The UK's dreadful showing in the Eurovision song contest on Saturday is acknowledged with bad grace in today's papers. "We won the cold war but we lost the Eurovision," Terry Wogan complained yesterday, accusing the Scandinavians and the former eastern bloc of blatantly biased voting. Ireland came last.
The former DJ Mike Read was more frank. Scooch's song, Flying the Flag, was "weak" and the choreography "appalling", he said. The Guardian blames the demise of panel voting. "Sadly, the valiant cabin crew were preceded by Ukraine's foil-wrapped mob. Our campness simply was outclassed," says Janine Gibson.
Some observers suggest scrapping the UK entry and allowing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to compete separately, "in the hope the four countries could at least back each other," says the Mirror. A touching thought, but unlikely.
The winner was a powerful ballad called "Molitva" (Prayer) sung by Serbia's Marija Serifovic. "This victory is for the new Serbia," she said, making a clenched fist victory salute that was "widely seen as a gesture of defiance" towards ultranationalist groups.
"Serbia's tabloid newspapers had sent her up relentlessly, writing maliciously about her parents' divorce, her 'non-feminine' looks and presumed 'different' sexual preferences," the Independent reports. Encouragingly, the UK red-tops mostly steer clear of Marija-bashing today, with the exception of the Star: "Looking like a soggy Ronnie Corbett with mumps, Marija spent her three minutes on stage attempting to pass a particularly stubborn kidney stone."
* This is an edited extract from the Wrap, our emailed digest of the daily papers. Try it free for 30 days.
