Pity some of the other participants seemed unable to sing sweetly.

Estonia's Padar and Benton celebrate

Costume-wise there was little to write home about, apart from the Slovenian singer who was encased in black and yellow leather, and the fetching Spanish performer who hoped to pick up a few extra votes by flashing his tanned navel.

But our guides for the night stayed true to form - Danish presenters Natasja and Soren bleated in rhyming couplets throughout the proceedings, while Terry Wogan dubbed them "Dr Death and The Tooth Fairy".

Yes, our Tel kept up his end of the bargain as well, with a commentary of pithy one-liners, exasperation at the voting, and plain rudeness - deriding the Israeli singer's flared slacks and a yodelling Latvian backing singer to name but two.

The voting of course is more important than the warbling - and as usual it was packed with idiosyncrasies and regional biases.

The Scandinavians voted for one another, as did Slovenia, Croatia and the Baltic countries, while Sweden seemed to dole out points to those poor relations who needed it.

But at the end of the night, there is only one winner in this contest - and this year it was the previously unheralded Estonians, who have never won it before and didn't seem a hot bet to boot.

They seemed happy, anyway. As for all the rest, their future is anyone's to call.

But spare a thought for serial winners Ireland who did so badly this time, they can't join the party next year.

So it's Estonia next year, which is somewhere near Russia, I believe.

You can bet they will be saving hard already to pay for what is still one of the highlights of the calendar.