Eurovision

1962's stage was placed before a rain-strewn window, and the first "nul-points" reared their bald little heads with four nations scoring a duck: Belgium (Fud Leclerc in his final ESC appearance), Spain, Austria and the Netherlands. Europe must've been operating out of pure anti-Fascist instinct to have not given any points to Spain's entry, sung by the pre-Raphael-ite Victor Balaguer; an inauspicious start exploding into a wonderfully orchestrated groove sprinkled with Spanish stabs and no shortage of hot, trouser-tearing passion. For us it was the best song of the night, and the other three nul-pointers also made our score-board.

Sweden moved its strategy up another notch with the restless Inger Berggren, giddy to the point that one wonders what she'd been drinking, singing a lively piece of fun and "by-a-pa-dap-bam"-ing through the instrumental with her imaginary pizzicato violin. Finland occupied similar ground through the dark-eyed Marion Rung but went further still: "Tipi-tii" is basically "Sing Little Birdie" but with the whistling replaced by onomatopoeia. The result is an internationally accessible chorus: tipi-tii tipi-tipi-tipi-tii / tipi-tii tipi-tipi-tipi-tii. The nonsense sing-along was unleashed. Elsewhere, the UK's entry, Ronnie Carroll, sang another telephone-related song: "Ring-a-Ding Girl", while the Dutch gave us the pleasantly tinkly-sounding "Katinka", delivered with wide eyes and keen grins that broke the cameras and made the delivering duo look like minstrels.

France won on the night, making them the first country to win the song contest thrice. Their song has a fantastic, mesmerizing verse, dripping with sumptuous repetition, but the development doesn't really fulfill the promise. Still, by no means an undeserving winner.

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:

HERE ARE THE VOTINGS
OF THE AVIEW JURY:

12pts (=13th)	ESP	Victor Balaguer "Llámame"
10pts (8th)	SWE	Inger Berggren "Sol och vår"
8pts (1st)	FRA	Isabelle Aubret "Un premier amour"
7pts (7th)	FIN	Marion Rung "Tipi-tii"
6pts (=13th)	NED	De Spelbrekers "Katinka"
5pts (=13th)	AUT	Eleonore Schwarz "Nur in der Wiener Luft"
4pts (=4th)	GBR	Ronnie Carroll "Ring-A-Ding Girl"
3pts (9th)	ITA	Claudio Villa "Addio, addio"
2pts (=13th)	BEL	Fud Leclerc "Ton nom"
1pt (6th)	GER	Conny Froboess "Zwei kleine Italiener"