"And then he said..."

Never let it be said that elections don't produce representative results. The voting in our household last night exactly reflected the UK Eurovision voting, in that the British 12 points went to the latex-covered Finnish rock Gods Lordi - Beloved Other Half's choice - and the 10 points went to my selection, the besuited and terribly direct Lithuanians whose song repeatedly chorused “We are the winners of Eurovision”.

They weren't, but the Finns were, which is one in the eye for bland white-clad “we are all brothers” Euro-schmaltz (Israel, Switzerland) and leggy blonde plastic pop tarts (far too many countries to name and shame - pictures here from the BBC).

I thought the British entry was actually rather good - a long way from the usual forgettable formulaic pap we usually enter. A bit individualistic, very catchy - the political voting blocks meant its chances of winning were always going to be slight, and Finland and Lithuania were ahead of it in the “quirky gimmick” stakes, but I'm surprised it didn't finish top 10. It deserved to.

It's no surprise Russia, Serbia and Sweden scored so well but I'm astonished Malta was last, the song wasn't at all bad.

I sort of wanted to liveblog the contest, but I feared my brain would melt and blood would start running out of my ears if I tried. But this is what I might have written if I'd tried:

Switzerland:

Dull beyond belief. Deserves to finish with zero points. That sort of 'we are all together' drivel went out years ago.

Moldova:

Actually quite good. Catchy. Male singer is rather good-looking but the girl's slow strip seems a bit too forced to work.

Israel:

Like Switzerland. Only worse. Not a good start to the contest, could be a long night.

Latvia:

Clearly, Latvia have decided they don't want the expense of hosting the contest again. This is one of the worst songs I have ever heard.

Norway:

Some energy here, and the fiddles work well, but overall it's barely adequate. Another bunch dressed in white!

Spain:

At least they're not wearing white. But this is a hollow song - good production but dire vocals. Could have been a cracker, instead it's a damp squib.

Malta:

Strong performance, I thought. What do I know?

Germany:

I love watching Germany - they always put on great big productions that scream “we expect to win” and then fall flat on their faces. No difference this year, though as a pure country song it's pretty good.

Denmark:

The Danes lost the plot for a while but this is right back to form - catchy, energetic and a possible winner.

Russia:

Pretty-boy pop star with existing fanbase and plenty of block-vote support sings classic Eurovision number: will be difficult to beat, and rightly so.

FYR Macedonia:

Embarrassing. Just embarrassing.

Romania:

Wow. This sounds like a Eurovision winner from start to finish - put it in a lineup of past winners and you'd have a hard job spotting it was the imposter.

Bosnia:

Uh-oh. Sparkly lights and a ballad sung by an ugly, earnest male singer. I hate songs like this but unaccountably the voters often like them. And it's a Balkan country, so there's block votes to be harvested.

Lithuania:

WTF? This is bloody marvellous - similtaneously mocks and celebrates everything Eurovision stands for. Hysterical.

UK:

Never heard it before tonight and it grows on you rapidly, with a chorus out of Oliver and an acceptable rap. Could soar, could flop, but at least it's distinctive.

Greece:

Hyperactive overacting. Don't like it.

Finland:

The song's not actually as good as it might be, but the overall package is a winner. If Europe keeps its sense of humour and the Baltic block vote falls the right way then this contest is over.

Ukraine:

They won it a few years ago with Ruslana, who blended folk and pop perfectly: this is Ruslana-lite and it suffers for it. Not bad, but could have been so much better.

France:

The toilet-break, put the kettle on, song. Why did the French even turn up if this is all they can offer? It's not bad like Latvia is, it's just utterly pointless.

Croatia:

Doesn't quite work - it's so nearly a barnstormer but I can't quite put my finger on why it fails to ignite. An honourable attempt.

Ireland:

Another ballad, and a powerful one at that. Were it not for the block votes, it could win. Top 10, certainly.

Sweden:

The Swedes keep churning them out, don't they? This is just like all their other entries and, just like all their other entries, it will score heavily.

Turkey:

Not quite sure what this is all about - it's like someone took notes from a badly-recorded bootleg DVD of past winners and then constructed this from memory.

Armenia:

Who knew Armenia counted as Europe? This is good - catchy, fun, energetic. A great debut.

In the end, Finland won from Russia and Bosnia. Not sure who was next, but Sweden, Romania, Ireland and Lithuania did well. We were stuffed - not humiliated, but soundly beaten. Malta, France and Latvia polled badly, and Switzerland would have done so as well if they hadn't fielded a Maltese singer, earning them the Maltese 12 points.

So - off to Finland next year. I'm looking forward to it already!

Edit: 24 hours on, I have two songs - and only two songs - from the contest stuck in my head, going round and round. The first is the Moldovan entry, and it has nothing to do with the singer's bikini - it's actually a very catchy song in a 'lazy afternoon under a coconut palm' sort of way. The other is the poor old Brits. We wuz robbed, I tell you!

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There's a meme going round where you answer questions about your life using song titles from your favourite band. I don't usually do these things, but Beloved Other Half challenged me to complete it using the immortal words of Phil Oakey and the Human League, having done so herself using the songs of that gloomy bloke from somewhere Up North.

So here goes.

1. Are you male or female:
Mister Moon and Mister Sun

2. Describe yourself:
Mirror Man

3. How do some people feel about you:
John Cleese: Is He Funny?

4. How do you feel about yourself:
(I'm only) Human

5. Describe your day:
The Dignity of Labour, Parts 1-4

6. Describe current gf/bf:
All I Ever Wanted

7. Describe where you want to be:
Sin City

8. Describe how you live:
Circus of Death (Fast Version)

9. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

10. Share a few words of wisdom:
The Stars Are Going Out

11. Now say goodbye:
(We'll Always be Together) Together in Electric Dreams

Your turn - and I won't even pick the band for you :o)

The first installment of Channel 4's The Games has just ended, with Cornish Liberal Democrat MP Julia Goldsworthy placed third of five in the women's contest after suffering a dunking in the white-water kayaking despite being the pre-contest favourite.

Looking at her contestant page on the C4 website, bits read as if it came off a Focus leaflet - in fact, a fair bit of it probably did as it's also on her personal website.

I'm a huge reality TV junkie and enjoyed previous series of The Games, because it's one of those shows (like Hell's Kitchen and Strictly Come Dancing) that stretch people to unexpected heights using skills that they'd never normally exercise. But of course I also looked at it from the point of view of a Liberal Democrat wondering how one of the best and brightest of our young MPs would fare in a medium that only a few weeks ago holed George Galloway below the waterline.

Would anyone actually watch it? What would be the likely outcome of her participation for her and for the party? Good thing? Bad thing? Greater exposure to a different audience? More 'Chatshow Charlie' criticism?

My worry before the show was that every reality TV programme needs a villain, and an MP is a pretty good candidate to be transformed into the Wicked Witch of the South West in the edit room. That didn't seem to happen - we saw lots of her in the background encouraging her fellow contestants. Failing to win the event will have also prevented her from coming across as too unsympathetic and driven, odd though it sounds.

In fact, she was in the background a lot - we didn't see much of her in the foreground, especially in the athlete's village set-up where they all have to stay overnight. This makes me wonder whether she's got a dispensation from the producers to spend less time there than the rest because of her day job (we didn't see a great deal of her in the training footage either). If that's the case, it reduces the chance of any damaging Galloway-style pictures - but also makes it difficult for her to make an impact on the viewers. And it could also be that the producers think she's too boring to show.

Best moment BY FAR was when she was introduced to the cheering crowd as “Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury” - any Tories in the audience will have been spitting tacks. Their boy Rickett did well in the waterski jump, though.

Reaction on the Digital Spy forums has been somewhat muted: people are starting to make their minds up about the competitors, but I don't sense any strong swing for or against anyone, despite this post:

A good first night, I thought …..

Obviously, some training repeats from E4, but also some new shots of the village …..

Kayak :

Amanda dumped - hahahahaha - Nil points - she is crap at everything …..

Bernie - scared shitless but did her best - well done …..

Javine and Michelle - excellent performances …..

Julia - tried too hard and blew it - will do better …..

But some comments suggest Goldsworthy has already fallen victim to the near-inevitable fate of reality TV women - to be judged on her looks and physique rather than her abilities:

ic1male: Why is he calling Julia Goldsworthy the Peanut Smuggler?

slappers r us: Because her nipples were sticking out

ic1male: Oh! I wasn't paying much attention to those bits of her anatomy

And:

Kayak first………….. whaddaya reckon ? I guess it's the one with the quickest time wins……….. I think I'll go for Julie………… see looks like a kayaky girl to me

Also did you note how they stressed 'MP' when they introduced…………. she's obviously this year#s posh totty. Anyway, she's got a nice big bum………… should keep her wedged in that kayak………….

Nine days of that sort of thing should set her up nicely for her return to the House of Commons…

But despite that, overall, so far so good I think - no banana skins trodden on yet. It just depends what role the producers think she should fill in the show's ongoing narrative…

Hard on the heels of the inclusion of Lynne Featherstone (54) in Adam Boulton's “Top 10 Most Fanciable MPs” comes the news that rock goddess Suzi Quatro (55) is releasing a new album any day now.

Now if only Virgin Atlantic would re-start showing its legroom advert, the one that so memorably featured Helen Mirren…

Isn't it completely predictable? Having knocked down CK, Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes (not exactly difficult tasks, admittedly) it's now time for for the guns to be turned on Ming. It starts here, with an utterly unsourced story in the Guardian (unsourced unless you count that obscure amoeba Ben Ramm, who makes the pre-Big Brother Chantelle Houghton look high-profile). I daresay it won't stop until he's been forced into making his last oncology test results public. If I were Chris Huhne, I'd be looking in the mirror right now, searching for the little red dot of the laser sight on my forehead.

I'm no fan of Mark Oaten, as I think I've made clear, but this is rather a shame. The thing I'm saddest to see is him apologising to his family - immediately revealing the furtive sordidness of it all. No-one hires a rent boy for that length of time for cash, surely? Which would imply that it was a relationship that meant something to them both rather than a mere cash transaction. Or am I just being naively optimistic? Probably.

But I can't help remembering when I was a reporter on the Surrey Comet and the local Tory MEP Tom Spencer got busted, how incredibly maturely he and his family handled the whole thing.

Spencer was caught by customs coming back from Europe with gay porn movies and drugs in his bag. The porn turned out to be a gift from his occasional lover, the star of the movies. With his career in ruins around him, he very frankly told reporters that his wife knew he was bisexual when she married him and was quite happy for him to have the occasional weekend off to explore that side of his character. The wife was equally frank and even the kids couldn't see a problem with the arrangement.

To be honest, I couldn't see what he'd done wrong (apart from the derisory amount of drugs he was found with) and I'm pretty sure I remember making that obvious to him when I interviewed him. The story I wrote wasn't exactly scathing, either.

Maybe - hopefully - what happened with Mark Oaten will turn out to be something not too dissimilar.

Having said all that, Oaten was a berk for standing in the leadership election with that hanging over his head. He would have been asked 'why not' if he didn't stand, but he was talking about unity candidates within moments of Kennedy's resignation so could have got away with it.

I drove up to my parents' for a few hours on Christmas Day and while I was on the road the radio did that thing that all station programmers are said to aspire to, but never actually achieve: it played the three songs I most wanted to hear at that moment, in a row.

I'm not a big fan of Christmas songs, no sane person truly is, but there are some I can tolerate and three I like a lot. One you hear often, one you hear sometimes, and one you hear so rarely that you'd have more chance of winning the lottery than have it randomly play on the radio while you're driving.

Nevertheless, let it be noted that on Christmas Day 2005, Virgin Radio played Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses, a near-miss of a festive hit from the early 80s which I bought as a kid on white vinyl.

The final notes faded out and I was smiling nostalgically when, glory of glories, the start of Fairytale of New York kicked in. Anyone who saw my recent “In Memorium” post will have already guessed that song was always going to be at the top of my “listenable Christmas songs” list - it has been since the moment I first heard it. I drove along enjoying it and thought “all I need now is for them to play Jonah Lewie's Stop the Cavalry“.

And blow me if that isn't exactly what they did.

Not everyone likes that song, but I do because it's so wonderfully morose and downbeat.

Nice one, Virgin.

Trouble is, in the middle of all that I drove five miles past the motorway services where I needed to stop to buy flowers and petrol and had to turn back, making me late for Christmas dinner.

Worth it, though.

I made a last-minute visit to Tesco earlier today and found the managers up step ladders and sitting on top of the veg displays, taking down all the decorations so that when the store reopens (presumably on Boxing Day) all that Christmas stuff is firmly in the past, where it belongs. So I thought I'd write this:

A Christmas poem, with illustrations, by Andy Darley, aged 37 and three quarters.

'Twas the night before Christmas and Tesco was packed
I'd hoped to avoid it but finally cracked
Veg canelloni and tortilla chips
Green & Blacks' finest puts weight on my hips

The meat aisles were bare - all the joints had gone
If you wanted a turkey you'd find there were none
And all 'round the store the managers ran
To pull down the tinsel according to plan

Decorations vanished, the season deposed -
For Tesco it ended the moment they closed
It's all about profit, the year's highest sales
Compared with all that, the Nativity pales.

It seems to be the thing at the moment to be amused by newspaper bills - the posters with breathless headlines that papers give to their street vendors and newsagents to help shift copies.

The Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2005 set on Flickr has such classics as “TOOTHPASTE CANCER ALERT”, “MAN BEHEADED IN LONDON STREET”, “IPOD HEALTH ALERT” and “DOG STOLEN AT GUNPOINT”. But anyone who's ever seen the “Sub“, as we called the Standard when I was on the Kilburn Times, will know to expect that sort of thing.

More obscure, and therefore far more amusing, is the Cardiff Terrifies Me blog. This targets the bills put out by the South Wales Echo and all I can say is I'm awful glad I don't live over there: “DRUNK TEACHERS FLED FROM CAR CRASH”, “SEX TRAFFIC PAIR LOCKED UP”, “'MY BROTHER KILLED SHIRLEY'” and the chilling “MUSLIM PUPILS IN SAUSAGE ROLL BLUNDER”. Note that the last one says 'blunder' and not 'blender'.

So here's my sole contribution, published here to show that while some parts of the United Kingdom are hotbeds of sex, drunkenness, dog theft and inappropriate sausage meat, other areas are just a little bit calmer.

From the West Briton, mid November, Helston in Cornwall:

Issues To Be Looked At After Action Day
Isn't it exciting? Isn't it intriguing? Doesn't it just make you want to rush out and buy the paper RIGHT NOW?
Me neither.

Thinking back on the run-up to the Human League gig in Manchester earlier this month, it's fair to say I wasn't looking forward to it with quite the same enthusiasm as I had done the previous ones we'd been to.

There was a lot of other stuff going on in our lives, we spent the whole of November away, and when you've met a band twice and seen them play three times in four years it's maybe reasonable to think they don't have much more to offer you - especially if it's a band that's not currently releasing new material. I was looking forward to visiting family, sure - but as for the gig, well, I suppose I was a bit 'ho-hum' about it.

Which just goes to show how wrong you can be.

The Manchester Apollo is the sort of seedy-but-sound venue that provides the perfect setting for a gig - most of the ones I've ever been to before have been staged in soulless concrete and breezeblock theatres or student halls. The Apollo may lack modern creature comforts, but it makes up for that in atmosphere.

Support act Hoboken had apparently been going down a storm during the tour - at one gig the singer is said to have responded to cheers by saying “you do know we're not the Human League, don't you?” - but they didn't do anything much for us. The singer has a fantastic voice, a Scottish baritone with shades of Midge Ure to it, but he ought to be showcasing it on torch songs, not burying it in a succession of gloomy synthesiser layer-cakes that all sound the same as the one before.

The Human League came on stage at 9pm and the entire Apollo immediately stood up (it's an all-seater venue) and for the most part stayed standing. We were at the end of row M, on the far right of the auditorium / left of the stage (we always seem to end up on Jo's side, never Susans's). At the very end of the row I was able to step into the aisle, but Jules and Beloved Other Half were stuck behind tall people and could barely see. We all therefore missed what was said later to be a dramatic and stylish start to the first song, Tell Me When.

This was a brave choice for an opener as it was a big hit in 1996 - a date so late that it goes straight over the heads of the casual '80s nostalgia' fans. But it's a stormer of a song, and sounds just like a Human League hit should - catchy, driven by a pounding electronic bassline, featuring soaring high notes for Jo and Susan to hit more often than not, and a vaguely stalkerish lyric that Phil's distinctive deep voice can use to give a poppy song a darker edge than it deserves.

After that, it just got better.

All three of us moved out into the aisle to see more clearly, at which point security came over and warned us we were blocking it and couldn't stay there for health and safety reasons. We had the option, we were told, of standing in front of our seats or going up the front, right by the stage.

Guess which we chose?

We ended up almost at the stage itself, with only a couple of people in front of us, and in almost the same position as we were in last year at Reading - poor Jo must think we're stalking her. More people drifted to the front as the night went on, but we were never unduly crowded. Everyone was good-natured and even the security was smiley. They were even allowing photos, and I cursed myself again and again for forgetting my camera.

The band played for an hour and a half and performed 20 songs, including two in the encore - far more than in previous years. Looking through the setlist, it was cleverly designed. The first half was made up either of good songs that weren't huge hits, such as Louise, The Lebanon and Heart Like a Wheel, or Christmas presents for hardcore fans - the album track The Things That Dreams Are Made Of, the 2001 single All I Ever Wanted, the breakthrough hit Sound of the Crowd, and the obscure, stark electronic track Marianne from 1980.

At the midpoint came Susan's and Jo's costume break - off they went for two songs, Empire State Human from before they joined the band and Rock and Roll is Dead, a 2003 single by Kings Have Long Arms that Phil did guest vocals on, and back they came having swapped the catsuits and PVC for swirly Flamenco frocks and little black dresses. Then came a song for them to carry while Phil went for his costume change, and after that we were well into the second half and a crescendo of hits.

Human first, because it was an American number one and so has to be in the set even though no-one really likes it, and then all the tracks the nostalgia crowd had come for and which even the most insular long-term fan loves singing along to. Don't You Want Me ended the main set (of course) and the first song of the encore was Being Boiled, partly because it's an iconic classic from which most of today's electronic music can trace its roots and partly because it lets the girls go off for another costume change.

Traditionally their encore outfits are gloriously over the top - Jo's lime green tutu and black rubber bodice from last year had to be seen to be believed. This year Susan had gone for the Catholic schoolgirl look while Jo wore a Liza Minelli Cabaret bowler hat (very effective with her severely bobbed hair) and grey shorts. The final song was, inevitably, Together in Electric Dreams, which always turns into a mass sing-along and sends everybody off hoarse and glowing happily.

Comparing the show with 2001, when we first saw them, it was almost like watching a different band. Then, they were in the middle of the shambles that saw their record company shut down just at the point it should have been promoting their new single, album and tour. The set was cheap, the support band were dire, and the stage show was static. We loved every moment (although we nearly died for them when the computers conked out mid-set and took 10 minutes to fix) but I suspect that we would have been a lot more critical if it wasn't the first live show we'd been to for a decade. In interviews since, they've admitted that their confidence was low and they were wondering whether anyone would turn up and if there was any point in even continuing with the band.

That was the low point - as the tour continued it became obvious there was still a core of fans that would follow them around the country and desperately wanted them to continue. (The Secrets Online website and messageboard had a lot to do with this.) The Things That Dreams Are Made Of, that year's encore song, became a rallying cry for the faithful and the band took heart. They headlined a 'Here and Now' nostalgia tour for the money the next year, but since then they've toured every autumn in their own right, and we've seen them every time. They've got better, more confident, and more ambitious each year. Keyboardists Neil Sutton and Nic Burke have become more integrated into the act, coming up to the front more often and playing a much greater role than previously. Nic, who's also a guitarist, particularly adds a lot in terms of movement and energy.

Phil apparently said a couple of years ago that he wanted them to be the best live band in the business - at the height of their fame their record company told them they weren't the sort of band that did tours, so I suspect it's a bit of a new experience for them, this business of screaming fans and hands outstretched towards the stage, and they certainly seem to love it and be inspired to new heights by it. I don't have the wider experience necessary to judge whether Phil's ambition has been achieved or not, but I do know when I've been royally entertained, and I was that night.

I don't know where the future is leading for the Human League. Phil has apparently done an interview in which he said this year would be the last in the present format, whatever that means. But he's said that in the past, too. There's talk (again, not for the first time) of new material and new plans, this time with the aim of pulling the mainstream towards them - an ambitious but exciting prospect.

In the last few years we've seen U2, Duran Duran, Morrissey, Erasure and New Order (to name but a few) come storming back with new material. Why not the Human League too?

Setlist

1. Tell Me When
2. Heart Like a Wheel
3. Sin City
4. The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
5. The Lebanon
6. Louise
7. Marianne
8. All I Ever Wanted
9. The Sound of the Crowd
10. Rock'n'Roll is Dead
11. Empire State Human
12. Love is All That Matters
13. Human
14. Love Action (I Believe in Love)
15. Open Your Heart
16. Mirror Man
17. (Keep Feeling) Fascination
18. Don't You Want Me?
19. Being Boiled
20. Together in Electric Dreams