Evens

That's how I fared this year, thanks to a hedging bet on Serbia. Although Ukraine had been favourites throughout there was just no way it was going to win. Russia's pretty girls might have appealed to the younger voters but following Andorra's early exit it was pretty clear that younger votes don't count for much. On the night there were some disappointing performances, notably Ireland's. Other's raised their game - Moldova and those trousers were one a very few that inspired, along with the slightly scary but spot-on Finland and the excellent Hungary.

The Serbian song was a worthy winner, so at least all wasn't as bad as it could have been had Greece, Turkey or Ukraine squeezed through.

I simply can't believe how many points Armenia got after what sounded to me an absolutely awful performance. Scooch didn't really put on the best of shows and were lucky to get some points. I was totally wrong on that one. What seemed a real fun show and an instantly memorable tune failed to move anyone except our friends in Ireland and the very British Malta. The jokes were just lost on everyone else and we should have gone along with Sir Terry's first announcement - a brilliant ballad which would have given the strange girl from the Balkans a run for her money.

Apart from some impressive lighting and set effects, the Finns put on a bizarre show with some ridiculous pink girl filling the gaps badly and shots of what looked a very uninteresting country which I'm sure it isn't.

What was really wrong was the voting display. It was impossible to see the totals and having 42 countries voting meant that the first 7 votes went up in one go with just the 8, 10 and 12 points being announced. There were precious few looks at the leaderboard too so you had no idea really how things were going other than from talk about the top one or two.

This year may well be the last in its present form. There have to be serious doubts about some of the early exits, or even why they had to qualify in the first place. The voting this year was quite extraordinary, the blocks even more heavily influencing the outcome by their very size. Roughly half the votes were from Balkan and Russian countries and I guess it's sort of understandable that they'll vote for their neighbours which, statistically, makes it almost impossible for anyone else to have a look-in. I hadn't taken enough account of that and wasted some money on a couple of entries.

Oh well that's another year.