Was it really necessary to make all the acts stand on stage "Strictly Come Dancing" style, to be told they were to be booted off and have to do a Weakest Link walk of shame?

It's bad enough successful acts are scared of entering for fear of losing, and this just makes it worse.

Then they announce the wrong winner! Poor Cyndi. I really felt sorry for her.

I thought Big Brovaz should have won, and am a bit disappointed.

The winner reminds me of the Vengaboys' We're Going To Ibiza.

I must admit I was rather looking forward to seeing the usual "reverse voting" regional procedure like last year, and seeing the big names skulk off with no points. I assume they did it in the rather vague way last night so as not to overly humiliate Brian Harvey and Liz McClarnon, who seemingly came right at the bottom of the public vote.

There's no way the BBC will be able to entice any big names to enter next year.

The first thing I did (strongly against the TV/Celeb mentality) was to say we didn't WANT big names. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Besides which, when was the last time Elton (for example) wrote or sang a hit?

And you limit yourself to one style. Hits do not obey style limitations.

Didn't do Cliff, Lulu or Sandy any harm years ago.
I think Lordi were fairly big in Finland when they entered the Euro, and won it, with their very un-eurovision song.

There's no reason big names should be deterred if they want to enter a song, so long as they don't take it too seriously and storm off in a huff if lose. It's about having a good song, which remains good even if rejected by the voters, and about approaching the contest with the right attitude.

That said, Justin tried to crossover styles and failed.

His "Thing Called Love" track would have been a Eurovision winner if it gone down that route.

The "names" featured last night did not leave the stage like they were anybody, at a time of such uncertainty in the business, this is a disaster.

The battle is being won by X-Factor vision mentality.

Look at this year's lot - Brian Harvey / Justin Hawkins / Scooch - all has-beens ! Scooch even had to reform in order to resurrect their career after 6 years in the wilderness !

Even in past years - eg Nicki French and Katrina (of Waves fame) - all well past their sell-by date and simply took on Eurovision as a bit of a (hopefully) career booster, and to add to their pension funds !

Exactly MM, I`m afraid it`s a case of wheel in the wannabe`s.

Manager Man wrote:
Look at this year's lot - Brian Harvey / Justin Hawkins / Scooch - all has-beens ! Scooch even had to reform in order to resurrect their career after 6 years in the wilderness !

Even in past years - eg Nicki French and Katrina (of Waves fame) - all well past their sell-by date and simply took on Eurovision as a bit of a (hopefully) career booster, and to add to their pension funds !
Umberto Tozzi is one of Europe's most successful songwriters (probably one of the best ever, actually) and did quite well with "Gente di Mare" pretty late in his career.

A plug for Tozzi: he wrote the classic weepie "Ti Amo".

Let's not forget Gloria, Michael.

Gente di Mare came 3rd in 1987. One of my all time favourite Eurovision songs. It should have won. A lot of fantastic music comes out of Italy. Shame they don't bother with Eurovision any more.