Film of Sandrine with her singing teacher was next, and in the recording studio. Then the first embarrassing bit. The presenters produced Sandrine's school report - she was not best pleased. And then, horror of horrors, two of her ex-teachers appeared, with an old schoolfriend. Sandrine's favourite song while at school was Mariah Carey's 'Hero'. Now THAT'S embarrassing! (Sandrine must be disappointed that Regina didn't win the Slovenian final, as Ljubezen Daje Moc has exactly the same tune in the chorus, so she could have heard 'Hero' every day in Tallinn, but I digress.) We were treated to some clips of Eurovision fashion crimes, followed by a discussion of 'le look' with Sandrine's dress designer, Nathalie Garcon. (Can someone please tell us who this group is: five singers; two male and three female I think, all wearing white, and all with glittery rainbows across their tops. Probably from the 1980s. We were surprised to see that the rainbow flag had made such an early appearance!) Expect Mlle Francois to be wearing, in Nathalie's own words, "something close to the body and a bit mad behind" on 25th May. Yes, she really did say that! I'm imagining a black cocktail dress with a bustle, or perhaps - Mon Dieu! - some Gaultier feathers (snigger, snigger). Another VT, this time showing Sandrine in a restaurant with her 'coach and dietician'. Yes, really. They discussed her losing weight before May. Oh, the humiliation! She's tiny anyway, and doesn't need to lose any weight. Then we saw a photoshoot. I thought it was interesting that, while she has a fitness coach, and argued with the presenters over whether she preferred drinking champagne or orange juice, she was quite happy to be filmed smoking! But hey, she's French! Je pense, donc je fume, as she didn't say at all. Next up, Roch Voisine, who I haven't seen for many years, but is still looking damn good. "He came here for you, " the presenters told Sandrine, although I suspect the opportunity to plug his new song and a small payment also contributed to his appearance. He also did a brief duet with Sandrine, while he played his acoustic guitar. Some readers, especially those in the UK, may need to skip this paragraph. France3 showed some clips of 'bad bits', and guess what it started with? Rather unfairly, I thought, it was Lindsay D singing THAT note. Yes, just the one note, before they moved onto the presenter's dress 'falling off', Paul Oskar, Dana International falling over, Le Papa Pingouin, Remedios Amaya, Linda Wagenmakers and Guildo Horn, while they played Telex's 'Eurovision'. All very cruel, I thought.
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