Far seeing vision

 Europe, you'll be interested to know, is derived from 'Europa' which means far-seeing.

 So Eurovision literally means 'far seeing vision'.

 We do not screw about in the western half of Eurasia.

 So, Eurovison!

Mother loving Eurovision

 I love Eurovision.

 I've watched it since I was but a wee lass, and when I was eight years old it was in good old Birmingham.

 Gina G was the entry for the UK, and the fish in the SeaLife centre were very confused.

 It was a good year, but hey, that's the late nineties for you.

 Now, I'm bringing it up because it's going to be painfully relevant later on.

 But now, let's talk about this year's contest.

 Honestly, it was one of the duller years, but we did get some wonderfully strange acts, and some awful, awful music.

 Painfully awful.

 Wonderfully awful.

 And awfully catchy.

 This is Poland's entry, it's stuck in my head and I watched the entire performance with this expression.

 We were using the red button, so I was slack jawed reading the subtitles.

 However, allow me to show you the English lyrics.

This special thing we have in our genes

Makes us proud of our natural shapes

On Our lands you have everything you need

So pour the Vodka straight, no need to mix.

Cream and butter taste so good

We will prepare for you delicious food

Our beauty is famous all over the world

You gotta see it for yourself and then You will know

We're Slavic girls, we know how to use our charming beauty

Now shake what your mama gave ya!

Clap your hands to this music

This is our nature, This is our call

This is our hot Slavic blood

 Yeah, I think you can see why I was staring in fascinated horror.

 Also, yes, there is a woman churning butter on stage with her baps out. I don't know why.

 And Americans like to pretend there are no distinct ethnic groups in Europe. Hah. It makes you think that they don't actually understand what ethnicity means.

 I'm calling it, that was the most Eurovision song of the night.

 My favourite song of the night was the entry from Montenegro

 It's a beautiful sounding song, and the lyrics were packed full of beautiful sentiments and the guy seemed so nice and earnest. My heart melted a little.

 Okay, I know, I have strange taste in men.

 Moving on.

 The weirdest performance is between the Ukrainian act where a very pretty woman who looked a bit like Selena Gomez sang to a very hot guy in a hamster wheel and the Romanians with their terrible special effects and fake round piano.

 I'm gonna go for Romania on this one.

 In regards to the actual song, it wasn't bad. Although Will.I.Am will doubtlessly need to have words with someone at some point.

 But come on, it's Eurovision.

 So, even though they only had two people on stage, this is still one of the most Eurovision performances of the night.

 I think the piano and effects are a large part of that, although Paula moving her arms around so much I nearly mistook her for Tony Blair probably didn't help. Love, if you can't dance you should have admitted that ahead of time so they could have gotten dancers in.

 The round piano was hilarious though. No one could take it seriously, because it looed silly and he clearly wasn't playing it. Watching him ineffectually bash keys was pretty amusing.

 Now I feel it's time to talk about Russia.

 You have to feel sorry for the two girls, they got booed a lot during the whole thing. Not just the final, but the semi finals before it.

 On the other hand, considering what a massive dick Russia has been lately, I'm not going to say anything bad about the booing crowd whatsoever.

 They're not bad people, they just care more about gay people and Ukraine than they do about a couple of pop stars who were proud enough of their country to represent it. Anyone not capable of understanding that clearly needs to rethink their priorities.

 So, from countries with homophobic leaders to a drag act who stole Europe's heart.

 Conchita Wurst, Queen of Europe.

 Yeah, she's a drag queen.

 So imagine my disgust and horror when I saw people on tumblr refer to her as transgendered.

 She bloody well isn't.

 And this is why Eurovision Birmingham 1998 is relevant.

 The thing people are saying has happened this year actually happened 16 years ago, when Dana International won for Israel.

 Dana International is a transgendered woman, Conchita Wurst is a drag act.

 The fact that tumblr cannot distinguish between the two and does not seem to know Dana even exists is the most infuriating thing in the world right now. Surely if you cared about trans representation and/or Eurovision at all, Dana would be your personal heroine.

 And Thomas Neuwirth would be your hero.

 I love Conchita, she's amazing and well deserves her title.

 But surely if she's the Queen of Europe, Dana is the Empress.

 One final thing.

 France got one point. Please excuse me while I indulge in some patriotic laughter.

 Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

 Okay, done. Regular pro-France service will resume now. It was a cute silly song, look it up.