23:30 Ne, Hrvatska, ne, ne, ne! Croatia, what were you thinking?

Tonight's Dora final was...how can I put this? 'Crap' would be a good word. 'Laughable' would be another. The winning song, by one point over something which would have been mildly acceptable, was a song by a grizzled old Iggy Pop-like rocker with some meandering, growling rubbish. Watch the performance here, if you dare. You wait three minutes for the song to start, and then it ends. Mercifully.

Last year's Croatian Eurovision entry, Moja štikla by Severina, was my favourite of all the songs, and still is, so it was a pleasure to see her performing it at the start of tonight's show, live from the Crystal Ballroom of the Hotel Kvarner in Opatija. But it was all downhill from there onwards. (One of our friends, who would otherwise have been with us tonight, was actually there at the final. I hope he has asked for his money back.)

At Glitterball Mansions, we cast our votes in the interval, as did the population of Croatia. Thirteen of us, including, for a bit of variety, a woman and a Belgian. (Not the same person.) In our vote, 'Vjerujem u ljubav' by Dragonfly featuring Dado Topic came 15th out of the sixteen songs. In Croatia, it won. What do we know?

Our voting was more 'all over the place' than I can ever recall tonight. Because there wasn't anything good, there was no consensus at all, and some songs were scoring 12s from some people and none from others. I was accused of voting for the singer, rather than the song, when I gave my douze points to Luka Nižetić, but his was the most watchable performance, of a very average song. He was looking like a sexier version of Daniel Bedingield tonight, but with dyed black hair, piled up a bit, making me think of Tom Bailey at the height of The Thompson Twins' fame. It's not his best look. Here he is, doing tonight's song on another show. He wore a different outfit tonight - a black suit - but you get the idea.



The narrow winner chez nous was a bizarre novelty song called 'No chance sugar'. This consisted of a fat woman (and I mean massive) singing in an opera stylee, while fending off the attentions of two blokes. I think that was the gist of it anyway. Some people found it funny, which it was, but it was funny bad, not funny good. The act was called Trio Fantasticus, but the Croatian televoters agreed with me that they were far from fantasticus and mostly ignored them. Oh blimey, blame YouTube, not me. Here they are, on another programme, but they looked exactly like this tonight. How horrible is this?



Croatia is now fighting with Israel for 'worst entry of the year so far' in my list. They're both absolutely awful, but the Israeli one is a least controversial, so well done Croatia, I think you've clinched it. May the spirits of Doris Dragović and Danijela Martinović haunt you from now until May as you reflect on your useless choice tonight. Book your flights home from Helsinki for 11 May, because you ain't gonna be in that final on the 12th.

Labels: Croatia, Dora, Dragonfly, Eurovision 2007, Luka Nižetić

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Another Saturday night, another batch of national finals and heats for Eurovision, so tonight we will be back at Glitterball Mansions. The Scooch song may be taken off non-stop repeat play for just long enough to watch a bit of telly, so we'll be watching the beginning of the Swedish 'Andra Chansen' heat, where Chig hopes that Elin Lanto and Nanne Grönvall will get their second chance ticket to next week's Melodifestivalen final. Tonight's show could go on for ever, as the format is knockout rounds, as shown here by the Melodimen. I make that a lot of voting, plus fifteen performances, if there's a reprise of the winner.

We'll have turned over long before then, as it'll be time for our annual dose of HRT. Yes, it's time for the final night of Croatia's Dora, usually one of the highlights of the season along with Slovenia and Sweden. It's certainly one of the longest finals, but when you've experienced Spanish television, nothing feels too long. Croatia had semi-finals on Thursday and last night, halving the field of sixteen each time, so there are 16 of the 32 songs left tonight.

Highlights of the eight acts through from Thursday night include top Croatian hunk Luka Nižetić (left), who had a go in 2005 but revealed himself to be strong on good looks and weak on stagecraft. All of the partially-clothed pictures seem to have gone from his official website in favour of a still very sexy business look (but what's the windmill all about?). Never fear though - Schlagerboys to the rescue!

Also through from Thursday are Feminnem, who represented neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina in Eurovision 2005. You have to be Croatian to enter the Croatian Dora, but they do hold Croatian passports, so they're okay.

Through from last night's semi-final, I'm particularly looking forward to seeing The Sick Swing Orchestra and Trio Fantasticus, simply because of their names.

The regular reader may recall some recent drooling over him on the left; Sebastian in the Slovenian final (not to be confused with another unsurnamed Sebastian who's in the Swedish final next week. Are you still with us?) Well, what do you know? In the interests of post-Yugoslav unity, Sebastian and Luka teamed up for a TV appearance, singing an answer song to Geri Halliwell, 'Mi Chica Latina'. Two hunks for the price of one. I don't know where to look first.

Labels: Croatia, Dora, Eurovision 2007, Luka Nižetić, Melodifestivalen, Sebastian, Sweden

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