Poorly updated sites? How annoying is it when you go to a site and it's still exactly the same as the last time you went there? And what's even worse is you don't even go there that often. T'choh, I dunno, buncha bloody losers running that place.

Oh yeah. And forgetfulness, that's feckin' annoying too isn't it? Keep meaning to write a post and then when you finally get the time to write it,you can't remember what you were going to write. At all. On the flipside, most things seem new and exciting when you're forgetful, as as far as you're concerned, whenever you hear/see somethin, it's the first you've heard of it/first time you've ever seen it. I'm suprised I don't wander around the place with a permanent expression of amazement plastered across my big dumb face.

Actually, thinking of which, I had that expression when I saw this clip just now - I think it was the bit about 'do the puppet master!' that did it for me…It's a bit different to how Heinlein envisaged the puppet masters I'm sure…

I'm reminded of seeing Jeremy Irons doing Playschool/Playaway, and also why Elijah Wood shouldn't be allowed any more Sunny Delight. Kia-ora, that's one thing (the whole set looks to me like 'it's too orangey for crows'), but Sunny D obviously does very very bad things to hobbitsss…

(was Kia-Ora a gateway drug to harder 'soft' drinks like Sunny D I wonder?)

Well, as we suspected, that was a bloody shambles wasn't it?

Fairly suprised by the end result tho, found the mix of music this year quite varied but hadn't rated Serbias entry at all. Nothing really jumped out at me as being the winner, there were just differing levels of awfulness.

Nice to see some countries had taken note of Lordi winning last year though, so we at least had a few songs that were more guitar-heavy than usual, even if they did sound like Evanescance b-sides. And there was still plenty of variety with blues, jazz and even 70's Glam-rock (wtf!?) represented alongside the usual borat-sings-ricky-martin efforts.

Even with the extra variety livening things up however, I didn't think the quality of the singing was up to much, in particular;

Bulgaria (nice entry, and sung ok, but I think her vocal range needed to be a bit (?) longer? wider? taller? not sure of the correct terminology, but it just seemed a bit flat)

and Ireland (who only just stopped short of dressing as drunken, Guinness-swigging Leprechauns, kissing the blarney stone and singing about their lucky charms. Ah begorrah.)

Speaking of which, Terry's commentary was top class as usual, like a favourite uncle half-cut on cheap sherry - I dread to think who they'll get in to replace him when he finally decides to hand the gig over to someone else. Eddie Izzard or Bill Bailey would be good, but I'm scared they'll get some irritating twunt like Graham Norton to do it instead…Still, only criticism I can give poor old Tel would be about him constantly harping on about the rampant block-voting that goes on - He didn't seem to complain when Ireland and Malta gave us points, and they certainly weren't for the quality of our song was it?

(12 points Malta? Are you all on crack or what? We you listening to the same song as the rest of us?)

Unfortunately, due to these sympathy votes, we actually end up with 19 ill-gotten points, rather than the nul points we so obviously deserved for foisting Scooch upon Europe. So, now europe has something else to add to their list of the dross to come from Britain - a lack of mixer taps, football hooligans, (supposedly) awful cuisine and now music in Eurovision so bad it relys on sympathy votes to be rated equal to France (who haven't won since '77 fact fans)…

And what was with the smutty remarks about 'salted nuts sir?' and 'something to suck on for landing, sir?' during the song? Was that honestly meant to be funny? If it was at least funny it would have been something but it was as painful to watch as the mad Finnish bint dressed in pink trying to pretend she'd won the chance to present and that's why her presenting skills were so godawful.

And speaking of godawful (but wanting to not carry on about scooch), Lets have a quick reminder of the Ukraine's entry.

Right. Well, ok, that's to be expected each year at Eurovision really isn't it?

But, 2nd place? You what?

Have to admit though, that one really did throw a spanner in the works of my thinking how it was going to work this year. There I was, quite logically (I assumed), thinking that we'd have some credible music this year, and it'd should show the idots who gave scooch the job that decent artists and decent music was the way to go rather than the usual tacky eurotrash-end-credits rejects. And then ukraines entry romped up the scoreboard and came second…so much for my theory.

What're the odds we'll put forward the same old tat again next year, the logic being that if the Ukraine could do it, so can we? Ignoring the fact that

a) The Ukraine didn't actually win, it was an odd looking woman singing a rather dull song, and

b) We've done shit music the past few years and have failed miserably every time…time for a change methinks.

Yeah. This one's been doing the rounds recently, but what the hell.

I thought it was amusing.

So, another year, another bunch of entries.

Now, who could possibly forget last year, when Lordi took the title?

Personally I'm not a fan of Eurovision, never have been, and never will be. But last year, well, that was just pure entertainment - a bunch of latex-covered metal merchants playing what is generally a twee and pompous affair and they won!

So, all things considered, you would think that what happened last year, would be taken into account by all countries which participate in Eurovision this year.

You'd think that, but no. What the UK has put forward is frankly, a bloody joke.

Witness…Scooch.

Riiiight.

That's really representative of what the country produces in musical terms isn't it?

Why can't the people who work these things out actually approach some normal, hardworking bands and ask them to write a song?

I suppose the reason is that anyone with even a degree of musical talent, or one iota of self-esteem, isn't going to want to make a fool of themselves in this competition.

I suspect Lordi did it just for laughs, I really do. 

Seems as good a time as any fior me to test how this video embedding lark works…

Stumbled across it while rummaging for the video for Rotersand - Exterminate Annihilate Destroy, y'see… 

(edited to correctly have the vid that allows embedding, even if it's the one using early Dr Who footage instead…) 

Project Pitchfork - Timekiller