I didn't watch Eurovision.

I didn't bother watching the Eurovision contest this year (or last year, or pretty much any time in the last 15 years), but glancing through the news, I noticed that the big four western countries (the ones who can get away with entering duff songs as they automatically qualify by paying for the whole thing) did really badly, while the Eastern Europeans did rather well. If they're not going to bother picking decent acts, then the big four shouldn't get automatic qualification? OK, the UK's entry avoided nil points this year (unlike a few years ago when the entry was so bad that even Malta couldn't bring themselves to give points to the UK, which is saying something. Wonder why Malta always give points to the UK?)

Part of the reason I don't listen is that I got utterly fed up with the "Eurovision" style - entering songs that sound like something that won recently (or not that recently, given the UK's insistance on imitating Bucks Fizz every few years). On the other hand, the BBC article linked to above suggested that some of the songs sound like something that could get in the UK charts. I checked the Beeb's website to listen to a couple - Belarus do sound like a fairly bog standard boy band - not my thing, but not the old-style Eurovision crud either. Georgia's wasn't that bad either. For a Eurovision song.