It's my time...

Or rather it really is the time for this particular blog, which tries rather unnaturally to be simultaneously about both the Eurovision Song Contest and Scottish politics from a nationalist perspective. So what could be better - or more improbable - than a UK Eurovision selection final featuring a cameo by none other than the SNP's Pete Wishart MP? OK, there probably are quite a few things that would be better, but at least it allows me to marry both subjects in the same post for once!

So Jade goes to Moscow! The outcome I desperately wanted, but certainly wasn't predicting. But the revelation of the night for me was how beautifully the twins performed It's My Time, and for the first time I started to understand Lloyd-Webber's point about how special it can be when two close siblings sing in harmony. It was a subtler performance than the other two acts, and in a perverse way there's a little bit of me that's disappointed they won't get the chance to repeat that performance on the Eurovision stage. But in any case they thoroughly deserved their second place on the night.

The other delight about the outcome is that we can now look forward to four solid months of Keith Mills smugly telling us the UK have no chance because our singer "oozes far more confidence that her limited vocal range would support". Charmin'. Perhaps we should swap her for the "almost perfect" Chris Doran? (OK, that's maybe a bit too catty even for me!)

Final thought - ever since I heard the title of the song (which is growing on me nicely, by the way) I've been wondering what the 'it's my time' lyric reminded me of from a Eurovision point of view. It suddenly struck me a couple of hours ago - it's this song...

That, for the uninitiated, is Evelin Samuel's Diamond of Night, the 1999 Estonian entry. Very different type of song of course (it's practically a lullaby), but it's one of my all-time favourites, and I think at this stage we'd probably settle for a repeat of its sixth-placed finish! It also had the distinction, as Terry Wogan pointed out in his commentary, of being the last Eurovision song of the twentieth century, since it was the last in the running order that year. That is, except for those people who think the twentieth century ended on 31 December, 2000!