Eurovision Song Contest Liverpool 2023

As ever when reviewing Eurovision it's more a case of where to start!

Well done to Liverpool first and foremost, who hosted in great fashion, with enough nods to Ukraine (who should have been hosting) to make them feel involved.

The acts themselves were the usual rag tag bunch of the good, the bad and the just plain weird. Guess who did better than the other - exactly.

For whatever reason it was back to business as usual for the UK, with our act not really being anything other than 'ok'. Sam Ryder would have been a better choice.

In terms of our hosts, while Graham Norton seemed very assured as ever, the real stand out was Hannah Waddingham, who you would imagine will find her phone very busy after such exposure.

Alesha Dixon looked lost - I'm still haunted by her rapping in the semi - and as for the always woefully unfunny Mel Giedroyc I can only say that I don't know why the BBC keep bothering.

All in all, it was the usual fun and chaos.

My curiosity and enthusiasm faded after Ukraine won the competition last year. This should have been a music contest, not a political tool. This year, however, I believed that it would go well and that a good and deserving song would win. Sweden won, Loreen won. Yes, it was a good song and a good performance. But I would love for Finland to win. It was by far the best song and performance. I didn't like the presenters in general. This year the songs were good, the performances were good. Overall, I think the competition was boring. Political aims and political discourses bore me now. It was supposed to be a music contest. Always political discourses, songs. I think Eurovision, like Oscar, will lose its popularity over the years.

Maybe, the duel between Sweden and Finland was the mark of this edition , in which confrontation between so different songs was a good and not always reasonable point in many senses.

I recognized, my favoris were Moldova , its song, The Sun and the Moon reminding me the fairy tales of childhood - in fact , the lyrics are fragments of that texts - and Georgian Echo by Iru.

Sure, as Romanian, I regret the not reasonable situation of DGT and his singer , Theodor Andrei but , in this case, the guilty is reflected by less inspired Romanian National Television organiyation of moment.

But, in essence, a new edition remembering all the sins and controverses and the few good aspects of this contest.

Liverpool did The Ukraine proud, hosting the war torn country's 2022 win in style.

Exactly as you'd expect, camp, loud, flashing lights, some dismal music, some good music, some very good music, and Croatia. There are no words for Croatia's entry, at least it wasn't dull and out of tune, like one...... but we won't go there.

How utterly wonderful was Hannah Waddingham, not generally known as a presenter, an actress and talented singer, and for me she me came across as wonderfully sincere, the standout, eloquent, educated, a bit of a national treasure.

Graham, I hope you had a few drinks, it sounded like he had.

Personally I voted for Sweden, I thought it was the most polished song, but it's Finland I'll remember.

As always with Eurovision, you never quite know what you're going to get, and some of it was bizarre.

What did we learn....... The Czech Republic is now Czechia, Sonia doesn't age, Mel proved women can do dad jokes just as well, block voting is alive and well, and the next stop is Sweden, again.

Kitsch, camp, but fun, 8/10.