| At long last, the Eurovision
circus makes its way to Finland. It's the first contest to receive a
broadcast in 1080i HD (see Ivan's analysis of
high definition television for what that last sentence actually
means). Monster metal having proved popular last year, Finland's follow-up number was a spot of Evanescent pop-gothicism of the sort that goes down well with the Buffy crowd (sort of like if Garbage did the Twilight soundtrack). It was most definitely a job for the wind-machine. Moldova took a similar sort of approach, but with added Treasure Hunt, while Slovenia raised them both by giving the whole wind-swept gothic thing an operatic bent (and sticking some blue LEDs on the singer's hand). It's bombastic fun and it managed to narrowly secure our 12pts by virtue of a split vote (though in hindsight the honours should really have gone to the Ukraine). The Belarusian entry opens with all the slick drama of a modern Bond theme, before the charismatic Dmitry Koldun (or is it Barbie's friend, Ken?) recreates Constantinos Christoforou's stylish entrance from Cyprus's number two years ago. "Work your magic shoe" he seems to sing in the memorable chorus ([[Diggiloo Thrush]] claims that the "shoe" is actually a "you" from the next line of lyrics, but we're far from convinced). His backing dancers, meanwhile, perform attached to a velcro wall, and the whole thing begins to resemble the aftermath of some Dale Winton -fronted Saturday tea-time gameshow. Magical stuff, in a Pendragon-y sort of way. Going for a similar vote, the Greek entry was as straight a recreation of Ricky Martin as you can get (feel free to joke among yourselves). The Ukraine secure their place in the Eurovision pantheon with the help of Christopher Biggins -styled grand dame Verka Serduchka, resplendent in spangly bacofoil and star-shaped headpiece. The core of the piece is a raved up folk-dance riff on an accordion, intercut with some Germanic counting gone slightly awry. Halfway through we encounter a new and more melodic section before notching up a key and starting again. A trip around the block (and a run around the stage) and there's a second key-change before we reach the undeniably charming "OK, Happy End". Serbia won with an astonishingly retro number: a perfunctory Luxembourgian power-ballad. It'd be acceptable enough (if a little tedious) were it not for the disturbing Irish movement in the middle (I thought we'd had all those fucking pipes destroyed). Visually it's a little curious: a shorter, plumper Nana Mouskouri in man-drag, surrounded by Farrah Fawcett lookalikes in fascistic red sashes (cf. 1984). One wonders really how it won. Much was made of diaspora voting and the electoral weight of the Eastern Bloc, but it's worth noting that three of the nine maximums they received were from Finland, Austria and Switzerland, with a ten from Sweden, and eights from France, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands. More likely it was just sufficiently by-numbers enough as to strike a power-chord in the hearts of Europe's still-mighty Celine Dion -loving core-vote. For each year's songs we apply our points in the 12-10-8 style of the modern contest, irrespective of how the voting functioned at the time. In brackets is the position the song came on the night:
Europe's winner was Serbia. Russia were third, Turkey fourth, Hungary ninth, Bosnia & Herzegovina eleventh, Georgia twelfth, Romania 13th, FYR Macedonia 14th, Latvia 16th, Germany 19th, Lithuania 21st, France and the UK joint-22nd and Ireland last. |
 The Ukraine's answer to Christopher Biggins.  Belarus delight in the wonders of cobbling.  Moody Moldova.  Alenka Gotar and her radioactive hand.  Greece's straight recreation of Ricky Martin.  Who will save us from the Lesbian Nazis?
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