I love Eurovision, I have absolutely no embarrassment in saying so. I’ve loved Eurovision ever since I became aware there was a Eurovision. But until Guardian Australia conferred on me the singular honour of “as live” blogging the event for an Australian audience on Sunday evening, I’ve never really had cause to reflect on why I love Eurovision. The sneaky, vaguely socially awkward passion just “is”.

Before I inflict my various observations and prejudices on you this evening (yes, we will be Team Conchita all the way, I’m terribly sorry, in this time-delayed global celebration of ululation, impartiality really is for wimps) I thought I’d come to terms with why I’m a Eurovision tragic. I’ve been astonished to find after five full minutes’ reflection that there is, actually, a rationale.

Obviously to love Eurovision in the spirit in which the song contest intends for you to love it, one must be a complete dag. Obviously I meet that criterion without even breaking sweat. Obviously you need a high tolerance for pantomime and absurdity and intrigue and sudden gyrations which, on the face of it, make no sense at all. A decade and a bit of daily political reporting sets you up well for that: it requires you to enter a world without sense and linger there, consuming and forgiving the madness, for much longer than you should.

The world of Eurovision is also strangely comforting: at some level it takes me back to the world of childhood eisteddfods, where I regularly performed public atrocities on a number of alleged artforms believing myself a shoo-in for a guest appearance on Young Talent Time and, in time, a Logie.

Eurovision is the manifestation of that childhood dream – a world of pure, uninhibited, yet talent-deficient self expression; too much eyeliner and vicious backcombing.

The terribleness of the tunes suits me down to the ground. When it comes to musical taste, I am the least credible person I know. I was conditioned to popular sound in early childhood by my parents’ vinyl, which was Elton John and Billy Joel. There was the local AM radio station and Countdown. The teenage years were almost entirely mainstream top 40 – I thought first Culture Club, then the Police and Meatloaf, were cutting edge.

Then there the two years in high school when the bus driver hammered Dr Hook’s Greatest Hits every single afternoon, resisting all entreaties to play something else or put on the radio. (Despite my generally tolerant nature, I’ve never quite found the generosity to forgive Sylvia’s Mother, or that bloody operator requiring 40 cents more.) The sum of those parts wasn’t ever going to a deliver a fully formed human with any real musical taste, and they say harms inflicted in childhood can never quite be undone.

I now live in a house where people take their music very seriously. My husband was first horrified, and is now patiently accepting of my periodic allegation that there are just too many instruments in the music he lives for. My daughter keeps pressing me to name my favourite bands in adolescence in the desperate hope that one day I will nominate someone credible. It has not yet happened, and I strongly suspect it never will.

Every family needs someone to shun and, happily, I am that person.

And yet when we are all at home together, when life doesn’t pull us in different directions, we all set aside our over-achievements and manifest limitations to gather on the couch as the Canberra winter begins to close in to watch the Eurovisions.

There are a lot of wonderful memories now, for me, of riding along on the coat-tails of this musical extravaganza far far away.

In our house, Eurovision is a festival of tolerance. For me, it’s just indulging my passion for overwrought choreography, pure performance and cheesy music. For the others, it’s about understanding that credibility and taste can be overrated concepts when genuine belly laughs are on offer.

We’ve done air guitar to Hardrock Hallelujah. We’ve been outraged for Cezar when he couldn’t carry the day despite clearly bringing everything Eurovision could have required of him. We’ve all been caught at various times having a sneaky listen to Euphoria.

So Eurovision is precious time. Given how many people gather with friends and family around the country to watch, I know I’m not the only person who feels this way about the event. Social media has given that sense of community a whole new dimension. The Eurovision tragics can link their gatherings to others – and pass the evening in a deluge of one-liners, puns and instant adjudications.

It’s fantastic.

So I hope you’ll join me tonight, from about 7pm AEST, so we can share our distinctly Australian love of laughing at ourselves, laughing at the Euros, and being monumental dags.