h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Australian spolesperson is very smart in a white suit with cravat and pink buttonhole rose, and shades. 12 points for the UK...

The scoring has slowed down as they are talking more, with gratuitous stroking of a dog included...

Romanian spokesperson in a red leather dress

12 points from UK jury to Portugal...

Right, the jury vote has now been completed...

Nobody gets nul points - Spain got none from the jury, but 5 from the televote.

A big boost for Croatia there...

Portugal has won - how very strange...

Party cannon with confetti sounded like something else then but it is ok...

Interesting speech - we need more cheesy pop with hidden subtlety than worthy pop with hidden cheese, I think...

It was a bit better as a duet with his sister, but a very subdued ending...

Goodnight everyone

Thank you for the retro-comentary.

BBC news mentioned the UK's 15th place but not that Portugal won (PORTUGAL? REALLY?)

Not sorry to have missed the streaker. I can tell instanyly that he isn't my type. Sorry to have missed half bra-half jacket woman though.

PP.

My pleasure

Thanks again for joining me. I hope mol and the others will post to say what they thought about it all - in particular I'm intrigued to know if mol liked the winning song...

Yes half bra half jacket woman was a sight to behold

"BBC news mentioned the UK's 15th place but not that Portugal won"

That says a lot about the winning song...

Well done to Portugal for winning Eurovision for the first time ever this year, but that song is "(PORTUGAL? REALLY?)" indeed...

My top 3 picks were Belarus, Italy and Portugal, so I was delighted when Portugal won.

For about the tenth year running, I had rated more songs as 8/10 or above than I had points to dish out (I rate out of 10 as I go, and then rank the top ten scorers for dishing out points). So a good standard.

I rated the UK among the 8/10s although I did think it was a bit waily. I think we did better this year because there were more songs than usual not sung in English (I can't get away from that particular soapbox I'm afraid, so I've no idea if there *were* more songs not in English than usual, maybe I just imagined it).

Graham was on excellent form (if you've not yet read the Buzzfeed compilation of his best lines, I can highly recommend it), the hosts were fairly rubbish but gave us a great new word for the family lexicon ('neebles'), and as usual the stage floor got high marks.

Honorable mentions to the guy singing the duet with himself (mainly because I can do that too) and the blokes on the treadmills.

But the voting was painful to watch.

For the first time I went onto YouTube the next day to watch my favourites again. The Belarus song was just *so happy*, it was great, probably my favourite overall. But I love Portugal's song too - simple, beautiful, sweet - I don't understand a word of Portuguese but he was singing the language of love, so it didn't matter.

Portugal's win does present me with some interesting catering choices for next year. I'm thinking maybe fish and chips.

Mol

Thanks for sharing your gradings of the songs, Mol

Very interesting indeed Fascinating how different people get different things out of it, but that probably explains the appeal of it, that there's something for most people to enjoy

I didn't mind the hosts, but I especially liked 'neebles'

I'm impressed with your singing skills that you can do a duet with yourself I'm lucky if I can sing all the notes in one part of a song...

Portugal's song wasn't to my taste at all, though... Like Graham said, it was definitely a Marmite song...

Fish and chips for catering does sound about right, but my favourite food from my Portugal holiday was Sardines