THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

If a Martian (or an Asiatic for that matter) ever needed evidence that Europe is not a homogeneous place, then they would need to look no further than tonight's Eurovision song contest, held this year in Norway.

Some features of the contest are familiar from EU politics. Greece votes for Cyprus and vice versa, as do Spain and Portugal. The East Europeans support each other. The big nations (Germany, France, Spain and the U.K.) get special favours, earning a bye directly into the final, instead of having to go through one of the two semi-finals. English is the dominant language, with many countries choosing it in preference to their national tongue; while French continues to fight a desperate rearguard action, as evidenced by the obligatory bilingual hosts (well, trilingual, if you include Norwegian). And the key to winning is the lowest common denominator principle; the song which is least offensive to the most other countries.

I saw part of the second semi-final on Thursday, which was a useful way of weeding out some of the more egregious entries. Holland's song sounded like an out-of-key fairground wurlitzer. Slovenia had the odd idea of combining a rock anthem with a traditional folk song. The Lithuanian boy band all bizarrely dropped their trousers. And Croatia's plan of using three leggy blondes in short dresses went awry when they decided to sing in Croat. Not a good idea.

The 25 songs on the night were more varied than usual. There was a thoughtful solo guitar act in English from Belgium of all people. The French entry was a lingala number from Kinshasa. The Belarussians and Romanians sang with thick East European accents and a grand piano. Serbia and Greece were awful. Spain sang twice, after a spectator invaded the stage during their act (though it didn't make the song any better). There were a lot of muscular and scantily-clad, if somewhat redundant, male dancers. And there was a fantastic "half-time show", where 18,000 people (1,000 people in 18 countries) did live dancing to a song in the studio.

The contest also showed how things in Europe are changing. The three big rock numbers came not from the U.K., but from Bosnia, Ukraine and Turkey. And two of the best female power ballads were from Azerbaijan and Georgia. All five were in English. I suspect that their parents would be gobsmacked.

And the winner was? Somewhat surprisingly, but by some margin, Lena from Germany, which was my daughter's choice. Singing in English, she sounded a bit like a Cockney trader. I rather liked Manga, the Turkish rock band, who came second. The U.K. deservedly came last.

Walter Blotscher