Eurovision: Every loser's whinge

With it being Eurovision day, it's time for the now annual disclaiming of responsibility for earlier disasters. Because, naturally, doing a poor performance of a rubbish song is never the reason the UK loses.

Andy Abrahams turned up on BBC Breakfast blaming them pesky Eastern Europeans for his failure to score many points - apparently they colluded to vote against a poor performance of a rubbish song.

And six bloody years on, Jemini are still wailing how their loss wasn't down to them at all:

[Chris Cromby] said: “We were confident about representing the UK, but it all went tits up on the night.

“The hall it was held in wasn’t a music stadium, it was a sports hall, so it wasn’t somewhere which usually holds concerts.

“The monitors weren’t working, Gemma couldn’t hear herself, so she was out of tune.

“The BBC blamed our management and our management blamed the BBC.”

Ah yes. How hard for Jemini, forced to compete in a sports hall. When, erm, everyone else was performing in exactly the same bloody place.

Chris said: “As each country’s votes came in, we had a glass of wine. It was probably a good job we didn’t have to go back on to sing, because we were tipsy.

“About halfway through, we knew we wouldn’t get any votes, but it made us stand out, everyone remembers us.

“It is a talking point and it is going to be on my grave at the end. We get the odd person who gives us a bit of stick but we find the majority of people are great and very supportive.

“It was a brilliant experience, but I would not do it again.”

Chris, sweetheart. I know you might think that "everyone remembers you", but frankly, when people talk of Eurovision, it tends to be Cliff, or Sandie Shaw. Bucks Fizz. I don't think anyone remembers you, except once a year when you pop up to try and deny that you scored no points because you gave a poor performance of a rubbish song.

This year, Jade Ewen is promising to come top five. All that's really up for debate is how poor her performance of the rubbish song will be.