Eurovision voting guide

The conventional thinking is that you have to be gay or pissed to enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest, but I've devised a way of keeping geeks like me interested. What you do, is score each entry according to the criteria below, and see who's your winner. You'll notice that musical excellence is not a factor. It's all about encouraging good practice and eliminating cheesiness. If you like cheesiness, just reverse all the rules. (I think that's what most national juries already do.)

1. Start by giving each song 10 points.

2. Add one point if the singer is female. (Or male, depending on your preference. If you're even more sexist than me, you can add points for shortness of skirt, tightness of trousers, etc.)

3. Deduct one point for use of a wind machine. (See left: the poor girl can barely stand up.)

4. Deduct one point for each key change. If the singing is so bad you can't tell if there's been a key change, deduct two points.

5. Deduct one point for each person other than the singer on stage. (The rules allow six people, which is why so many countries have five dancers. We should reward countries who are prepared to trust to the pure abilities of their singer. But what if there are two singers - twins, perhaps? See step 9.)

6. Add five points if the song is not in English. (Remember the days when songs had to be in each country's own language. Back then we only suspected the lyrics were all nonsense.)

7. Deduct three points for any song from the former Yugoslavia. (They'll all vote for each other, anyway, WHICH IS A GOOD THING: twenty years ago they were slaughtering each other. But they don't need our help now.)

8. Add up to a maximum of five points according to how much the singer and the song remind you of Kate Bush. (Again, you can tailor this to your own preference, choosing a singer you like. But I don't think you'll find many singers remind you of Nick Drake, for example.)

9. Deduct any remaining points if the singers happen to be Irish twins.

At the end of the show you should have a winner. But if it's Englebert Humperdinck, something's gone horribly wrong. So we need an emergency rule 10: deduct 10 points for any song in 3/4 time. Phew. Enjoy the show! But this does all seem a bit too much like hard work. I think I'll stick to plan A and just get pissed.