Eurovision 2010 - 25/27/29 May 2010 - Norway

NRK - as expected - did a brilliant job. They may not have had the budget of Moscow - but it was a MUCH better show. Hugely slicker - the presenters were great - and the flash mob interval act was just an amazingly simple, amazingly ambitious idea executed really nicely. Just as the post cards were, and the opening. Do something interesting, do it well, and you don't have to splurge millions. And the staging was fantastic - didn't miss the ubiquitous LED walls one bit.

And I bet the EBU are loving the leaderboard this year. A return to form for the old skool...

Absolutely, they were the most professional presenters Eurovision's had for years, without being stuffy. And again, having three main presenters instead of the front/backstage pairs was a good move.

Yep - Nadia has set the bar for efficient, friendly, witty, sharp and warm voting. Truly excellent. Seriously brilliantly good.

I know I hark back to Sweden 2000 - but these guys were their equal.

I thought that was a good contest to be fair, although I didn't rate the winner. Production and presentation wise I thought it was spot on, and enjoyed Graham Norton's commentary tonight.

Predictably woeful for the UK, but we got what we deserved after the BBC put next to no effort into the selection process this year. Musically, the rest of Europe have advanced, and what do we do, we hark back to the era of manufactured 80's pop with Pete Waterman. It sounded so very tired and dated.

Yet again it's back to the drawing board. They need to properly invest in the selection process, and I'd suggest return to a format whereby a song is selected rather than an artist.

I think there really is one way to win Eurovision, proved tonight - release the song in Europe, tour it, make an effort, and get it popular. We look at Lena, who is, let's say, reasonable. But she was 1st in Germany, 2nd in Austria, 2nd in Switzerland, and received regular airplay, the best attack is to attack the mind.

Also, the song was terrible. If we have a good song, we will, naturally do better, I mean look at countries nobody likes *cough Germany cough*, they get a good song, and they'll win, and you should carry the mood, France used there official song for the World Cup. I mean three lions is a hit across Europe, so use something to that effect, not cheesy crap they've used this year. Perhaps if they tied with maybe the X Factor, got the winner to sing in Eurovision. Not that I like her - but Alexandra Burke with Bad Boys was in the Top 10 in 8 European Countries, that could be some secured votes from a lot of people. Perhaps 80 points right there.

Now, we are not going to get a Melodifestivalen, but something with such would be okay - again X-Factor is a model, but it might not run IIRC, we could combined them, through ITV perhaps, and then the winner represents Britain. We made a go last year, but we've given up again, when it takes a little more than a **** song and Pete Waterman to win Eurovision. You know, I have two words. Simon. Cowell. I hate the bugger, but he can produce a winning song (apart from Christmas Last Year ). It is possible to win Eurovision.

Sorry Square Eyes ... Norton has to go, the contest has to be taken seriously. Either Paddy O'Connell or James Dagwell as commentator next year.

Paddy O'Connell would be good. I just want us to do well!

I completely disagree that Norton doesn't take it seriously. Watching tonight, I was struck by how restrained he was with the jokes and sarcasm. I think he reins himself in quite a lot for Eurovision whilst lobbing in the odd "horrible frock" line to keep things light.

I thought the Eurovision rules meant that a country's song had to be written specifically for Eurovision. I didn't realise you could release the song all over Europe and promote it so heavily. If this was the case then surely there wouldn't be anything stopping (for example) the BBC approaching Leona Lewis and asking that her next single be considered "specifically for Eurovision" but then releasing it all over Europe before the contest anyway. How is it decided what constitutes a song written for Eurovision? And if what Germany's done has always been allowed it begs the question why it hasn't been done before.

TBH I'm happy that Germany has won for the first time in so long but I wouldn't have put the song in the top 10, let alone consider it a winner. If this is the direction the Eurovision goes in future it'll be a massive change.

The UK's song wasn't great but I certainly didn't deserve to come last, there was a lot worse!

There aren't really any excuses this year though - there's jury voting, early phone voting, we didn't have to qualify and one of the old school countries won. Not even the usual excuses about political voting and diaspora don't apply.

The show itself was great, the presenters weren't too embarrassing (which for Eurovision is a big compliment), the interval was excellent and the design (of sets and graphics) was excellent. The title sequence in particular was great.

The Spain thing was odd, the performance was so odd that intruder didn't actually seem out of place and as there was only 5 people on stage at the time it wasn't obvious at first what was going on. Giving them another chance was an odd decision as he didn't actually interrupt the performance. I was impressed how professionally the Spanish act handled it although as he sounds like he's well known for doing such things in Spain it's probably didn't concern the singer and dancers that much

I'm pleased they won mainly because it's a continuation of having one of the big, traditional countries hosting it. Their song wasn't the best (I preferred Romania, Iceland and Denmark) but they had done the ground work, despite it not appearing in the semi-finals it got the best reaction from the crowd on the night who were all familiar with it. A well deserved win and it'll be very interesting to see what ARD* does with it next year


*or is it ZDF or both?

Anyone else think that the voting system needs to be re-examined?
A country (say) Moldova with a population of 3,567,500 has the same voting power of (say)
Germany estimated population 81,757,600, or
France 65,447,374 or
United Kingdom 62,041,708

(All population figures sourced Wiki)