Something I’ve learnt today, having never previously felt the need to read Matthew Taylor’s official profile. Turns out the LibDem MP’s dad is Ken Taylor, who wrote, among other things, the excellent BBC adaptation of Sleeping Murder. It’s one of my favourite Joan Hickson Miss Marples (yes, ITV, Miss Marple), with a particularly nightmare-inducing climax.

“Where would you draw the line?” asked the trailers for BBC Two’s The Line of Beauty. Having watched the lacklustre first episode, I was tempted to draw it there. No, I thought, I’ll give it another chance – maybe it’ll get going in the second episode – and, fair enough, the second part was a little better, but still pretty naff. (I was doing my best to watch the last half hour while also listening with one ear to James Graham on the radio – more on that story later – but I don’t think I missed anything.)

I haven’t read the book (not really my sort of thing), but I understand that much of its success is down to Alan Hollinghurst’s use of language rather than the plot. This would certainly be supported by Andrew Davies’s adaptation which, although peppered with incident, lacks any real interest. The few plot twists present are so heavily signposted that nothing comes as a surprise. That the MP is having an affair with his PA is telegraphed earlier in the episode; that Leo would get bad AIDS is foreshadowed explicitly by (the rather good) Floella Benjamin in episode one. Oh, and you can tell who has AIDS in The Line of Beauty because they cough.

The story presents little insight into the 1980s. We learn that some Tory MPs were racist, some Tory MPs were homophobic, that some gay men had promiscuous sex (and some caught AIDS), and that yuppies took cocaine (a line of beauty – geddit?). It’s hardly ground-breaking stuff, is it? Stephen Tall – who has been enjoying the series and can offer an alternative view – flags up the episode’s one fun scene, where the main character, Nick, dances with the PM. (Presumably the decision was taken not to make any effort to impersonate Mrs T – you wouldn’t recognise her unless you knew.) Also on the plus side, Barbara Flynn was in it, and I did at least learn something: an ogee is an arc shape. (The character’s pretentious and self-deluding attempt to launch a magazine of this name reminded me off the guy who (successfully) pitched a pompous style mag on Dragon’s Den.)

I may as well watch the final episode now that I’ve seen the first two. Presumably we will learn that for all money and leisure time that the various characters have, everyone will end up unhappy thanks to marital infidelity, drug abuse and unprotected sex – and thus, the 1980s weren’t as great as the first episode made out. Aaaah, do you see what they did? I could be wrong, of course – if everyone lives happily ever after, that will be an unexpected twist.

I’m not liveblogging Eurovision – better make that clear. However, I have to mention:

• Switzerland were first up and their multi-national soppy horror If We All Give A Little was as lyrically twee as I thought the first time I heard it. Yuck. If they wanted my vote, they obviously didn’t realise that Give A Little Bit is my least favourite Supertramp song.
• Moldova’s seems to be a bit of a nonsense song and really doesn’t benefit from the rapping.
• Israel’s song is utterly inoffensive, although it does do that annoying thing of featuring lyrics in the native language as well as English. Oh, and it’s dull.

Right, that’s enough of that. I can’t enjoy it properly if I’m blogging 🙂

Update: Lithuania continue to take the mick with their catchy chant – and got booed; the UK’s performance was very good; and Greece’s song turns out to be much better than I remember.

T’other update: Well, that was actually a reasonably credible array of songs. Sweden and Ukraine were better than I expected, and Romania and Armenia were also notable. I’m secretly hoping that Finland will win but it’s wide open as I watch dancers dressed as Orville in the slightly surreal interval act…

Final update: Finland it is! Helsinki next year. You can compare the final results with Mike’s predictions and also read his pretty spot-on reviews of the various tracks. The final score table will no doubt shortly be up on the Eurovision website.

I only watched the first hour of the Eurovision semi-final live because I switched to Big Brother at 9. The freaks at Eurovision had nothing on the housemates… There were the toffs, the idiots, obligatory OTT gays (at least most of the other housemates probably can’t spell “stereotype”), the sociopath, the bimbos… What an awful bunch to be stuck with. One or two might be sane/normal – but for how long?

Back to Eurovision. Despite having ranked Armenia above Slovenia, it was the chap from the latter who gave the better performance but the former who went through to the final (the country’s first). And gosh – Belgium went out! I didn’t notice straight away, it seemed so unlikely. Rob will be disappointed. Other OK tracks that went through include the entries from Russia, Turkey and Bosnia – plus the mighty Lordi from Finland. Alas, Ireland and the nonsense from Lithuania also qualified.

I’m starting to consider the possiblity that Finland will win. Not having been sold on Sweden, I suspect I’ll end up voting for Finland and Germany.