I still maintain that pirates = awesome.

I would have definitely come as the Azerbaijani angel, and I wasn't disappointed by them. They rule. Go Azerbaijan.

Both Greece and Poland are American-born. (Poland's even from Seattle.) We need to stay out of Eurovision.

While Armenia could send anything and do well, I still kind of enjoy it shamefully. At least it's silly.

I still wanted a higher placement for Bosnia.

Spain hadn't won me over until the actual performance- but now it has. At least they were having a good time, or something.

All in all, I enjoyed myself.

Sue- that's been rumored. Apparently NBC's bought the rights to it, so watch this space.

@Abby: I heard NBC bought the rights, yes. There's also a Eurovision film "in the making", but that could take some years to finish I think.

In my wildest fantasies I'd be Ukraine. In reality... I'd probably be Spain. :-)

I watched it live on the eurovision website - streaming quality was really good. All that was missing was the Wogan commentary: I tried turning down the audio, and then tuning into BBC radio2 online, but they had some other guy doing the ocmmentary there - WTF? (Well, the separate audio and video didn't quite sync up anyhow.)

Now just have to wait for the CD to make its way from amazon - and for the BBC video (It's from the BBC / With Wogan commentary / Hey Terry, Go Terry...) to makes its way from Dublin (thanks sis!)...

I'm not sure I like the idea of a US-version of the show - I don't know that there's enough cultural differences between the states to make it that interesting. (What does Connecticut pop music sound like anyhow?) Eurovision works partly because it is a huge clash (confluence!) of cultures and identities, and you get a peek into the pop lives of countries you'd never considred before, each of which has its own distinct pop music scene: most of the entrants - especially from the eastern countries - are already quite successful and popular in their own region, but are unknown elsewhere due to language and culture barriers. I don't think there's a good analog to this in the US. Unfortunately some of the western countries (Hello Ireland, Britain, Spain, and others) are treating it more as a Idol-esque obscurity-to-fame show - with appropriate resules. (It did work for Niamh Kavanagh, though...) I'd really like to see the UK enter some curent group like say Girls Aloud, but alas, that won't happen... I fear that a US version of the show would be nothing more than American Idol, but perhaps with more interesting voting.

Did anyone else notice that the Irish announcer (Niamh Kavanagh!) said "Here are the results of the Irish jury"? Televote, surely - or old habits die hard?

Griet, much thanks for this fun and entertaining Eurovision review - douze points!

Griet, what did you think of the Molitva remix version that opened the show? I liked it! And the crazy dance number.

The skating rink did do the trick. That or ripping open his shirt in that spontaneous and unexpected way of his. I did feel Ukraine's act was more complete, I could only stare at it and go "wow".
With Russia I just laughed from start, when he started wiping the floor with his white outfit, to finish when he ripped open his shirt because he believes in himself so much.

I really, really did not see the appeal of Greece. For a minute there it looked like they'd be winning and I was shocked. And I'm quite disappointed Portugal ended up so low, but what can you do.