Eurovisionland is a strange and unpredictable place, indeed. I mean, who would ever have thought we'd sit down for a marathon four-hour viewing session that would include a song about being possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe, six women with ginormous hair-plaits dressed as druid nuns, a Dungeons and Dragons-themed combo complete with a dwarf playing a penny-whistle, a group of ballroom dancers forming a human centipede, a heavy metal band arriving on stage in a 1980s Toyota, a camp-as-tits Boy George sound-a-like with a love of hats, and some middle-aged rockers wearing dresses and military caps, taking the piss out of Putin and other dictators, singing about tractors and then stripping to their baggy underpants on stage?!

We would, of course..!

"Our gang" [below: Hils (France), Crog (Portugal), Russ (Cyprus, complete with goat), Baby Steve (Switzerland) and Alex (Italy), Lou (Ukraine, aka Volodymyr Zelenskyy), Sal (Austria)] once again did us proud at our celebration of the "Gay World Cup" aka the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday. I allocate three countries each - one for booze, one for food, and a third for costume and/or flag-waving - and the results were colourful to say the least!

With a buffet-of-all-nations to sate our appetites soak up the vast quantities of exotic booze on offer, and photo-shoots all done and dusted, it was time for the "show of shows" to begin!

Hosted by the UK in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine [which, for obvious reasons, was unable to do the usual duty of the previous year's winner], the organisers at the BBC certainly pulled out all the stops. The staging was superb, the special effects flawless, and the presenters (Graham Norton, actress - and budding gay icon - Hannah Waddingham, singer and TV presenter Alesha Dixon, and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, with additional commentary by comedienne Mel Giedroyc) were excellent, and sometimes hilarious - and the whole shebang kicked-off with with a most remarkable intro indeed. Famous artists all paying tribute to 2022's victorious Stefania by Kalush Orchestra, including our own runner-up Sam Ryder, Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Joss Stone and more... but probably most notable for an appearance by none other than Catherine, Princess of Wales, at around the 2½ minute mark!

Of the contest itself? We all had our scorecards at the ready, and watched all twenty-six performances with the usual mix of shock and awe, shouting at the telly, "phwhoaar"s at some of the totty...

Italy's Marco Mengoni

...taking advantage of some of the boring ones to go for a pee, a top-up or a fag, and "oh-fuck-how-did-they-get-into-the-final?" groans.

Then a break - and more madness, confusion and a really emotional moment, courtesy of the interval entertainment; a selection of previous Eurovision winners singing from the vast back-catalogue of songs with their roots in host city Liverpool. You might prefer to skip the bland and deadpan rendition of Imagine at the opening segment of this clip and skip to around the 2:10 slot:

You never saw them in the same room...

John-John (as usual) came up with the best "look", with his almost-true-to-the-original impression of audience favourite (and one of ours!), Käärijä of Finland (whose was one of the maddest of all performances).

Speaking of which...

The Dolores Delargo Towers jury votes were as follows:

#5 - Moldova: Pasha Parfeni - Soarele şi Luna

#4 - Belgium: Gustaph - Because Of You

#3 - Finland: Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha

#2 - Croatia: Let 3 - Mama ŠČ!

#1 - United Kingdom: Mae Muller - I Wrote a Song

This was, of course, in complete contrast to the actual votes...

First came the long, long, long presentation of the jury votes. With 37 countries taking part (only 26 made the final), it is a bit of a slog. You can imagine, dear reader, the shouting and consternation and occasional boos and hisses from our living-room, as country after country failed to give the UK any votes at all, but Sweden, Italy, and the godawful Ariana Grande-wannabee from Israel got alternate douze points, battling it out for the top slot. In the end, poor Mae only got fifteen votes.

Public votes were announced next [and in a change of rules this year, these votes could come from anywhere where the contest is shown, not just the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union], which caused a bit of a kerfuffle at the top - as, with the Liverpool arena already resounding to chants of "Cha Cha Cha!", Finland received a massive 376 extra points (the highest score from the phone-in votes), leap-frogging them all! Unfortunately, Sweden had so many points from the juries already that the 243 extra meant their song was the overall victor by a landslide with 583 points. And here is its performer, (second time winner) Loreen!

It's no Euphoria, but an earworm nonetheless.

The UK ended the evening with a total of 24, in 25th place out of 26.

• An interesting article by BBC Music Correspondent Mark Savage attempts to analyse the possible reasons why.

We hid our disappointment well, by switching off after Doreen Loreen's reprise performance, and cranking up the Dolores Delargo Towers YouTube party playlist until the wee small hours!

Same time, same place, next year?

YES!!

Who needs Tacky Music Monday when you have Eurovision?!

It's been a very slow Saturday, and the weather's overcast and very muggy, which doesn't exactly help. Time, methinks for a selection of "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late...

Let us open with the latest from a band that I first stumbled across thirteen years ago (gulp)!

The fantabulosa Steps are probably high on champagne, as not only is it their 25th anniversary this year, but they've just become the first British, mixed-gender group to earn a Number 1 album in four consecutive decades (1990’s, 2000’s, 2010’s and 2020’s) with The Platinum Collection - which also features this new one!

Claire's transmogrification into Dame Lulu continues apace...

As featured by an almost-hysterical Rylan on his Radio 2 show today, the prettier one of the former Bros frontmen is back:

Even better - and even more unexpected - the eternally cute Claire Grogan and her chums are back with their first new music in 39 years! And it's very good indeed:

Speaking about "blasts from the past" - who would ever think that a bizarre one-hit-wonder from way back in 1995 would be revived in a cover version by a Danish avant-garde electropop artiste? It works...

Making a convenient connection to the "Spaceman" theme, the UK's "Eurovision superhero" has a (very jolly) new single out, which should cheer us all up as we wait to find out what city lands the prize of hosting next year's Song Contest on behalf of winners Ukraine:

And, finally - a rather good earworm, courtesy of "Big Willy":

As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...

Wow.

For the first time in years, we have no need for our usual retort ”We wuz robbed!” For, at last night's Eurovision Song Contest, we most certainly were not...

It was a fabulous feeling in any circumstance to be hosting our first traditional glittering Eurovision party for three years! "Our gang" - the Madam and I, Hils, Crog, Baby Steve, Houseboy Alex, John-John, Sal, Lou, Paul, Russ and Joe - all dutifully "dressed for the occasion" [I nominate countries to guests, based upon John-John's analysis - he watched the semi-finals so we don't have to - one country for costume/flag, one for food and one for booze]:

John-John in particular pulled out all the stops, representing Sweden with his inspired "Regretta Turdberg" [Greta Thunberg], complete with scowl, dummy, squeaky teddy-bear and child-like badge...

We knew from the outset that with the current model of 50-50 jury versus popular phone-in voting, it would be a foregone conclusion that Ukraine would win it (their song, in any other situation, would not have been strong enough to get close):

However, we studiously sat through every song, whooping and hollering (and grumbling and moaning in turn) as the typical mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly performed (allocating marks for each on our scorecards as we went)...

Our "scores on the doors"? Here's our Top 5, in ascending order:

5 - a class act with a "Bassey-esque" choon from Lithuania:

4 - from France, a rather clever, and catchy, meld of North African-style folk with some techno beats:

3 - a very jolly bop from the Moldavian entry that bears more than a passing resemblance to an old fave from Ukraine by Verka Serduchka:

2 - had Sam Ryder not been so good, this utterly insane and irresistibly catchy number [Dailymotion video link here in case the YouTube one is restricted] from Norway would definitely have scored top in our house votes:

1 - contrary to my original judgement of it, the UK's entry [DM video link here, as above] has been a significant "earworm" for several weeks now - it's the most accomplished song and performer we have had for years:

Brilliant!

Also rather popular was the camp totty from Romania:

Honourable mentions also went to Ukraine (of course), and Spain:

...this incredible performance from the Australian entry:

...and this slice of madness from Serbia:

The hosts in Turin Alessandro Cattelan, Laura Pausini and house fave Mika did the usual job of holding things together, while irritating the audience at the same time - although it was fab to see and hear Mika perform a selection of his hits (while balanced precariously on a tiny podium high above the stage). They were often the butt of the UK's regular host Graham Norton's sarcastic jibes, which made it more entertaining than it would otherwise have been, of course.

However, it was the voting results were were waiting for and, well - you can imagine the screaming, shouting and cheering from the palatial ballroom here at Dolores Delargo Towers as juries from country after country awarded the UK high scores.

We even got douze points from Belgium, Georgia, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, France, Azerbaijan - and Ukraine!

I imagine our neighbours thought there was a riot going on - especially when we ended up top of the leader-board!

[click any photo to embiggen]

Of course, this was followed by the long and deliberately-drawn-out roll-call of phone votes (where all the ex-pats usually swing the table from Western European performers to Eastern Europe) - nail-biting in the extreme - and, most amazing of all, "our boy" landed sufficient public support to come second to the Ukrainian avalanche...

Our best performance since 2007 (when Jade Ewen came in 5th place - a contest we actually missed because were were in Spain at the time) - and a "moral victory" in any circumstances!

Same time, same place next year? I think so!

It's raining, so any thought of doing more pottering in the garden has gone out of the window (not that my aching back would have permitted me to do anything much more strenuous than a bit of light dead-heading...). Time, instead, for a selection of "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late!

First up, let's get this one out of the way - this bizarre-yet-bland number is the UK entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest. I feel the thundering sound of "Nil Points" looming in my ears, again:

This next one brought a wry smile to my face; as several formerly fresh-faced performers from the 1980s team up to celebrate/commiserate the passing of four decades since their heyday:

Speaking about formerly world-dominating artists trying to recreate past glories...

This cracker of a choon has been played a lot on Radio 2 lately, and with very good reason. It's a proper "earworm" - I think this young lady may go far:

From the sublime to the..? Professional weirdos Superorganism plus a man dancing in his skimpies? Why not:

We need a moment of calm after that - how about a bit of soothing Satie?

Let's finish on a high, shall we? Not actually "new" at all, but new to moi, so that's all that matters - let's go to a carnival!

As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...