I heard Pete Waterman on yesterday's Radio 2, discussing Eurovision. He commented on the apparently biased/political voting, especially amongst the former Eastern Bloc nations. His view was that the voting isn't politically motivated, but rather that their entries are widely and frequently played on the radio around those countries, so they are already very familiar with each others' songs before the competition. Compare that with the UK entry, which is barely played on radio at all, even here in the UK, and certainly not in for'n parts.

This wasn't always the case - back in the days when we could rely on our songs performing very well, even winning, they were played repeatedly by the BBC, and featured heavily on the World Service,mand the now defunct, but previously heavily patronised, British Forces network. Thus they were well-known by the public in other countries, far more so than is the case today.

I must say that I'd never considered this - my wife and I usually spend the entire judging process effing and blinding at 'those cheating Eastern European bastards sticking together like shit to a shovel', and claiming their voting is politically biased.

Might put a new slant on our view of proceedings this year.