Gay or European? The annual Festival of Kitch

This post is about Eurovision Song Contest. If you don't appreciate the ridiculousness, hilarity and excessive use of glitter in ESC, stop reading.

Eurovision week is over. Congratulations to this year's winner, Sweden's Loreen with her song 'Euphoria'! And speedy recovery to all ESC drinking game players. To be honest, I was quite surprised by Loreen's victory. Normally these conventionally good quality songs that will go on to play at clubs and radio, don't succeed that well in Eurovision. Euphoria has already topped the charts in Nordic countries and now will no doubt do just that also elsewhere.

On the day of the second semi-final, Thursday that is, Eric Saade started trending on Twitter as soon as Norway had performed. The similarities between Sweden's last year's performance and Norway's show this year were incredible. The guys look the same, the backup dancers look the same - if you ignore the gender upgrade - and the songs could be by the same artist. Norway came in last in the final with only 7 points.

As Norway's poor performance showed us, it's not a good idea to resemble another (famous) artist too much. Yet this mistake is made every year. This year Italy's artist was clearly channeling Amy Winehouse and Denmark's girl sounded a lot like Alanis Morissette. Denmark only scored points from six countries, coming to a total of 21 points, while Italy did considerably better with 101 points and 9th place.

I am sailing, across the stage

The gayest show this year was Turkey, no contest! Their leather wearing seaman and his batman-inspired backup dancers managed to be exceptionally camp, even by the Eurovision standards. And then their capes transformed into an outline of a boat and made me giggle uncontrollably. Most fun this year, however, was Malta's little foot dance! They also had a pretend-DJ on stage. 0:55 is when the fun begins.

The UK's Engelbert "The Hump" Humperdinck came second to last with only 12 points despite his huge global success and large fan base. The BBC offers this as explanation: "Historically no-one who has opened the contest has gone on to win, as viewers often tune in late and miss the early contenders." which is of course complete bollocks. While he came across as sympathetic and sweet, his song 'Love Will Set You Free' (yes, really) was utterly boring, as the title would have you think. In this freak circus such a ballad will go unnoticed, unless it's Ireland. And even they've had bad luck lately. Of course, they've also had a turkey.

Speaking of Ireland, I liked Jedward's 'Waterline' much better than 'Lipstick' last year. The audience, however, seemed to disagree. I don't blame them, the whole reason even I watch this show is for the WTF-reactions and the exciting shows these artists throw at us. Seeing the same performers year after year is dumb and boring.

Special mention goes to Georgia for providing the most ridiculous performance, in the true spirit of Eurovision Song Contest! I would have definitely wanted to see them in the final.

Another special mention to the Slovakian Eurovision Hair Metal band with shirtless lead man. That should be a genre; it's a classic Eurovision song disguised as hard rock/glam metal. Listen to it and you'll know what I mean (ignore the beginning, it gets more Eurovision-y come chorus). Belarus also had a Eurovision rock band with members who looked like they jumped on the stage straight from the TV show The Tribe. Yep, "Eurovision rock" needs to be a genre. Not limited to only bands who've been in ESC.

The BBC commentators made this year so much better for me (that's where the headline for this post came from). The Finnish commentators have some good jokes and say funny things but hold back much much more than the guys at BBC. It was a joy listening to them. I'm also extremely happy to have learned about the existence of Dr. Eurovision! Isn't it marvelous! Academic expert, has a PhD in Eurovision. I don't know if that's incredibly cool or just incredibly ridiculous. Or both. Awesome dude either way.

What were your favorite moments this year?