Nul points.
Yep, that’s what we’re going to get this year at Eurovision. Did you watch the debacle that was Your Country Needs You on BBC1 on Friday? We were all expectant as this year’s song for Europe is written by Pete Waterman and Mike Stock, two of the gurus of pop. But what did we get? We got six amateur acts, who couldn’t keep key or tune for the length of a SAW hit, and a song which starts like it’s going to be a stomper but withers away just before it hits one of the most boring choruses of all time.

The six acts, all about ten-years-old, apart from that woman in Miss Fitz, who claims to be “25″. I mean REALLY BBC? Really? You had a year and you gave them just two weeks to form up and get everything right? What a shambles of shit. The production of the programme was also a mess. A bit like someone had sacked the entire production team in the morning, only to replace them for the live show in the afternoon and hope for the best.

The group UNI5, gave a disclaimer^[1] at the start “we were put together by the BBC”, what their disclaimer should have been were “we’re not very good at singing, but we’ve been brought in to pad out the show”. They hadn’t ‘gelled’, they couldn’t sing, they could barely dance, what was going on? Poor Pete Waterman even had to restrain his disbelief at their sheer awfulness.

Each of the six acts sung a SAW hit and then Pete whittled it down to the top three least shit acts. Then they each sung the Eurovision song, “That Sounds Good To Me” (ho ho the irony), the same arrangement each time. And just when you didn’t think it could get any worse than having to hear the song three times, back to back, Esma forgets the words. Good.

Well, Josh won.
“Who?”
Josh, he’s like an even more sexless Cliff Richard from Basildon in Essex. He almost sung the song in tune, so at least we might not look too bad come May 29th in Oslo. We will be in the bottom ten. I guarantee it. Here he is singing a Jason Donovon song, almost. Once more with feeling, son.

Now is the time to get the BBC back into either getting Lord Webber involved again, we didn’t do too badly with him did we. Or bringing an open competition back. There’s a lot of good songwriters and performers out there, some who can actually carry a tune for three minutes without screwing up. Let people submit their songs, let the nation decide, please, for the love of “Bob”, don’t make us listen to the amateur, shiny children fest again. What on earth were you thinking?

Two members of Scooch, our entry from 2007 appeared on Harry Hill’s TV Burp on Saturday. They sung for about 40 seconds but it was all in tune, they could hold a tune. Okay, we came second last, but it wasn’t boring, it was fun, I can remember this song three years on. I heard that new one three times in a row on Friday, I couldn’t remember a word of it. Bring back the quirk! We won’t win, but we’ll have fun. If we carry on this way, we’ll not only lose, we’ll have wasted time giving up seriousface to people who don’t care.

Here’s Scooch.

I’ve not been so annoyed at my television in ages.

Here are some of my favourite Eurovision entries to keep you entertained.
What Eurovision needs is more transvestite Ukranians.

Guido!

Wailing angels.

The best, non-novelty Eurovision song on years. It didn’t win.

Here’s our song for this year, performed by “Josh”, written by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman.

[1] – My disclaimer is that my partner co-wrote a Eurovision song which was an entry for the UK a few years ago. I’ll let you guess which.