Eurovision Final

I didn't really intend to sit down and watch all of the Eurovision Song Contest final. But given our New Zealand guest staying with us at the moment, it seemed a cultural highlight not to be missed. (Though she went to bed just before the voting began and missed the best bit!)

El Tel was in good (?) form tonight. Despite Dustin being missing. Some of the time I can't work out whether he's feeling grumpy or just cynical about the whole extravaganza. Some of tonight's classic Woganisms included:

• [Albania] “a pleasing view of the first belly button of the night”
• [Germany] “three Germanic lovelies tightly corseted for your delight”
• [Armenia] “keep an ear out for the old Mongolian nose flute”
• [Poland] “you haven't seen teeth like this since the Osmonds”

Some observations written before the results have come in (nearly more difficult than predicting a NI election) ...

• The old angry (gesticulating) man in the Croatian entry deserves to do well
• The Swedish entry managed a bizarre monochrome start to the song. Weird.
• Did the Eurovision vetting squad know that the French entry would feature Helium?
• The Latvian pirate entry could be popular.
• Spain managed to combine Bollywood with a touch of the toy instrument.

Our sofa's favourite was the Danish entry that looked like they could sing and were enjoying themselves. And the red button "subtitles and extra sarcasm" service was perfect.

While the UK entry was competent, I can't see it doing well. In fact, I can't see any of the four guaranteed-to-be-in-the-final nations doing well. Most countries will have already seen and heard 10 of the entries at their semi-final, and familiarity must give them a head start. Whereas the French, German, Spanish and UK entries are relative unknowns.

Update - voting over - And it turned into a two horse race between Greece and Russia, with Armenia sitting like the Lib Dems in third place.

And in the end Russia ran skated away with the prize of hosting next year's final.

During the scoring, Terry called the 12 points from Iceland to Denmark perfectly. Did I pick up the vibe from Terry that he's not sure if he'll be back to commentate next year? (I wasn't the only one.) Who would they replace him with? With Ken Bruce wedded to the Radio 2 coverage, would Jonathon Ross be the leading candidate?

Andy Abraham's song will become a footnote in Eurovision history, occupying the UK's now annual position near at the bottom of the voting table. I wonder whether they should volunteer to waive their automatic place in the final and work their way through the semi-finals?