Surprised and shocked!

As the media in western Europe still remain in shock, The 2007 Semi final of the Eurovision Song Contest has produced one major story. All ten qualifiers are from the East and Central Europe. Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia are all from ex-Yugoslavia. Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and Latvia are all former Soviet Union states. Turkey are the most South-Eastern outpost and Hungary and Bulgaria are to the East.

Countries tipped to do well such as Switzerland, Cyprus, Malta, Norway, Denmark, Andorra and Netherlands along with Portugal, Iceland and Belgium once again miss out. Whether it is political voting taking a stronger hand than ever remains to be seen until the voting numbers are announced.

The following is an extract from the doteurovision.com website and I think it tells a lot of what everyone else is thinking:
What transpired last night was the end of the Eurovision as we know it. Never one to jump readily onto the death of the Contest bandwagon, in the past I have always thought it would survive the many changes it has been subjected to one way or another, it has not missed the languages, it has not missed the orchestra and it has not missed the juries. But if there is one thing guaranteed to break up the party, one thing guaranteed to end long running institutions, one thing guaranteed to end the entente cordiale, it is the perception that one group amongst us is up to no good. Scurrilously trying to claim the contest for itself by mobilising support for its allies in the way we saw last night. It was a travesty and, quite frankly, a piss take of the highest order. How can countries such as Malta, Cyprus and Iceland justify sending several dozen people to a foreign country for over a week, paying for hotel bills, transport, living expenses and wages only to realise that the quality of the song they have taken has absolutely nothing to do with the result? Well the answer is, they DO realise this after last night, and there ARE serious questions being asked. There is a depth of feeling now which indicates that idle threats of the past may now progress to action.