All about the music?

In case it escaped your notice, it was Eurovision last Saturday. As tradition* dictates, we had a party, with a wonderfully random collection of food and drink from across Europe, hosted again this year by Shona.

After our trip to Krakow, both Cat and I were on a bit of a mission for Polish food. I visited the Eastern European shop I found in York, as well as Tescos, and we found Lidl in ‘Boro to be an excellent source of European delicacies. We had Swedish vodka, Pimms, and some Polish fruit juice that I found which was ‘Shrek green’.

We had our score cards, as always judging Eurovisioness as well as song, costume, performance etc. This year we had the added comments of the London jury.

Of course it was all as bizarre, and the voting as predictable, as ever. Our winners were the Latvian pirates, followed by the Ukrainian ‘Shady Lady’ and Denmark. Some were just so weird that they seemed to be an experimental theatre production. As for the actual winner, well, it made our ‘top 12’ and there is something about a performance which includes the world figure skating champion!

By that time, however we really didn’t care. We’d raised a glass to plucky little San Marino, who gave us our first point ‘bless them, they don’t know the rules’, and cheered the Irish, and it was all over for another year. Next stop Moscow – or is it? There are reports that Wogan will pull out (but then they've said that every year for the last few), and it wouldn't be the same without him. we did think he sounded a little jaded this year though.

*that’s 4 years of tradition now, since we were in Istanbul in 2004. And Foxy is still the highest scoring UK entry. It’s starting to look like a triumph.