Before analysing the above it's worth remembering that our scoring during the 2000s was done live, during the interval performance, and with only the official recaps as an aide-mémoire. Also, the earlier the year the less consistent our points are likely to be with those awarded as part of our retrospective viewing project. We intend to revisit the 1998-2009 Eurovisions at some point in the future, to ensure a proper consistency in our scoring. Until then, these results stand, even though we realise in hindsight that some of them are very out indeed.

Revolution in Europe has led to a revolution in the decade chart: the top for both ourselves and Europe is a mass of risers and the odd new entry. The highest new entry for both of us is the Ukraine, and we're both impressed with Latvia and Armenia, although we disagree somewhat on the values of Serbia (Serbia & Montenegro is incorporated in the Serbian score Adding the Serbian score to the Yugoslavian does not alter our overall chart, but moves Yugoslavia up to 16th in the European all-time leaderboard). Russia has clearly had a very good decade, taking the top place in the European 2000s chart and second place in our own. Our favouring of Russia implies that there's more to their success than gas provision and military might.

Much has been said about the power of the Eastern European block vote. Let's examine this notion. We'll start by arranging the nations into four arbitrary regional groups: Scandinavia (including Iceland and Finland), the Mediterranean (that collection of Mediterranean nations joining since the 1970s, principally Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Israel), Western Europe (pretty much everything from Portugal and Ireland across to Austria) and the East (everything else, from the former Yugoslavia, across the Eastern Bloc and into Asia). A statistical analysis of the points hauls from the last decade shows the following: We gave Western Europe an average of a little over 9 points per nation more than the actual juries of Europe, and we gave almost 17 points more than they did to the Scandinavian nations. By contrast they favoured the Mediterranean set by a little over 18 points per entry and the Eastern nations by almost 14 points. Assuming our tastes to be the true mark of quality, that does seem to imply an Eastern bias in Europe. But then that is almost inevitable when you consider that the two easterly groups comprise ten more nations than the westerly (25 to 15). The very fact that there are more eastern nations voting than there are western means that the east has a greater say in the outcome of the contest. It is indisputable that certain styles of music have particular territories of popularity; not merely on an ethnic level although that naturally plays its role. A shared culture implies shared tastes. Let us not forget the massive success of the Alpine block in the early years of the competition, for very much the same reason that Eastern Europe is having success at the moment: a tight mass of nations with a necessarily intertwined heritage.

But enough of that sort of thing. Let's cast our eyes to the overall leaderboards. There's been really very little change in the official standings, mainly because there's been very little scoring by the established nations. Austria in 16th place marks something of a breakwater where no traffic has crossed in the last ten years. Everything above has stayed above, and everything below likewise. A similar breakwater exists in our own chart in the form of 20th place Monaco. Our placings have been a bit more fluid though, with a switch at the top between Spain and Finland. Finland have taken a narrow lead in our opinions and are well within tickling distance of Spain and Germany. Indeed, if one includes our 1956 placings Germany have a five point lead over Finland. In the real world, the UK's fifteen second-places give them a comfortable, near-unassailable lead, over 70 points ahead of rivals France and with over 100 points more than Finland have in the lead of our own chart.

Applying the same regional groups as we did in our analysis of voting trends in the 2000s, we see that, overall, Europe have given an average of 86 points per nation more than we have to the countries of Western Europe. They've also favoured Eastern Europe to the amount of 18 points. We on the other hand have put 35 points per nation more than Europe in the pockets of the Mediterranean nations, and have given the Scandinavian nations 82 points per nation more than they received in real life. As far as individual nations are concerned, Finland has been grossly under-rated by Europe and the UK grossly over-rated. Estonia and Ireland have, on average, been even more over-rated than the UK, and Macedonia, likewise, as ill-treated as Finland. Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia and Turkey have come out roughly the same in both our analysis and the European voting.