No wonder Jade thought she'd be singing for 'England'

Alwyn ap Huw has a piece lamenting Mark's failure to win Your Country Needs You, and wishing that S4C was able to put him forward as a separate Welsh entry. Naturally, I agree wholeheartedly (on the latter point, I mean!). But at least Wales can say they've had the likes of Jessica Garlick and James Fox compete under the UK flag over the last few years.

But Scotland? Our last Eurovision entrant was the legendarily luckless Scott Fitzgerald (runner-up to Celine Dion by one point) way back in 1988. Even more strikingly, as far as I can see since 1997 just one Scottish act has even got as far as competing in the UK national selection - City Chix in 2006. With Scotland having a full 9% of the population, that can't be put down to mere chance. Don't want to cry discrimination, but sometimes statistics speak for themselves...

Solutions to the Eurovision political voting problem

I went out of my way to defend Terry Wogan on the All Kinds of Everything blog yesterday (I know, I've got an unhealthy fixation with that place), so it was a bit disappointing to hear him make such fatalistic remarks about the future of the Eurovision Song Contest in his commentary tonight. If he's ready to call it a day, that's his prerogative, but the idea that the entirety of western Europe is going to join him in doing so is a bit melodramatic. I wouldn't deny for a moment there's a serious problem with political voting, but the irony is that this is the year a significant first step was made towards addressing that issue. The new rules that applied at the semi-final stage successfully produced a fair balance between western and eastern qualifiers for the first time in years, so now all that's needed is a similar innovation to sort out the problem in the final. Off the top of my head, I can think of four possibilities that would provide at least a partial solution.

1) Allow each country to award points to fifteen different entries, instead of the current ten. This wouldn't have been feasible in the past, but now that only the top marks are read out, it would no longer slow proceedings down at all. Of course, under this system the top points would still be awarded on a neighbourly basis, but it's reasonable to assume the lower set of points would be distributed more on merit, leading to a fairer overall outcome. An example to illustrate - if a country happened to finish twelfth out of twenty-five in every single televote, under the current system it would finish last with no points at all. That simply can't be considered a fair reflection of the result people are actually voting for.

2) Allow each country to award points to five eastern countries, and five western countries. This would have the advantage of still allowing viewers to decide the result, and still to vote for whichever country they like - indeed it would be a strong incentive to cast two votes - but it would also, at a stroke, neutralise the in-built advantage eastern countries currently enjoy.

3) The BBC could surrender its 'Big Four' status in exchange for something more worthwhile - separate representation in the contest for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It would be the right thing to do on its own merits, but it would also produce a new British Isles voting bloc that could balance out its counterparts in the Balkans, the Baltic, Scandinavia, and the ex-Soviet Union. And if anyone tells you Scotland would never award high marks to England, I can tell you for certain they're wrong. Apart from anything else, about 8% of the population is English-born.

4) Revert to a 50/50 weighting for the jury and televote. Probably the simplest solution, in that it's been done before, at least in some countries.

On the contest itself, I was a bit disappointed to see Russia run away with it - as I said before Serbia, Portugal and Albania were my favourites, but I would still have been much happier to see Greece, Ukraine or Armenia take the crown than Russia. Ah well, it's all a matter of personal taste at the end of the day. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing my prediction turn out to be close to the money, although it wasn't exactly a tough one to call this year! And at least the song that was 'clearly the worst in the whole contest' (© Keith Mills 2008) somehow managed to finish 5th out of 43 entries. Wonder how it managed that?

Couldn't they have yodelled for Scotland?

Having had a few days to reflect on the riot in Manchester on Wednesday, it strikes me that this is genuinely the first time in my life that I've ever felt a little bit ashamed to be Scottish. Wouldn't it be nice for the country to get a swift opportunity to present a more positive image of itself to the rest of Europe, and what better arena to do that than the carnival of fun, colour and refreshingly non-violent skulduggery that is the Eurovision Song Contest? Sadly, though, we've never been allowed to compete in our own right, and there's no sign of that situation changing any time soon. Personally, I've always sensed that if the BBC were willing to trade their 'Big 4' status in exchange for separate representation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that would be likely to gain some traction from other countries, but to date they've shown no sign of putting that case forward. That being the position, it's about time Scottish songwriters and artists at least started getting a fair crack of the whip for the UK at Eurovision - it's been a full two decades since a Scot last represented the country (Scott Fitzgerald). And, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the whole time since then it seems to me there have only been two Scottish acts in the UK national selection - City Chix with All About You a couple of years ago, and the unforgettably-titled Yodel in the Canyon of Love that almost upset the apple-cart for Katrina and the Waves in 1997. With 9% of the UK population, two songs in two decades is not exactly generous representation, is it?

This, ladies and gentlemen, has been an insight into the trials and tribulations of being a Eurovision fan and a Scottish nationalist all at the same time. I've suffered from the affliction for years...