Eurovision 2018 - Close, But Not Close Enough

Ahead of Eurovision's great and grand final tomorrow, here's a roundup of what you COULD have won.

Our first semi final, hosted by Scott Mills and Rylan, began with fish and sea and a man in a boat and basically a lot of water because Lisbon is wet and the catchphrase this year is All Aboard. 'Tis a crying shame the whole thing wasn't presented by Captain Birdseye.

All these women are hosting:

All of them! They are an actress, a Strictly host, a...woman, and Portguese Tricia. It's like the Oscars, only Portuguese Tricia came direct from 1996.

Opening the show, and thus first on the scrap heap, was Aisel from Azerbaijan:

Covered in body glitter, dressed in a white nightie, doing contemporary dancing on some big white wedges poking out of the stage, it seemed fairly standard euro-fodder. Like a young Steps. Perhaps it was the idea that, being stronger than cannonballs, you could fire her through a wall? Perhaps they expected another Bojack Horseman appearance and were upset at being denied? Who knows? 

Iceland next, in a truly awful jacket, complete with Max Bygraves side look to camera

He's got the saddest eyes in Portugal. This was Ari Ólafsson, who was frankly rubbish, even though he did match his shoes to his pullover AND his mates. He cried at the end.

This is Sennek

She was representing Belgium, with a rip off of The World Is Not Enough, wearing a floor length, transparent HOUSECOAT over a pair of TROUSERS, and possibly should have considered NOT doing quite so much coke before the show.

Belarus was pure Eurovision for the ages and frankly, I am distraught it didn't get through.

Look at the fucking brows on him. So much hair on the brows, yet none on the chest. Alekseev sang a deeply bland ballad to a disinterested rose. The rose was then given to a woman, who writhed around it. I think the rose was supposed to be a penis? Anyway, she FIRED THE ROSE BACK TO HIM WITH A BOW (something we should all do with unwanted penises)

AND IT WENT THROUGH HIS HAND! He didn't lose a drop of blood, presumably because he's a fucking vampire. This is the sort of storytelling I come to Eurovision for. It ended with him dramatically turning to reveal

ROSES GROWING FROM HIS BACK. You don't get THAT on Casualty. Thank you for your contribution, Belarus, you won't be hearing from us.

The Former Republic of Macedonia brought Eye Cue, who brought the reggae, like a really awful No Doubt. But their worst crime was that, after dancing around in a backward blazer for half the performance, young Marija took it off to reveal

the worst top. A chainmail jumper with the lowest slung boobs I've seen outside of Drag Race. At least their drummer was happy.

For some unknown reason, Croatia's Franka singing Stop! with a rap breakdown proved unpopular. 

Maybe it was because her makeup made her look FILTHY. 

Greece kept up their proud tradition of kidnapping a minor, elderly goddess from Olympus and hoping she can sing:

Her name was Yianna Terzi, and maybe it was the claw that put people off?

This is Sevak Khanagyan 

He was singing a ballad about wind, in a jumper, surrounded by a domino rally for Armenia. 

The final loser from semi one was ZiBBZ, a LeAnn Rimes wannabe singing sub-par Pink, with some madman on drums and flares

It's like Switzerland don't even WANT to win. Who takes flares into a room so crowded with nylon?

Semi Final Two was by far the more insane of the two, GLORY BE!

Romania were first to be tossed aside, with a young Bonnie Tyler and a collection of gimps

So many gimps! These were The Humans, and this was a very lovely, uptempo ballad from 1993. Even a wind machine couldn't make people vote for it. Shame.

Jessika, who looks suspiciously like Frankie! Poultney Seaman and her friend Jenifer Brening represented San Marino.

Looks like Gay Night to me. There were swearing robots, signs that claimed size doesn't matter, and Jenifer ended up being San Marino's answer to Honey G. "If they dissin' you on twitter, don't get sad, don't be bitter". It sounded exactly like Heroes.

Julia Samoylova was supposed to represent Russia last year, but they withdrew in a snit about Ukraine, so back she came this year

sitting in a volcano, while two lithe youths leapt around below her. A bit lost in the staging, a bit feeble, but caused RUCTIONS by not getting through.

The best thing about Georgia was their band name. Ethno-Jazz Band Iriao were indeed an ethno-jazz band, no lies detected.

There should have been seven of them, but they bumped one off to get round the 'only six people on stage' rules. It probably should have been this guy, with a bogbrush for hair. To think this is the country that gave us Nina Sublatti.

Poland failed to bring milkmaids (neva 4get), instead bringing a sub-Avicii banger

This DANCING QUEEN, YOUNG AND SWEET, ONLY THIRTY NIIINE (his name is Gromee, and he's VERY POPULAR in Poland - he's worked with people who have worked with Tiesto!) and his mate Lukas ran around singing out of tune. It's the sort of thing I expect to hear a lot on my holidays.

I really quite enjoyed Malta's Christabelle:

Looking a bit goth, with her chubby Demi Lovato face, singing about sticks and stones breaking her SOUL, gyrating around a video wall when LO! Nudey dance lady appeared. And the audience GASPED at all the pyrotechnics. And yet, no joy.

I also enjoyed Latvia

Aside from the outfit. She looks like she's about to marry Axl Rose and that is inadvisable. Unfortunately, young Laura Rizzotto kept going off key. And her name is Risotto.

The last failure was poor Vanja Radovanović (Vaaaanjiiieee)

Who let him out looking like that? Maybe pimpled blue shiny suits are all the rage in Montenegro. He looks ten thousand years old in close up. His backing singers are four furious brides in ill-fitting dresses. Are they all to marry him at once? IS THAT WHY THEY'RE SO ANGRY? What sort of bigamist arranges four marriages at once? Sigh. The song was bobbins anyway.

And on to the final, where I am personally stanning for the Danish Vikings, the Hungarian RAWWWWK, and the Ukranian vampire. Although for sheer camp, MOLDOVA. None of this should surprise you.