Countdown to total national embarrassment ...

 

The London Olympics; Euro 2012 and the UK's Golden Jubilee this Summer all look likely to be overshadowed by the year's most prestigious international event.

We are of course talking about the Eurovision song contest : The annual event that manages to outdo itself every year by piling more and more Cheese; Fromage, Kase and Queso on some sequin-adorned stage in some city that 80% of Europeans have never even heard of.

Both the UK and Spain will 'appear' in the second semi-final in Baku, Azerbaijan this year (which when I went to school wasn't even in Europe !) on the 24th of May. However, they won't actually participate in the semi - as they are included in the 6 countries who automatically pass through to the Grand final on the 26th of May.

The Grand Final will see 10 participants from each of the 2 semi-finals join the 6 countries with an automatic by, to total 26.

As with most events such as this planned on a pan-European scale, the objective seems to be to make the voting rules as unnecessarily complicated as possible, but I will attempt to generalise as much as possible for those without the patience or inclination to pay too much regard :

- You can not vote for the country of your residence, although you may still be charged for the call (Note : Massive bonus for the UK with all the Expats living here in Spain ?)

- The scores for each artist are given based on the results of individual votes combined with the results given by the juries from each participating country. Once all votes are in 12 points are awarded to the highest combined number of votes from the televoting and juries; 10 points to the second highest, 8 points to the third highest, 7 points to the next, and so on down to 1 point for tenth place.

The official promo-clip for this year's UK entry "Love Will set You Free", sung by Engerbert 'nil point' Humperdink can be seen by clicking the link here >>>

Seriously, I have patio furntiture at home that shade of mahogany.