It's not her time (From This Is Cheshire)

It's not her time

in Leisure By Christine Klabacher

BEARING in mind the mauling UK entries have received in recent years, it was more than little presumptuous of this year's sacrificial lamb, Jade Ewen, to arrive at the Eurovision Song Contest with a song entitled It's My Time.

Three hours later, it patently wasn't - although finishing fifth was probably as good as it is ever going to get for the UK, until we start sending bona fide singing stars to represent us.

And therein lies the problem. Whatever we think of this contest, in the rest of Europe they love it and send their well-known singers to battle for the honours.

Meanwhile, we scratch around for a C-list 'name' to fill that role - or choose an unknown, as we did this year.

Established acts have no wish to become involved, in case they face the embarrassment of propping up the table when voting is complete. But wouldn't it be wonderful, just once, to see a top name representing the UK?

And surely we can come up with something better than the lame Norwegian ditty that won at the weekend. Am I alone in wondering how on earth it ended with a record number of votes?

As usual, the evening was dotted with 'is this for real?' moments. Possibly the most bizarre was the Danish entrant singing a song by Ronan Keating as Ronan Keating. And then there were the random talking heads delivering the votes from across Europe, ranging from the serious to the seriously deranged.

Let's face it, that just about sums up the contest as a whole.