Will Eurovision 2011 be a Broad Church?

I've just been catching up on the rumour-mill surrounding this year's UK entry for Eurovision, with suggestions that Charlotte Church, Katherine Jenkins, Pixie Lott or even (weirdly) Madonna will be our representative.  We can probably safely discount the latter possibility, but I must say I'm mildly encouraged by all this, because it presumably means the BBC are planning a return to the moderately successful 1992-4 arrangement of an internal selection of the performer, but a public vote to decide the song.  As I've mentioned before, I'd much rather see a completely open selection, but the worst of all worlds is what happened last year, with everything resting on the judgement of a single songwriter who clearly didn't have a clue where the contest was 'at'.  All we need to ensure now is that John Barrowman and his oh-so-helpful attempts to 'guide' the public's choice are kept well clear of the selection show!

As for the three songs to be selected so far, if the contest were to stop right now probably the Swiss entry - In Love For A While by Anna Rossinelli - would be the winner.  That's not saying a great deal.  The Romanian song is pleasant, uptempo, and utterly unmemorable, while the Albanian entry is a complete dog's breakfast - although admittedly that always seems to be the case at this stage in proceedings, so it would be rash to write it off altogether.  Whatever radical surgery they perform, though, I can't believe it's going to be a patch on Juliana Pasha last year.  Hopefully something more inspiring will be along soon from other countries.