James O'Brien

As I’m mostly a very quiet person at home, my annual Eurovision Song Contest Party is about the only opportunity my neighbours would have to complain about the noise coming from my apartment. For 364 days of the year, I cope with the doof-doof, the Led Zeppelin (and marijuana!), and the 5.1 home theatre “rumble”, and for one day of the year, they have to put up with the “oohs”, the “ahs”, the screams of laughter, the bitchy comments and the occasional bout of “forty-year old man dancing”.

There was, however, strong division in my house last night between those of us who thought the Serbian lesbian should have won, those who thought the Ukranian drag queen should have won, and those who thought the UK flight attendants should have won.

I mean, everyone really liked the winner, Marija Serifovic who had a certain kd Lang quality. But when Verka Serduchka came on immediately afterwards, clear divisions began to emerge. And there was also very strong support for the UK’s entry, “Flying The Flag (For You)” by Scooch. Although it was clearly the best UK entry in years, they only managed to score points form near neighbour Ireland. Odd, isn’t it, the best three songs of the night were one after the other?

We weren’t too far off the mark though. The top three, according to the people of Europe were (in order) Serbia, Ukraine and Russia.

Song 1 – Bosnia : Not entirely dreadful, though the hat was.

Song 2 – Spain: The best so far. They get points for spunkiness, but that’s all.

Song 3 – Belarus: How do they keep the women up on the walls.

Song 4 – Ireland: Like every other Irish song….

Song 5 – Finland: Good tune and performance

Song 6 – FYR Macedonia: Nothing special

Song 7 – Slovenia: Popera

Song 8 – Hungary: Blues by the bus-stop

Song 9 – Lithuania: OK

Song 10 – Greece: Typical Greek tune, a bit Ricky Martin like.

Song 11 – Georgia: A bit like Bjork.

Song 12 – Sweden: OK, but extra points for the dance routine.

Song 13 – France: They get points this year for singing in Franglaise (as Andrew put it), replacing the usually painful French-language power-ballad with something else.

Song 14 – Latvia: Il Divo clones.

Song 15 – Russia: Britney clone.

Song 16 – Germany: Forgettable.

Song 17 – Serbia: See above.

Song 18 – Ukraine: See above.

Song 19 – UK: See above.

Song 20 – Romania: It was like being on the dance floor at the Hordern Pavillion at 4am.

Song 21 – Bulgaria: Sorry, missed that one. I was feeding everyone.

Song 22 – Turkey: As above.

Song 23 – Armenia: Another bloody power ballad.

Song 24 – Too many white wines by this time…

So overall, not a bad competition this year.