redfiona99

Of course, the best bit of Eurovision every year (since 1996) is the Brits insisting they don't care and then the rending of garments when the UK entry gets minimal points. My tweeps from Ireland and my Lithuanian Facebook flistsies are at least amusing about the whole situation.

It's like "Brits, either be chill like Germany and France are, or send in a song people who are not British might like".

(And yes, I know Austria once again didn't qualify for the final, but that's frequently not a bad thing.)

But then I realised I might be the last person left alive who thinks that the Manics are sublime. Anyhow, they performed in BBC Radio 6's Hub (their version of Jo Whiley's live lounge, I think), link here http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/hub/

Go have a look. Not only are they in fine fettle (a gorgeous acoustic version of 'Your Love Alone is Not Enough, laughing, smiling, joking, Nicky looking dangerous and JDB being his straight man, people having kendo as their excuse for being absent) but the two new tracks they play make me even more excited for their new album.

Plus, there's a fair few other bands up.

Now for the ridiculous portion of our programming:

Eurovision

Which makes me wish I had a spangly font on here, for if anything deserves spangles it is Eurovision.

I ended up watching this with fencers, which was probably just as well, since the others I would have watch it with were already drunk and well, I have a higher tolerance for booze and they're a little wearisome when drunk.

( Country by Country thoughts on the final songs )

Videos of all of these, and those knocked out at the semi-final stage can be found here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/eurovision/2007/contestants/

If Fionaland were allowed a vote, the votes would have been distributed as follows:

1 - Belarus
2 - Finland
3 - Sweden
4 - Ukraine
5 - Lithuania
6 - Slovenia
7 - Georgia
8 - Greece
10 - Romania
12 - France

Anyway, because of a general dislike for the British entry and a general love for the madness of the Ukrainian one (me being the dissenting vote cheering for France as I was) the house was cheering for the Ukraine.

So the first couple of nations are Balkan states and Serbia gets a lot more votes than expected but it's quite close between them and the Ukraine. However they start to pull away and mental arithmatic starts having to be used to try and figure out how close the Ukraine are and how the votes would have to go.

Of course, in the end, Serbia won by a lot, and claims were made in the house that there was bribery and corruption. This was funny because the night was started with cries of how pointless and boring Eurovision was.

I really don't get why people are complaining about block voting, hell a good song won. Not my favourite, but one of the best straight songs on show. And really I don't see why Britain is getting it's knickers in a twist given that they sent Scooch a band so laughably bad that they're not funny. Germany and France have long since given up on winning and they don't get their knickers in a twist when the joke acts they send don't win.

Also this whole thing about block votes. Yes, it happens, and Turkey will always get 12 points from Germany etc. But you know what, Lordi won, and okay, yes, the Scandanavians vote for each other, but Lordi got points of everyone else too. If the UK wants to win, it needs to send a good song, that's what wins things.