A Strange Game

There's an extent to which Eurovision makes no sense at all. The rules are largely there for cat wrangling purposes. The votes are calculated based on a weird mix of maths, politics and name-dropping.

I have to say, though, Eurovision 2011 was something to look at. I want to know who was the projection/lighting designer. Did each country have their own, or did the host country provide the design like they provided the space?

I lost count of the amount of times I found myself ignoring whoever was on the stage in order to watch what was going on behind them. My favourite backgrounds would have to have been Ireland, Switzerland and Serbia. Least favourite was definitely Sweden. That was also my least favourite song/performance. The entire thing was all noise and nothing else. I have no idea why all those countries kept giving them points - they ended up in the top three, while a lovely song like Switzerland's came last. I guess not enough people felt they had to stay on Switzerland's good side...

Now, I say my favourite backgrounds were those for Ireland, Switzerland and Serbia, but the hands-down best background was one that wasn't designed at all. Ukraine's Sand Art was just fantastic. I started to get the feeling that the song was there to highlight the art, rather than the other way around.

This is the second year in a row Serbia has delivered a blond with a pixie-cut, and for the second year in a row it was almost impossible to not like the performance. It was definitely one of my favourites, and I can't believe it didn't do better in the rankings.

I spent the last half-hour of the show yelling at the TV screen: "Vote for Serbia! And Switzerland! And Iceland! There's no way Greece was better than Bosnia-Herzegovina! Stop voting for Sweden! No, really, stop voting for them, they were terrible!"

It didn't influence the outcome, of course. I also spent a great deal of time shouting "vote for us!" ("us" being Estonia), only to then shout "no, vote for Switzerland, they were so much better than us!"

Ah, but no one listened.

Of course, some of the better acts (like Norway) didn't even make it through to the finals, which just goes to prove that the European voting public and/or judging panels have questionable taste.

For my money, the top five acts were Serbia (English version), Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Ukraine... ah, but I should say that Ukraine is there by virtue of the sand art, rather than the song.

I also thought Ireland or Denmark would have won - they just seemed like the kind of acts that would win Eurovision (in spite of the haircuts).

But, hey, what do I know. You can't predict Eurovision. It's a strange game.