Take Three vs. Three, Two and Twenty-Two

Something other than Sexual Offences in Criminal Law must be really stimulating me to write, as I can't believe that I'm blogging for the third time this week. And this time, it's an attempt at a reduced amount of words because everyone seems to like reading my blogs but then can't get past the halfway mark because they're simply too long! And I know that this little statement isn't exactly helping my cause, but anyway...

Well, this is kind of going to be a continuation of my previous blog. Because I'm simply too smug to let sleeping dogs lie.

I told you so. (And yes, that did need to be bolded and italicised.)

In my last entry, I mentioned - in a nutshell - that Chiara's third participation in the Eurovision was likely to be her downfall. And I was right. Despite giving what was, in my opinion, an extremely strong rendition of What if We, she only managed to garner a massively disappointing 31 points and finish 4th from last. In other words, in 22nd place. And this was something that Valerie, commenting uselessly on TVM, managed to describe as an 'achievement' for us because we actually reached the final. As soon as she said that, I was about to bang my head on the closest thing that was near me. Thank goodness I didn't, because poor Jeremy or Paul wouldn't have been feeling too great this morning.

Malta thought that the tried and tested formula for Eurovision success would once again work, even though the competition was at its strongest for the last few years. Europe thought otherwise. Truth be told, Malta did not deserve to finish 22nd and, based on her semi-final performance, Chiara should have actually been placing somewhere between 12th and 15th spot. Her song was definitely better than some of the trash that was placed on display last night. Alas, it was not to be. Furthermore, the introduction of national juries ended up by having little or no impact whatsoever on the 'neighbourly voting' scheme, as we saw the douze points go to Spain from Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina from Montenegro and, the surprise of the night, Greece from Cyprus.

So yes, the Eurovision was once again a great show, it provided us with laughter aplenty, and was dubbed an entertainment contest for all. And, in the true Eastern European spirit of the contest, it also had an Asian country, in Azerbaijan, placing 3rd overall. Though the song wasn't all too bad.

And to conclude a slimmed-down, shorter post (yay, I managed!), I also feel that Norway fully deserved their victory. A catchy song that really did capture Europe and Western Asia's imagination, the indication of this being not only the various amount of 12 point votes that they got from participating countries; but also the massive gap between its entry and that of the 2nd-placed nation, Iceland.

God Bless You all!
Matti