So, another weekend goes by, and three more countries have picked their songs for Athens. And guess what? None of them are rubbish. Hurrah! Estonia, Malta and Norway have all chosen well, even if I liked three songs better in the Norwegian final, which I watched live on t'internet on a screen supplied by Norway's webcast which was, I kid you not, the size of a postage stamp (commemorative, not definitive).

Such is our dedication, my friend James and I watched Norway's Melodi Grand Prix on the net, him in Bristol, me in Brum, texting each other with comments as we did so. Personally, I thought Norway could have won in Athens if they'd picked Lost And Found, sung by Geir Ronning and Jorun Erdal. Yes, that's Geir Ronning who represented Finland in Kyiv, only last year. Traitor! Traitor! Shameless whore! Et cetera.

In Eurovision terms, Norway's winning song, Alvedansen, is a cross between The Voice (winner) and Aava (flop). It ticks the box marked 'ethnic' on our Eurovision checklist, and manages the tricky feat, with some well chosen words, of making Norwegian sound smooth, which it doesn't normally, to English ears. That's probably why singer Christine Gulbrandsen has already stated her desire to sing in Norwegian in Athens. I see no reason why she should change it to English. People might realise the song is really called Elf Dance. And they might laugh. However, put this on the list of potential winners already.

Malta picked Fabrizio Faniello last night - again! Just like last year, they picked someone who's done it for them before. Also just like last year, Olivia Lewis was second. Let her go next year, the poor cow! I'm assured Fabrizio's song is fabulous and sounds like very contemporary Swedish pop, but I haven't heard it yet.

There's a bit of a theme of returning artists already, and we've only heard six of the Athens songs so far! Ich Troje are going back for Poland after only three years and Anna Vissi returns for the home nation, a mere 26 years after she first sang for Greece! The phrase 'a safe pair of lungs' springs to mind. The hosts aren't going to risk being embarrassed by twinkly teens or even musclebound boys in vests. Not on home soil.

The other weekend winner was Sandra Oxenryd for Eesti with Through My Window. Despite having a surname which sounds like an anti-spot medicated facial wash, Sandra has a corker of a song. Pure, driving pop, like Estonia have done before with both Sahlene and Ines. Okay, it's nothing new, but it's dead, dead catchy and it has an epic build up/breakdown, which is the next best thing in the Eurovision Book of Clichés to a key change. The clincher for me though, is that it sounds like it has some of those big metal tubes that you hit with hammers. Yeah, tubular bells, that's it. Cool. (It also has an intro and continuing riff that's a litle reminiscent of Abba's Does Your Mother Know?, but not to the extent of plagiarism, which is more than can be said for Slovenia's entry, which has been pulled from radio* this weekend as it may be facing plagiarism accusations.)

It's worth noting that not one of the six songs chosen so far has any noticeable bloody drums in. After last year's bongo-bashing drum fest, that's quite a relief.

(I wrote loads more on Norway, and it was really funny, but Blogger crashed and lost it. This only happens when I write directly into Blogger and not into Word first. Buggeration.)


*Slovenian radio. Where did you think it was being played - BBC 6 Music?
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