With the local elections out of the way and my sleep patterns returned to something approaching normal, it’s time to move on to something infinitely more important than politics: the annual festival of pop and patriotism, key changes and campery, that is the Eurovision Song Contest.

We have two evenings of nonsense to look forward to: the semi-final on Thursday, and the main event itself on Saturday night.

I aim to review the runners and riders for the semi-final before the show on Thursday (something of a deadline to work towards there), but I’m also going to post up a daily “Then and Now” video, courtesy of the magic (and dubious copyright) of YouTube. We begin with Denmark.

Last year’s entry Twist of Love didn’t score well, so Denmark must once again fight their way to the final. This was also the case three years ago, when one of my favourite entries of that year, by Tomas Thordarson, failed to win the approval of the viewers and was knocked out at the semi-final stage. Here he is – in promo video form, as it’s better than the less impressive live performance – with 2004’s entry, Shame On You:

That was then, so what do they have in store this year? You may well ask. Following last year’s victory by demon rockers Lordi, many countries have opted for guitar acts (of which more later). Not so Denmark. Their selection – the drag act DQ – stands a good chance of appealing to those who like their Eurovision camp and poppy but without veering towards the silly (compared to, say, the controversial Ukrainian entry). Bearing some similarities with Israel’s 1998 winner Diva, this is Drama Queen:

…though I suspect I’ll feel worse rather than better after 2 hours’ sleep…

Stumbled across this story about the local elections in Wealden, the district where I grew up.

Now, all parties, including my own, have trouble finding candidates in some areas, but, even knowing how sparse Wealden is for Labour (they have no seats on the district and only five at county level), their number of candidates really surprised me.

Conservatives: 51
Liberal Democrats: 36
Independents: 15
Greens: 12
Labour 2:
UKIP: 1

Two candidates? For over 50 seats? Crikey: this is the party running the country.

Here’s the recipe: a clip from a conference speech, some photos of politicians, and a message about culpability for an unpopular war.

The result: a new video on YouTube.