Here are the original votings from the AView Republic as recorded on the night of the contest:

Croatia 4pts
Danijela - Neka mi ne svane
Eighties style slow pop giving way to Eurovisual seventies pomp.
Sweeping strings. Enter 70s Euro-funk punctuation.
Wah wah la la la.

Greece 7pts
Thalassa (pictured, right) - Mia krifi evesthisia
Twangy Euro-folk-pop-pop. Muted electric guitar ta-ta-ta-ta...
All very 80s of course. Not unlike Heart or something. Guitar solo.
The twangs leave us for verse two and instead we are treated to a keyboard.
"Bongar la Texico". Ends like Vince Di Cola.

France 0pts
Marie Line - Ou Allez
Late 80s funk punctuation. Very poppy.
Like a heavier Terrence Trent d'Arby. Keyboard strings.
This is really quite shit. Western movies by Rasta men. Depressing.
And the woman's not the best looking in the world either for what it's worth.
Though that's par for the course with France really, isn't it?

Spain 0pts
 Mikel Herzog - Que Voy Hacer Sin Ti
Glen Mediros rip off. Richard Gere. Crap.
Not even as good as Glen Mediros (crikey). Dull dull dull.

Switzerland 5pts
Gunvor Guggisberg - Lass' ihn
Electric violin! Contemporary pop-rock crescendo ballad thing.
Keyboard strings and sequencing. 80s nods.
Violin solo that's barely worth adding. All quite powerful though.

Slovakia 8pts
Katarína Hasprová (right) - Modlitba
Scarborough Fayre - folk elements are heavily prevailent.
Quite spooky - nicely so. Waltz.
Perhaps it's all a little too Scarborough Fayre.
But the chorus is as good as they come: Dum-a-dum... dwang!
More guitars needed. Very nice dark touches and a lovely bridge
(though too quick) which is really the end - unfortunately.

Poland 3pts
Sixteen - To takie proste
Hand held keyboard (remember them? they're here every year).
Violins. Guitar intro turns into mid 80s keyboard fest which then gives way
to a late 80s chorus that seems to appear from nowhere.
Not Fleetwood Mac, but some other group I can't recall at the moment.
A bit Steve Winwood - Higher Love. Thankyou.

Israel 6pts
Dana International (right) - Diva
Pulsing bass. Quite good actually.
Interesting change to the mid-scetion.
Diva! She used to be a he you know...

Germany 0pts
Guildo Horn - Guildo hat Euch lieb
Scary bloke - Clive James / Demis Rousos.
Rocking American sit-com music - Meatloaf.
Deceptively crap really.
Good showmanship, but still crap. And a scary bloke.
I award points on visual performance (magic tricks etc).

Malta 0pts
Chiara - The one that I love
They've gone for the fat woman option again.
Alison Moyet look-alike, only a little scarier than Moyet.
Scarier than the German bloke above actually.
Argh! Late 80s (timeless) balad. Awful. Michael Bolton style.
Piano-y. Crap. "You tum on my mind more and more..."

Hungary 0pts
Charlie - A holnap mar nemlesz szomoru
Hammond opening. Jazzy r&b style Van Morrison whisky throat. Yet strangely Euro-pop. Shit. Mouth-organ solo. Spare me.

Slovenia 0pts
Vili Resnik - Naj Bogovi Slisijo
Pony-tail bloke. Looks like Mark Ramprakash. 80s slow-rock euro-ballad. Very "Wind of Change". Powerful, slightly dark chorus. Folky elements in places. The chorus is too ba-da-da-da. Key change. Chorus in the 70s anthemic style. David Soul but worse.

Ireland 0pts
Dawn Martin - Is always over now?
Save the Best till Last. An ugly Leticia Dean. Synth toms. Love Hurts in chorus. This is bloody rubbish. I'd say crap or shit or awful, but that's just getting repetetive. Scary key-changes. They really don't want to have to host the thing again, do they...

Portugal 0pts
Alma Lusa - If I Could Hold You In My Arms
The worst instruments ever - lined up.
Bagpipes, bazouki, square tambourine. Awful drum backing.
Sickly jolly. Accordian now. This is surely hell. Ceri Blair.

Romania 10pts
Malina Olinescu (right) - Eu cred
Best looking singer so far. 70s song. I can sing the verse but don't remember the chorus of the song that's ripped off here, but the chorus is different anyway. Nice switch back. Sweeping middle 8, very 60s. Back now to 70s anthem changing melody. I like this. Very high now. Guitars at the end and an 80s finish.

United Kingdom 0pts
Imaani - Where are you?
Tinkle tinkle - weird tune. Pop-dance: bum-bum-bum-bum. It's a song I remember from the 80s. Give me "Ooh-Ah Just a Little Bit" any day. It's certainly no Bucks Fizz. Etc.

Cyprus 0pts
Michalis Hadjiyiannis - Yenesis
Irish whistling turns to sequenced bibblings.
He looks like Robbie Williams after an accident.
Cliched tune. But I like the bibblings, which are still there
somewhere behind white noise growls. Very 70s anthemic.
Strings, of course. Ho hum. Key change.
The whistlings are ripped off from Ruby Tuesday.
"At the end of the century, a betrayal / gets up, cuts up and divides"

Holland 0pts
Edisilia Rombley - Hemel en aarde
Bond style intro. Dukaduka rhythm. Aretha Franklin in the 80s. Could've been A-Ha on a very bad low in their career, crossed with Sinita. Not great, despite the start. Sweeping strings. Disco mid-section: Oh-ah-dubadahdubadahdubadah. Key change of course. Because we can.

Sweden 0pts
Jill Johnson - Kärleken Är
Hammond twiddlings. Eurovision-style 70s anthem; a recurring theme methinks. Twiddly guitars now. Anthony reckons it sounds like the Power of Love. Sounds more like a pop-ballad version of "When a Child is Born" to me.

Belgium 0pts
Mélanie Cohl - Dis oui
Nice looking (though nothing on Romania). Chupachupa drums. Bass in and stuff. Late 80s with regular key change elements. Keyboard whistling in the background. Repetitive and rather dull though. Circles. Bad ending. Merci. "The world needs reconstruction / Say yes / Come for life, come for an hour."

Finland 1pt
Edea - Aava
Zithery thing that sounds like a jew's harp. She looks like Medusa. A bloke is playing a grecian urn. Awful chorus. A cross between Madonna and a muslim chant. Moany moan moan to a nice jolly tune. She is very scary. But in an ugly goth way rather than like the other two from earlier. This song does have the greatest lyrics of any Eurovision entry however:
Wide Earth, open the wide Earth,
Wide Earth, open the wide Earth,
Beauty, Greatness,
Beauty, Greatness,
Calm.
Wide Earth, open the wide Earth,
Wide Earth, open the wide Earth,
Wide.
Wide Earth, open the wide Earth,
etc.

Norway 2pts
Lars A Fredriksen - All I ever needed was you
60s/70s elemental 90s boy-band sound. Nul points?
A little harsh. Fixed wah guitar licks mid-verse. Jolly.
Middle 8 in 80s mould.
Sounds a bit like the House Martins in the chorus.
Happy hour again etc...

Estonia 0pts
Koit Toome -  Mere lapsed
Born in 1979. Bruce Hornsby. Piano, vocals.
Dum dum de dum dum dum dum dum dum de dum zzzzz....
Bell trees are all that keep me awake.
And a very subdued guitar solo which is drowned out
by a plinky plinky 80s pop-rock ballad piano. Wink to camera.

Turkey 0pts
Tüzmen - Unutamazsin
Russian, dark, stringy, chopping, piano-y, musical-y, "I Surrender"-y number
but without any modern elements whatsoever.
Demo 3 on my keyboard.Orchestra's favourite.
Certainly powerful, but beyond that... dull.

Macedonia 12pts
Vlado Janevski (right) - Ne zori Zoro
Bond style guitar opening. Very Eastern European and mysterious.
Very A-Ha too. The bloke wants to be Robert Palmer. I quite like this one.
Dum, de dweer.
Nice strings and guitar touches and sweeping stuff and what have you.
Soary backing vocals. Quite a sudden ending though.
Damn time restraints. "Wishing this red wine would kill the pain."

ORCHESTRAS

1998 is the last year that a live orchestra was present. Greece, France, Switzerland, Malta, Israel and Belgium used backing tracks and no orchestra. France used the string section only, and made no overt use of a conductor. Germany and Slovenia presented conductors despite making no use of the orchestra.

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 (19th)	MKD	Vlado Janevski "Ne zori, zoro" (Не зори, зоро)
10pts (22nd)	ROU	Mălina Olinescu "Eu cred"
8pts (21st)	SVK	Katarína Hasprová "Modlitba"
7pts (20th)	GRE	Thalassa "Mia Krifi Evesthisia" (Μια κρυφή ευαισθησία)
6pts (1st)	ISR	Dana International "Diva" (דיווה)
5pts (25th)	SUI	Gunvor "Lass' ihn"
4pts (5th)	CRO	Danijela "Neka mi ne svane"
3pts (17th)	POL	Sixteen "To takie proste"
2pts (8th)	NOR	Lars Fredriksen "Alltid sommer"
1pt (15th)	FIN	Edea "Aava"

Europe had the UK second, Malta third, the Netherlands fourth, .Belgium sixth, Germany seventh, Ireland ninth, Sweden tenth, Cyprus eleventh, Portugal and Estonia joint-twelfth, Turkey 14th, Spain 16th, Slovenia 18th, Hungary 23rd and France 24th.