In these last two years I always wrote something about the Eurovision (see 2004 and 2005) but this year I hoped that I'd get away with avoiding the subject. (Un)fortunately I couldn't resist the temptation and here I am writing about the European Song Festival another year.

For starters this year I only watched the Eurovision. Unlike my impressions here in Ireland people can't care less about the festival, in fact it was a chore in itself finding a pub that was showing it on TV. I watched the show with a festival-ultra in soccer lingo, but even with her insistent requests and charming attempts at convincing the bar-man we didn't get very far enough to listen to any songs except the Irish one and my country's song.

Being the fanatic that she is my friend made it her personal mission to convince all the people within a 10 meter radius to vote for our song. I laughed my heart out watching her conjuring every type of excuse why they should vote for our song. Apart from listening to 2 songs, and laughing out loud I have a recollection that I felt a certain urge to lend my body to the Ukrainian singer which was probably the best element of the Eurovision.

All the work and propaganda served for nothing because our country came last and we didn't even get a single point from Ireland. Actually the only point we got was from Albania probably as recognition for our charity work towards them.

At the end Finland won the Eurovision for the first time with the hard-rock group called Lordi. I only have to say that if for nothing else it was a recognition that rock still lives on, although I feel obliged to ask people who don't usually listen to this type of music and liked the song, to experiment further there's much more to it than Lordi. (Drop a mail for guided tour into this musical world.)