"We Have No Friends" - Brownie McGhee, 1991

Referring to the title of this article, I guess that's not completely true -- there's always Ireland, and this year there was San Marino as well.

What am I talking about? This year's Eurovision Song Contest.

The UK's Eurovision entry this year was the very-capable Andy Abraham. His song, while not a potential #1 on the charts, was much better than any UK entry in the past few years. Yet Andy was at the bottom of the tables when the voting ended. He didn't even get more points that the absolutely dreadful off-key performance of a group of four overly-made-up German women.

Why? Because nobody who participates in Eurovision likes Britain.

And who won? The Russians. Were they that good? Not in my opinion. Their performance even included a blond male ice skater maneuvering dizzily around the lead singer during the second half of the song. So why did they win? Because all of their European neighbors want to be their "friend". Yeah, right.

If you're interested, you can actually see all of the entries from a link on the BBC's special section for Eurovision.

It seems I've gone from residency in a country that nobody likes to one which nobody in Europe likes. Not such a good move in retrospect, huh?

So if John and I were thinking about a holiday to a sunny clime this year, I think we might spend our vacation funds in a country which at least gave Andy 6 points.

Where is San Marino anyway?

[UPDATE on Tuesday the 27th: On their news site, the BBC have posted an article called "Britain's New Best Friend" about San Marino and their six Eurovision votes given to the UK Saturday night. Give it a read. Thanks, John, for finding this article for me.]

Janet