By Michael Osborn BBC News

Europe's biggest annual musical jamboree landed in the tiny Baltic state of Estonia - and the first-time hosts carried off the Eurovision Song Contest in fine style.

The Estonians clearly put their heart and soul into the whole shabang, building a new stadium for the event and producing a show which was slick, good-looking and professional.

"Attack of the clones"

But all the traditional elements of Eurovision were there in spades.

There was both good and tragic music, high campery, bizarre costumes and a voting sytem which showed again that Europe is anything but united.

A Latin-tinged effort from a Latvian lovely carried off the prize with the very last vote, while our own hopeful Jessica Garlick finished a very creditable third, restoring our Eurovision pride which has been dented in the past few years.

Astonishing moments

The 24 entrants were the reliably mixed bunch, with everything from a Meatloaf meets Billy Idol lookalike representing Belgium, to a fresh-faced bunch of Spanish Pop Idol contestants doing their country proud.

Macedonia sported a gladiatorial dress

This year's astonishing moments came in the guise of Slovenia, three transvestites clad in glittering red air hostess uniforms, performing a revved-up tune of immense campery which was refreshing as it was bewildering.

Macedonia's unsuccessful singer had her skirt removed to reveal Gladiator-style armoury complete with a six-pack, while the Latvian winner did some deft clothes removal also.

Viewers in the United Kingdom were as ever treated to the acerbic commentary of broadcaster Terry Wogan, who heralded the Swedish entrants as "oven-ready turkeys" and dismissed the Greeks' space-age costumes as the "attack of the clones".

Simply strange

But like the rest of the country, he was quick to denounce the all-important vote with its regional biases and neighbouring countries doing each other a favour.

Spain were early favourites

As sure as night follows day, the Greeks and Cypriots exchanged the maximum "douze points", while the Balts and Scandinavians chummed up, and the voting of Turkey, Romania and others was simply strange.

But this year's vote went down to the wire, and the Lithuanians held the decisive vote.

With the Maltese and Latvians neck-and-neck, regional friendships prevailed, and the Balts grabbed it.

Admirably hosted

So the Baltic love-affair with Eurovision is set to live another day. Should the Latvians be able to meet the considerable cost of holding the contest, then we're set for Riga in 2003.

This year's contest was admirably hosted by a small country at first thought incapable of pulling it off.

But it had an exciting conclusion and plenty of material to keep Eurovision fans talking until next year.