That contest

Things have come a long way in a year. It's certainly a world of difference between tonight's Eurovision Song Contest and the disappointing results of last year's angiogram.

It was a bit of a mad, rushed day in general, beginning with a rather stressful DART experience. The time board in Sandycove/Glasthule station was showing a 25-minute wait when I reached the platform, but first it got stuck at that, then it changed to 26 minutes, then to 24 and got stuck again. At one stage the second train looked as if it would get there before the first one, until 24 minutes suddenly changed to 12 and things returned to some sort of normality. Once the train actually got there, the journey across the city was painfully slow, and I was in foul humour when I eventually turned the key in my house door. What an ordeal (made all the worse by the last few hours of the rain which had been lashing down throughout the night).

It was all a bit of a mad rush grabbing brekky, burning a CD, getting to the music session, enduring a dreadful 30-minute presentation at the end (the once-highly-respected Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, performing a 'choreographed' version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Painful, it was. I didn't bother joining the others in the pub afterwards, just went straight home and got stuck into house-tidying in readiness for the arrival of Carl the house guest who was due to stay over in advance of his business trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, tomorrow morning. I got things looking respectable in good time for the beginning of the song contest, and actually quite enjoyed it. The voting wasn't quite as enjoyable, with hardly anyone giving points to Ireland (still, at least we didn't finish last like the UK). I was pleased enough with Germany's win (it's good to see 'Old' Europe come good again after all those years in the wilderness).

The contest was over by the time Carl arrived, we had a nightcap, and so ended the day.