Eurovision 2008

I wonder if this is the first review of Eurovision 2008? It's just that I can't be bothered to wait for the bit where everybody votes for each other's best friend no matter how crappy the song is.
I actually found it really absorbing this year, helped by the fact that the British song wasn't too bad and the fact that Andy Abrahams looked like a genuine performer instead of trying to send it up, which the British entry often tries to do, all alone in it's arrogant little bubble while everyone else is streets ahead and stopped sending it up years ago. It's a fierce competition nowadays, and this was the year of the mini-drama, all feathers, fire and shiny fringing.
Denmark's song was the poppiest and it had a sort of Donovan vibe; the one that I liked best was France's, which was weird in a nice way. El Chiki Chiki by Spain- well Jonathan King, I know you're in there somewhere. Did you lose a bit of weight in jail? Turkey's was fronted by the devil himself (mmm, scary!), Russia had an ice skater to distract us from their song, 'I believe in shoe', Sweden's was horrid with the best example of unfeasibly high heels and unfeasibly hairless armpits (de rigeur for many countries) of the evening. The winner should be Norway, who had a good song, a good singer, and whose show looked good in an elegant way.
So may of them had had lessons in how to look at the camera, how to hold the mic, how to smile and sing at the same time, how to move: they were trained, trained, trained.
Wogan was a hoot as usual. To the guys in the Green Room, running towards the camera with their big microphones and silly smiles, the wacky ones, he advised, 'That's it, shout as loud as you can! It's FUN!!!"