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What about my life? What about that hair? What about that excessive arm-ography?

Why did this song remain a favourite before the competition, with odds in the Top 5, and crash out of the final this year?  Was it because the lyrics went away from the typical Eurovision pleas for peace and love in the world and instead said WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME YOU BASTARD AND WHEN YOU GO TO HELL I HOPE YOU SUFFER FOREVER?

Here are the results of the 12Points jury - what about how we felt?

Song/Lyrics - 12/12
It took four men to write this song, and even if one of them contributed to the lyrics, he sure had a brilliant idea of what constitutes a terrible break up from a women's perspective. Either the lyricists watched endless Jennifer Aniston movies, is gay, or both.  The music manages to be both subtle, layered, but Eurotrashy all at once utilizing some loud drums and minor chords.

Performance - 12/12
Technically, this should lose a few points because Kati's vocals are good but a bit ropey. Still, this is a vast improvement from the semi final, where she appeared out of breath and nervous, and the whole song suffered from screwed up sound during the broadcast. The 12 points awarded here come from other factors - the subtle backing vocalists and dancers kept in the background, everyone working well with what was a deadly stage by using most of it, and various anguished arm-ography moves (more on that below).

Choreography (including Arm-ography and Hair-ography) - 12/12
The classic arm-flexing, fist-closed arm-ography has been assigned to the backing vocalists, who also do the classic, arms-slowly-moving-up-and-arms-slowly-moving-down move. The hip hop dancers in the background add the latest Eurovision choreography trend of having lots of moviement that has nothing to do with the song.  Even Kati's hair had a few springy moves of its own.  

Key Change Effectiveness - 0/12
Oh, Kati... what happened!  Loss of points here due to the lack of a key change. 

Camp Factor - 12/12
Where do we start?  Clutching the microphone as if in prayer triggers an automatic 12 points award. Twirls that come out of nowhere, a turquoise dress that looked like it escaped from an 80s prom and was altered later to expose maximum leg, extremely high heels, the switch to Hungarian and back to English... inspired!

SUBTOTAL: 48/60.  We are taking the extraordinary move to award bonus points for the first time for the amazing work Kati did before showing up in Germany. In her music video, she attends a rehearsal with her dancers and within 5 seconds of arriving, grabs a water bottle and starts singing into it. That gets a bonus 6 points, leading to a TOTAL of 54/60.  Well done, Miss Wolf!

I can? More like "I can't" as Britain tries again for Eurovision glory.

What can be said about the UK's entries of the past few years?  Three songs since their last win in 1997 hitting last place during the final, a number coming towards the bottom, and a few coming in the top five, the results for this country have been random at best.  With some of the best bands in the world, none can be convinced to compete, until the BBC did an internal selection this year and took old pros Blue on board to represent the country. Quite an inspired idea, in theory - take someone who has been popular in a lot of places and see if that can attract some votes.

Here's the result of the 12points jury: did the four lads make us go all gooey inside, or leave us cold?

Song/Lyrics - 6/12
The best thing you can say about this song is that it was one of the rare tunes this year to actually follow current trends - no schlager for these guys.  The song is catchy but not quite something you dance to.

Performance - 4/12
Actual singing seems to be an ongoing problem for British performers. The recording of this song sounds great, but with a load of very high notes evading singer Lee Ryan's range, it drowns the song completely. Even before the first chorus, it seems like he's told himself that he won't be able to hit the right notes, and then by the end of the song, he's screaming out a load of melody that sounds like a cat being strangled.  And how could four guys singing together sound so empty?  The half-hearted explosion effect at the end of the song pretty much sums up the whole enterprise.

Choreography (including Arm-ography and Hair-ography) - 6/12
There is a lot of very carefully choreographed arm-ography available for the viewing public. But when an act like Blue takes itself so seriously, it seems kind of pointless. Arm-ography is supposed to be about reaching in the sky, flying high, wave goodbye, that sort of nonsense.  Here it just doesn't work.

Key Change Effectiveness - 0/12
None to be heard. 

Camp Factor - 4/12
Not really too much to speak of, except for giant screens behind the group make them seem very small in that huge stadium. But I'm sure that was unintentional.
 

TOTAL: 20/60.  Hope was very high for this song before the contest, but frankly they probably only got 11th place because of the name recognition. Blue were huge across Europe a few years ago, but as for staging a comeback with this song, they should have tried harder.

News Round-up of the day. Lena releases new single: What a man.

Rumours, but no more than that say that Sweden will organise next year's Junior Song Contest. It is said that EBU is hoping that by that the other Northern countries will also return to the contest. This year it is Armenia's turn to organise the contest.

News Round-up of the day. Now wouldn't that be something, a Eurovision winner as president for the country that won the contest most.

Most of the 12points crew was in Munich this weekend, that's why we have a bit of Eurovision catching up to do, now. We weren't there to check out the host city of the 1983 Eurovision as such, but for a bit of local tradition: the Oktoberfest. Apart from hearing Er gehört zu mir by Marianne Rosenberg a few times there is not much Eurovision to that.....

The big five are on!

News Round-up of the day. Tonight ESC won an German award from Deutscher Fernsehpreis in the category Best Entertainment.

Jedward, who were signing albums in Tallinn, had to quit it bacause it was so crowded the police decided it was not safe anymore!

There's the guy with the hat again!

News Round-up of the day. Universal Music is going to release all 8 original ABBA CD's on vinyl.

In 1974 ABBA wrote Eurovision history by winning the contest with Waterloo. One year before that Ring Ring was released as the band's first studio recording. Now a series of collector's items is to be released...... Get ready for another day without too much news on the Eurovision front.

News Round-up of the day. Tommy Seebach's son recorded one of his three Eurovision songs on his new cd, we love it.....

This week Rasmus Seebach released his new album Mer end' kærlighed. As a tribute to his dad that passed away in 2003, the singer included Under Stjernene På Himlen (Denmark 1993). Tommy's son is very popular all over Scandinavia. His biggest hits include Engel and Natteravn. Listen to his Eurovision cover below. Very nice!

News Round-up of the day. The Jedwards were a bit too fast and - - - Kirsten & Søren are back!.

Irish RTÉ has confirmed that Jedward indeed are going to be taking place in the  Irish national final again, but they are not selected yet, like the brothers revealed earlier this week. There will be five artists and one of them will win.... Good Luck Jedward, we'll most likely see you in Baku anyway! Further details will be announced in the new year.