And Terry Wogan explodes from his own anger after one of those undeserving ethnics takes the crown AGAIN.

I love Eurovision. I do. I bloody love it. And not in a painfully kitsch LOL FOREIGNERS AND GAYS fashion, but in a tragic, treasure-every-second way.

I’ve missed the last couple of years, much to my distress at the time, but this year I switched over just in time to see the UK take the stage and bore the arse off the viewing public with some instantly forgettable disco number. Brilliant. When Terry Wogan announced that our singer, Whatshisname McThingy, had done an amazing job, I couldn’t wait for Tels to be totally confounded when we went home with nil points again.

Which of course he was. We managed to avoid the horror of scoring nothing, but we still did shockingly, coming right at the bottom, and as always Wogan decided to spout on about political voting throughout the whole thing, as if certain countries really do vote for one another to make some sort of statement. I was writing my dissertation the first year we scored nothing (for a momumentally cack performance from the ones that sang out of tune, Blondetits and Wankface. You remember them, right? It was 2003, I think). Anyway, after that debacle certain people couldn’t wait to blame it on Labour. Our culture had gone to the dogs under Blair, crowed a Tory politician! Like Eurovision has ever been anything other than shite where we’re concerned.

When it comes to certain countries voting for one another, the so-called political voting – I have another theory. It’s really fucking out there, but bear with me, okay? Here it comes:

Other countries take the competition seriously.

Let me explain. We’ve been doing this for donkey’s years; since 1957, in fact. We’ve won a bunch of times and we always get our entries in, even if they sucked, thanks to the big fat cheque we pay the heads of Eurovision every year. However, a lot of countries are new to this song contest lark. In the last five years alone no fewer than thirteen new nations have started taking part. And you know why they want in in the first place? Because they actually care about being in it, and they care about winning. We don’t. We couldn’t give a fuck, truth be told. We don’t want to be beaten by Moldova or somesuch, but we don’t really care that much otherwise.

So imagine that all the ex-Soviet and Balkan countries care about the contest. They take several steps to ensure they do well:

1. Fame. They know it.
They pick someone well-known to represent them. Russia’s winning entrant this year, Dima Bilan, came second in the 2006 contest, and he’s a bloody great big star in his homeland. This guy is one of Russia’s biggest selling acts. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that if he’s big in Russia, he’s going to be somewhat of a name in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia et al. In short, check out his bloody big ready-made walloping gallumpha of a fanbase. Those people already love him. Those people will vote for him, even if his song is a turd. He even roped in Evgeni Plushenko, a world champion skater, to slide around him on Saturday night, and some dead popular violinist. In contrast, we have Splatty Thingyjim and his backing band of nobodies. Who gives a shit about Splatty Thingyjim? No-one, except maybe his mum. Who’s going to vote for him, besides his mum? No-one. Because no-one knows (or cares to find out) who Splatty Thinyjim is. Which leads us onto…

2. Promotion. They use it.
This is a simple one. If you want people to vote for your song, it needs to have stuck in their heads. Our entry failed because it was instantly forgettable. Then again, I can’t remember the Russian one either. However, I’m willing to bet hard cash that Dima Bilan promoted his arse off in the run up to the competition. That song would have been on radio and television all over eastern Europe. Why? Because they take it seriously. We, on the other hand, employ some X-Factor reject and poke them onstage at the last minute before throwing a cheery thumbs-up their way and running away giggling.

3. Music. They like it.
Terry Wogan, eh? What a funny chap. ‘Oh ho!’ he crows, ‘This is going to be rubbish!’ over every single slightly ethnic sounding track. I’m quite happy to giggle at the utter rubbish some countries send into the contest – Spain excelled themselves this year with new levels of bonkers arsewankery – but on occasion his commentary borders on xenophobia.

Take the half-time entertainment this year, for instance, provided by the amazing Goran Bregovic. If you love a little eastern European brass madness, go buy some of this guy’s records. I had no idea he was due to appear, but I was delighted when I heard his name. It was such a brilliant addition, and such a surprise – one comment on YouTube phrased it perfectly: “I didn’t expect to see him there at all. Brega playing in Eurovision is like Stanley Kubrick showing up at your high school’s amateur film festival”. I may well have clapped my hands in delight. Wogan sneered at it all, of course, but I expected him to shut up after a few seconds. He didn’t. He talked over almost the entire thing, and even when he wasn’t sniping, he had the sound turned down, so we couldn’t hear the music either way. I was so frustrated and angry I wanted to cry.

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I’ve been able to watch Bregovic and his band back at my leisure, and it was bloody worth it, I tell you – check it out for yourself:

The point is, what the fuck does Terry Wogan know about music from this area of the world? Nothing whatsoever, if he chose to talk over Bregovic. And really, most of us won’t be familiar with the trends of the music industry in every country in the world, unless we’re a bone-fide expert (or, probably, Stephen Fry). So he can talk over the entries all he likes, but I’m going to go out on yet another limb and guess that many of the entries are styles of music very popular with people from that part of the world. They like it. They vote for it. They’re less keen on limp and self-consciously camp disco from the UK. They don’t vote for it. It’s a simple system, and has fuck all to do with politics.

If you combine all of these elements, you’re onto a winner. Sorry Terry, it’s got nothing to do with Iraq. We’re just shit at this.

As a side note, my favourite entry was the ridiculous song from Bosnia & Herzegovina. The version on the night was much weirder – no chicken, but a washing line and loads of brides – but this one still delights me. I found myself genuinely liking the song, and it’s the perfect example of why I like Eurovision so much. Who knows what utter weirdness is going to make it onto your iPod?