Nul Points Encore

Ok so it wasn't the greatest Eurovision ever. To be honest there were only two songs that vaguely stood out, Roger Cicero's german swing tune and the one from Georgia with the cossack dancers that sounded a bit like a cross between Bjork and "Ray of Light" era Madonna. Everything else rather became a bit of a wash of noise and belly-dancers with a guest appearance by Timmy Mallet wrapped in Bacofoil "singing" the Ukrainian entry and some other country who decided to send a Goa'uld complete with hand mounted zappy light to do their song. Oh and Ireland, you are a nation of musicians so how the fuck did you manage to send the once person in the whole country who couldn't hold a tune in a bucket?

Still, congratulations and respect to Serbia who had the balls to send a bunch of lesbians - decent enough tune as well as far as I can remember but by this time I'd pretty much finished the wine so it was all a bit hazy.

Ireland rather spoilt the party though by giving the UK entry some votes, we were onto the prospect of a nul pointer up to then which at least has some merit. Not quite sure what happened there but the silly song we submitted just didn't seem to play too well on the stage that they had in Helsinki, it seemed to lose intimacy and have all the fun stripped out of it; the lurid backgrounds didn't help either I thought and the sound did seem muddy so I suspect a mic balance problem or an Al-Qiadia sympathizer behind the mixing desk. Well that and the fact that, on balance, it wasn't that strong a tune compared to the others.

I'll bet Justin was giggling into his beer though, not that he would have done any better.

Got to admit that the "vote for your neighbour" is starting to be more than a bit stupid though, especially as Yugoslavia gets to vote for itself about eight times. And nobody seems to put any effort into the interval thingie any more; I guess after Riverdance everyone has said "Oh sod it, we'll never top that, just put something vaguely folky on and blow something up, that'll do."

Still, for all it's flaws and foibles it's three hours of fun and although world + dog knocks it I still have a soft spot in my heart for what was originally conceived as a good way to try out this newfangled technology.