision’s entry for 2013 actually has a chance. National rock chick Anouk made the cut this week with the song ‘Birds’, which she had lying around and not with some Dunglish-gone-wrong cultural faux-pas like many of her recent predecessors.

Although TROS television station director Peter Kuipers is thrilled that Anouk is going to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, he’s already grumpy at the idea of forking out some 10 million euro for hosting the show if she wins. TROS is currently in talks to merge with the AVRO television station to save both their financial futures.

A straightforward, well-written ballad (as in no mistakes because we’ve done that before) seems like a good choice. TROS skipped having a television show to determine who would go to Eurovision as Anouk said either you pick me or forget it.

Seems like Anouk helped the TROS save money after all.

For a quick comparison, here’s Sineke – Ik ben verliefd (Sha-la-lie) – 2012.

Here’s the “trommelende trutten’ (roughly, ‘drumming bimbos’) with their made-up language (kicks in at 0:42) Treble – Amambanda – 2006

(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo of Microphone by visual dichotomy, some rights reserved)