Eurovision Rant - Part I: Semi-final I

What should I have been doing this freezing Friday night with nowhere to go?
A) Study for an upcoming test on Australian national identity in films
B) Knit yet another garment with that mass of turquoise wool left over from my karaoke scarf
C) Watch the Eurovision semi-finals
D) Do nothing on facebook but poke

If you picked C), you were horribly wrong. The answer is all of them, due to my insane ability to multi-task.

Why Eurovision, you ask? It's something I look forward to all year. It's the one thing that allows me to feel just that little bit saner, when compared to all those high-pitched, oddly-attired, epileptically dancing individuals. So here's what was going through my mind throughout.

Israel - Some guy called Boaz singing a song for his brother. To be honest I wasn't looking at the screen at the beginning and thought it was a woman's voice. Weeeellll, not too far off.

Azerbaijan - Didn't know angels were supposed to be scary. Too funny to be dark angels either. Now there's a falsetto at a new freaky level, could it be his pants are too fitting? I didn't get the dark throne bit, is it supposed to be hell vs. heaven? Anywhooz, I kinda tuned out after the drums came in

Belgium - Kinda... odd. Trying to be cute with that ditzy soft polka act, doesn't work for me this time. (the last time that worked was when Austria did it in 2005, too bad Europeans dont know how to vote cos it didn't get past the damn semi-final)

Andorra - OMG, it's Nikki Webster grown a few inches taller in a steel corset! Seriously, she should give it a try at EuroDance stuff like this, she's failed everything else, so nothing to lose, really.

Armenia - more obnoxious percussion, gyrating male dancers and a model-turned-singer in a Tina Turner costume. She has pretty hair though, too bad it was sprawled across her face with her glittery sweat by the end of it.

Finland - You'd think these Scandinavian countries have had enough of the death/goth metal genre, but nooooo, they have to take it further to an unreasonable level. These guys aren't even in costumes that distract us away from their poor attempt to be like Nightwish. The frontman has nice hair though. For a BIKINI MODEL.

Poland - What is it with women and power ballads? You can tell people in the audience are switching off, I know I did. Cos I cant remember enough of it to make any judgement at all, let alone a valid one.

Boznia & Herzegovina - four brides, a mental laundry woman dancing with no obvious choreography, and a guy who looked like he had stepped off that episode of That 70s Show where Bob and Midge have a Packer-themed 2nd wedding. The song was catchy enough. At least their eccentricity maintained my attention for the entire song, so kudos to them on that.

Ireland - Who knew the once hailed champions could stoop so low? It looked like Priscilla from planet Zutron. And what the hell was that "creature" supposedly turntabling? Maybe it's just my vision but I made it out to be an irregular eel with a beak, wearing a feather boa. This was supposed to be funny. 'Nuff said.

San Marino - Like John Foreman gone emo. Song wasn't too bad, probably one of the more saner acts. The dancer was odd though, didn't fit in with anything.

Estonia - It's the Wiggles, overweight and out of the retirement home in Vegas, missing Jeff who at that age couldn't damn well be bothered to wake up. Was that a picture of a cake and parsnip? I'd love to know what the song was actually about cos even trying to imagine it in English wont make any sense of it.

Norway - Blonde x 4 = visual pleasure for any guy I know. At least they could get something out of it. Not at all bad singers to tell the truth, but this contest is showing more and more proof of countries picking "singers" from a modelling agency catalogue. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Now we know that it's not about the music anymore.

Greece - Barbie, the Medeterrainian edition. Looks sweet enough, nice dress and all, but if Eurovision had a dollar for every act that tried to be like Shakira, then they could extend their set by another 500m. And what a surprise, in the green room, she spoke with an American accent.

Slovenia - former Miss World contestant? Yes, you could see the beauty queenness in her. At the beginning it looked as if there was going to be some sort of S&M kinda thing going on but that thought went out the window when everything turned green, and she looked as if she had formed from a bunch of lightsabers.

Russia - this one made me crack up the most. First that guy with the one-buttoned shirt, crawling all over the floor in... (ahem) emotion, with all the classic tea-towel hand movements, accompanied by those various expressions of constipation. Mate, give prune juice a go. The violinist was normal enough, but the blonde-bobbed, overly limber skater on the mini-ice-rink, please someone explain the point of that! What's more the first guy HAD to rip his shirt open, puh-lease, just add artificial rain and you got Bollywood.

Romania - quite Il Divo-ish at the start, minus the obnoxious vibrato, the guy was better than most so far. Though the woman ruined it for me. Then it just became funny; when she started stroking his head and him looking away, making up my own twisted story to it was too hard to resist. Like him leaving her for her brother. Or something like what you'd get on a typical day with Jerry Springer. Or Days of Our Lives for that matter

Montenegro - Initially i thought this guy had a monobrow, unfortunately it turned out to be only his fringe, so there's one less thing to make fun of. Here's another one I switched off during, I was getting lost into the greasiness of my meal-substitute.

Not surprised with the top 10. Though I thought the comperes were hil-a-ri-us. Quite so. Especially the dimwits in the green room (not the "groom" room, as quoted by the hostess) with their "ticking heartbeats" of anticipation. Adorable accents ontop of everything else.

Hotties and notties? Romania and Norway weren't too bad, but I'd choose Young Einstein's sister and her giant leprechaun dancing around the washing from Bosnia & Herzegovina. The worst without doubt would be Ireland, considering their standard about a decade ago, and the fact that I didn't understand ANY of it eventhough it was in English. If I could vote, I'd choose the Serbian performance while tallying the votes, it was the only thing with substance and weird pig-looking instruments that nevertheless sounded amazing.