My Eurovision 2005 highlights

Forget the winners - Greece - as you probably already have done. Forget all but a few - notably the energetic Zdob [shi] Zdub from Moldava, who got my vote - of the 24 other finalists. Forget even Terry Wogan, whose normally achingly sarcastic voiceovers seemed to lack something of their customary bite, except for the truly memorable Ant and Shriek epithet he coined for the Ukrainian presenters and his genuine concern for the Granny drummer. The most memorable aspects of my first Eurovision were all about the intermission show and the technology!

When the body artist began his routine while Europe waited for the votes to be tallied, my initial response was, "Oh, god, interpretive dance." I was about to put the break to good use and hop up to pluck my eyebrows or something when he lifted himself into a handstand from splits and then folded himself over into something resembling an angular Viking rune while still on his hands. My jaw hit the floor and held me in place for the rest of the routine, long enough for it to lock open and my tongue to dry out against my bottom lip. He was paragonal! See! I needed to invent a wholly fictitious word to describe the awesome feats of strength and balance on display. Extreme handstands, countoured body spins on a single hand, even the simple handless stand from splits that he enacted effortlessly and that - I know, I've tried - takes immense power and control. Throughout, he made it seem bonelessly graceful and puppet-simple, one of those moments that turns kids into gymnasts and dancers. "I want to be just like that man, mommy."

For once, Google has let me down, or I've just not tripped across the right search string. I was too stunned to take note of his name during the show, and so this artist has been reduced to a mere third person pronoun, and I'd like to fix that.

Two things struck me about the infrastructure behind the show. Firstly, that wondrous raised-glass stage, underlit by hundreds of glowing rods, presented a real conundrum during the first performance (Nox, from Hungary). The men were doing this fantastically hypnotic dance, reminiscent to Anglophiles of the Lord of the Dance shows, and seemed to be doing it between raised lightrods. Only when they clearly passed over the staves did my brain finally parse the image and, for the rest of the show, this phenomenon kept stealing my attention from the admittedly lacklustre artists. Good stage. The other appealing spectacle was the live scoreboard they used to keep track of the cumulative points. All that exciting swapping of places and scrabbling for the top was riveting.

The only comment I have about the contest itself boils down to a simple observation. The War never ended. The battleground has merely been moved. With partisan bloc voting rife (as, we are informed by the lackadaisical Terry, it always is), the entrants from Greece, the United Kingdom and Israel - virtually indistinguishable - received wildly different scores, with nothing more than their geographical location and political status to set them apart. More fool I for thinking it was about fostering burgeoning talent. Then again, as the winner's song effectively becomes the theme tune to Europe for the next year, I suppose In my empty life you'll be the only reason is more apposite than Burn all your troubles say goodbye to yesterday or I am spiraling down with you. I suppose it depends on whether you're Barroso, Blair or Chirac. [/political]

Other random spewings:

• Vanilla Ninja (Switzerland). How apt. Pretty 80's soft rock in white.
• No Name (Serbia & Montenegro). Reminds me of the group in Soul Music trying to be musicians, eventually known as And Supporting Bandes so they could get on the playlist
• Feminnem (Bosnia & Herzegovina). Bucks Fizz Lesbianism (thanks to kitty for the quote)
• Natalia Podolskaya (Russia). I don't know why it is that producers have gone for their female artists showing just about, but not, all of their lovely breasts, but I do hope it continues. Can't remember the song, though!
• Luminata & Sistem (Romania). Deserve a special mention for their fascinating use of props.