A vague lay-in interrupted by dad on the phone. I think he often thinks Britain is on the same time as France, so calls an hour earlier than he should. A shocking way to wake up, on account of the fact the answerphone grabbed the call and I had to run from warm-bed to cold lounge to recsue him from the tedium of distorted digital recording.

Passed the morning at the PC, trawling through old editions of The Lab and picking out best-of bits for a pre-Christmas compilation. Lots of fun, and plenty of bits that made me smile. Found just over 11 minutes of amusing bits and bobs, and laced them together. Just need to sort out the levels so they are all happy volumes, and it’s done.

Mooched into town to retrieve my car from the station where I’d left it last night after the party. It was being used as an obstacle by the skateboarders who clearly realise that nobody watches the security cameras.

Town was horribly busy, as is to be expected at this time of year. Christmas shopping is the worst bit of Christmas. I ended up coming home empty handed, but am almost finished anyway.

Car safely back in my posession, I drove down to see Mark and Ja in South Woodham Ferrers. Peter, Ystabub and the other Nick turned up in due course for videos and food. We ended up watching an episode of Sex and The City, and Mark’s recording of the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest.

It was held in Yugoslavia that year, on a shiny stage in a nasty sports centre-like building in Zagreb. Several cock-ups: Spain went on first and the non-live backing track was exposed when the girls walked on and the music faded in a minute later. They did some lacklustre dancing then stormed off. They couldn’t get in touch with the Yugoslav jury, which was voting from the same city as the studio hosting the contest, and then when the winner (Italy) performed his song again at the end he caused havoc by walking out into the audience, trailing the press pack behind him. They started to clamber over the audience members, kicking dignitaries in the face as they swung their legs over the backs of the seats.

Michael Buerk presented the traditional post-contest news bulletin. Russia was blocking Lithuania’s gas supply and moving tanks around in Vilnius while maintaining that nothing suspicious was going on (apart from a revolution, as we all know now), East and West Germany were uniting (and several of the Eurovision songs alluded to this) and while Bath played rugby at Twickenham, football supporters were rioting in Bournemouth.

1. Eurovision
   Two stories about the Eurovision Song Contest in the news today, neither of which I am sure point to good times ahead. The first, in...
   
   
2. Belgian Eurovision upset
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3. Eurovision 1982
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