I Heart Eurovision!

What fun! Eurovision! I even bought the CD one year, but this year was specially good because a lot of the songs were actually good.

Moscow had spared no expense- extraordinary suspended swimming pools descended from the ceiling (whose strange fetish was that?) and Graham Norton was lost for words (a rare event) for quite a while as the excesses of the Russians out-camped even his scalding wit.

First on was Lithuania, a trembling, fey young wisp of a lad in a hat with a forgettable wisp of a song; they came thick and fast after that.
France, with the microphone switched to 'guttural' (I wouldn't like to have gone on after that one, phlegm central!).
Sweden, nodding in the general direction of Donna Summer's I Love You, complete with out of tune singing bit, but actually I loved that one.
Armenia, with a shimmering and throbbing backing track, inventing a new time signature specially for the night and with sporadic hits of disco chordery (was that the dark spangled sisters with flat hats? I forget, I forget).
The Russian billionaire's daughter came on with a first: standing still while singing! Again, there were more Boney M references here too.
The Moldovan woman tried to swallow the microphone as sampled trumpets skedaddled about in the background and four men in braces and skirts skipped in synchronised splendour around her.
Irritating, Irritating! The beat, beat, beat and the screech, screech, screech of string arrangements, over and over again...
Here's Germany, a song with too many different bits, trying to be Louis Jordan, featuring Dita Von Teese doing nothing much and a bunch of ejaculating fireworks at the end, the anxiety and desperation on the backing musicians' faces giving the game away!
Everyone bellows 'ThankYOOOOOO!' at the end, ever-louder and more protracted.
Here's Norway, a proper song sung by a young lad who looks like he means it, and showing up the artificiality of everything that has come before, full of joie de vivre! Later I discovered that he wrote this song, and although he's mocked for the lyrics, he knows what he means, and so obviously do the punters who voted him into the number one place. I almost voted this time, and for this song.
Our turn comes: the slurpelicious Lloyd Webber is there behind the piano, vibeing away at Jay, who sings well, knocking one of the violinist's elbows as she descends the panto stairs in unfeasibly high heels. She is pretty and fresh, but singing a middle-aged song. How silly! I do hope Sir Andrew behaved himself with this one, if you know what I mean.

What's this? The Russian cosmonauts in outer space! 'We are telling you what to do for a change', observes one of them, wryly.
They are on-air to open the phone lines for voting. This is something that surely can not be out-done by anyone, anywhere, ever again! Wow! Eurovision becomes Space-o-vision!!!
Well and truly Eurovizzed for another year, i didn't bother to watch the voting for long. The best man definitely won, and showed the other countries that though they are fielding contestants who layer on the spangles, the theatre, the trained voices, the special effects, the 'best' songwriters, in the end simple enthusiasm and youth win hands-down with the public, which is exactly how Eurovision should be!