Cries for love, fur pelts and la la las

RadioReview: There's been so little hoopla over the Eurovision in Ireland this year that I have this image of our Brian setting off for the semi-finals in Athens all alone, his good suit slung over his shoulder and his little bag bursting with hair products - because Brian Kennedy, it has to be said, has great hair.

What he doesn't have in his possession was a cheery song - you'd want to be in the middle of digging your very own slough of despond to find the astonishingly dreary Every Song is a Cry for Love, appealing.

It's a very bad sign when even big-hearted broadcasters such as Larry Gogan can't get worked up about it. The veteran broadcaster spent the week in Athens limbering up to report on the semi-finals, taking time out to do a bit of sightseeing - "the Acropolis, to see something even older than meself," he told Dave Fanning, standing in on The Gerry Ryan Show (2FM, Thursday).

Fanning played the first line of the Irish entry before both broadcasters started giggling. He didn't play the rest of the track. He was in top form, though, describing the contest as a freak show, geared towards circus-type performances, "naked grannies dancing on oil drums and fireworks, that sort of thing". Johnny Logan with his white suit wouldn't stand a chance.

In the short report, Gogan - or as Fanning called him, "the Jimmy Magee of Eurovision" - captured the fun, spectacle and downright daftness of the annual contest.

You'd think that as we hold the record for most Eurovision wins - and our mantelpiece isn't exactly groaning with European records - we'd be so enamoured with the event there would have been much more coverage on radio this week. But the only home-produced programme devoted to Eurovision I could find was Rattlebag (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday), and it took the whole euro pudding glam fest very seriously indeed. Presenter Myles Dungan opened by playing the winning 1956 Swiss entry in full.

They didn't linger too much on Brian Kennedy's dirge. Shay Healy, a man who knows a thing or two about writing winning songs (and a thorough gentleman) would only say, with polite understatement, that "the song might have done with something to lift it".

Joining Healy was Paul Sheridan, who carries around in his head an extraordinary amount of Eurovision trivia - not just who won what when, but even what the presenters were wearing.

There was lots of deadly earnest talk about the "Eurovision formula" and dissection of individual songs such as La La La, "one of those great Eurovision titles that we always love," said Dungan, using the word "we" rather liberally.

Despite all the talk about voting pacts, Healy welcomes the arrival of the Eastern European countries into the completion, saying "they bring such joi de vivre". However, he did concede that they have brought such massive changes to the way the whole thing looks and sounds that the approach now is "if you have a fur pelt and put it around your willy then away we go".

Sheridan would have been spoiled for choice on the BBC - there was Eurovision coverage on nearly every station and a website chock full of facts and pictures of past winners in all their spangly glory. The most entertaining programme, 50 Years of Eurovision (BBC Radio 2, Tuesday), was presented by Sandie Puppet on a String Shaw and Roland Rivron, who attempted to put the whole thing in some sort of cultural context.

"Its never going to be our turn again until they get used to democracy," said Terry Wogan of the new European countries who joined the contest in the mid-1990s, in a remark that may have sounded funnier in his head than when it came out his mouth. He's been the BBC's front man during the contest's years of greatest growth and changes, "from the Gaiety in Dublin 1971 to a massive football stadium in Copenhagen". Now 33 countries take part and more than 100 million people tune in. The new Europeans are the ones interested in winning, said Rivron; it's a badge of their Europeanness, of being allowed into the club. "Even Ireland doesn't want it now," he said.

For Eurovision winner Dana, the great joy if it all is that it's a chance for people to get together in front of the telly to enjoy a common experience.

To follow Dana's lead and to really get into the spirit of the thing, print out the score card from the BBC website, play Boom Bang A-Bang bingo and when there's a lull in tonight's proceedings, chip in this little known fact: according to Rivron, no one in the history of the competition has ever said "nul points". "It's one of those 'Play it again, Sam' things," he said.