camper than christmas…

Channel hopping last night, I found myself drawn (like a moth to a flame) to the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, pure car-crash TV which was designed to whittle 24 of the ‘also-rans’ down to 10…which would then be added to the pre-qualified 14 for the big showcase final from Helsinki on Saturday night. The UK (with the mighty Scooch) pre qualify as one of the ‘big 4′, i.e. the 4 nations that pay the most towards this circus, and added to the big 4 are the best 10 performers from last year, but for me – last nights semi-final was the jewel in the crown, as central, eastern and extremely far away Europe battled it out to make it to the final.

The list of ten qualifiers from the semi – features a lot of countries that end in ‘…ia’ – which might give you an indication of who is really interested in the event. Macedona, Serbia, Slovenia, Georgia, Latvia (with there Il Divo like entry), Bulgaria and Moldova all made it through.

I think that Belarus (the Princess Diana lookalike – Koldun) and Serbias Marija Serifovic (left) stand the best chance of these qualifiers – although I was surprised that the Erasure-alike Danish entry didn’t go through – ‘Drama Queen by DQ‘ – giant transvestite was hysterical, and the Israeli entry (Push the Button by Teapacks) which was genius in its crapness.

Saturdays final should be an absolute doozy…BBC1, Saturday @ 8.00pm