Eurovision 2013!

I know, I know, it's (more than) a little late - so sue me!

It was a slighty quieter Eurovision celebration at Chez Matthews/Claire - in terms of numbers if not raucousness!

First things first - we all had to hand over our entrance fee (£6) for the prize fund and pick our countries from the lucky dip.

Prize Categories

Winning Country - £10 (Denmark favourite to win)
Losing Country - £6 (UK's always a safe bet)
Most Outrageous/Disturbing/Bizarre/Hilarous/Poor Taste Performance - £4
Most Outrageous/Disturbing/Bizarre/Hilarious/Badly Dressed/Stupid Results Presenter - £4

So with 4 of us and 26 countries 2 of us ended up with 7 'picks' and the other 2 got just 6 - and a blank one.  I was very impressed with Ray's deviousness at actually writing 'BLANK' on the pieces of paper, Kevin was less impressed when he realised what had happened - after crowing with delight at spying writing and assuming he'd picked a country!

Ken and I were fortunate enough to be the 2 who ended up with an extra country - a fact which didn't do Ken any good whatsoever but which I definitely benefited from!

My Countries

1) Lithuania
2) Spain
3) Belgium
4) Germany
5) Ukraine
6) Norway
7) Ireland

I'm going to write about the ones that stood out - starting with Finland!

For me this was the winner, I loved this one!  It was catchy, cheesy and a little controversial - a perfect Eurovision hit!



Netherlands - this was just bizarre and, frankly, depressing (in a wrist slitting kind of way). I really don't understand why it was so popular!



Romania - (got my vote for Most Outrageous/Disturbing/Bizarre/Hilarous/Poor Taste Performance!) looked like Emperor Ming and has to be seen (and heard) to be believed!



UK - Least said the better.



Greece - best song title ever! I really liked this one, it was fun and let's face it how can you go wrong with a song called Alcohol is Free (and it looked like they'd been on it all year!).



There were some very strange song titles this year, I think Belgium with 'Love kills' came near the top of that list - plus I also thought the singer had serial killer eyes and there definitely seemed to be a theme going on of people standing behind each other. 

I was impressed with the fact that the majority were sung in English this year (the mosr notable exception was the obviously pregnant Estonian entrant - the fact that she was pregnant prompted Kevin to remark that it was irresponsible of her to be singing - she should be put away somewhere - and then he wanted to know why she was singing in a language no one understands (her own!)) and we all agreed that it was the classiest Eurovision we've seen for a while. 

The presentation was outstanding, I think one of my favourite parts of the whole show was the Swedish Smorgasbord interval act - fantastic!!



This was the first year I actually won anything (I've come close a few times though!) - I managed to win £6 for having Ireland (who came last) and I also managed to bag £4 for having the worst vote announcer (Lithuania or Ukraine - I can't remember and I've spent ages trying to find a picture of either!) - bonus!

So, there was the usual, what can only be loosely referred to as...'dancing' after the Eurovision - one of the the reasons I'm still amazed that Chap who continues to be too good to be true is still here is because he had the misfortune to arrive at this point! You'll be pleased to know I don't have any video clips of this part of the evening - partly because I'd have struggled to think how to title a clip of me on the floor with 3 men between my legs one after the other.  I feel I should clarify that this was because each of them thought they could do a better attempt at 'Ooops Upside Your Head' - being the only original member of the evening's line up I can categorically state that they were all as bad as each other haha!

Yes, this bunch of children can do it much better than any of us (admitedly they aren't under the influence - at least I assume they're not)!