Chiara's hat-trick

Exciting news that the brilliant Chiara will sing for Malta for a third time at the Eurovision Song Contest in May - not even Johnny Logan and Cliff Richard managed the hat-trick! In Birmingham in 1998 she finished third, in Kyiv in 2005 she was second - will she complete the logical sequence and win this time round? Probably not given that her song What If We isn't quite strong enough, but as ever her vocal performance will get the maximum value out of it, and I certainly expect her to coast through to the final.

Stalin or Hitler?

It's the debate that's raged for decades - was Stalin worse than Hitler? Is communism intrinsically even more evil than fascism? This story settles the matter conclusively. It seems fascist countries could only win the Eurovision Song Contest by cheating. Communism may be responsible for the deaths of millions, but one thing is beyond dispute - it won its sole victory at the Eurovision by talent (ahem) alone.

I'm sure no-one needs reminding, but the song in question was "Rock me, baby" by Riva, which won for Yugoslavia in 1989. As with the seemingly corrupt Spanish victory in 1968, it was the UK that was edged into second place with the (really quite good) "Why Do I Always Get It Wrong?". To clarify in the words of the Swiss host on the night - "that isn't my question, it's the name of song from United Kingdom..."