Hello BBaBers!

Apologies for the lack of updates throughout August as it has been a particularly hectic time away from the world of the Contest and I have had to devote my attentions to other things.

However, September is set to bring far more excitement about Eurovision 2011 - Germany is set to announce the host city this month and some of the early bird nations will be getting themselves ready with national final business.

I am off on 10 days of holidays to different bits of Italy in about seven hours from now, so shall we agree to rendezvous back here on the weekend of September 11?

In the meantime, here's the song which is taking us to Deutschland next year to keep us all entertained. See you soon!

Have you seen this? It's the recently YooToobed promotional video for the UK's 1985 entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, Love Is... performed by Vikki Watson, which finished fourth in Gothenburg.

Onstage, Vikki just sang this while plonking herself on an old wooden chair at strategic points but, judging by this video, perhaps the other approach would have clawed in a few more votes.

Seemingly based at the bar of the Embassy Club, a glamorously dressed Vikki makes a a habit throughout the song of popping off to the Ritz at a moment's notice to meet a man in his hotel room.

I know Mrs Thatcher was all for the Brits being entrepreneurial - but was it this type of self-starter industry she wanted the rest of Europe to see us being so good at?

I do hope the Daily Mail never gets wind of this.

There I was in the pub on Friday when my mobile started chirruping away at me. It was Liverpool Echo reporter John Sutton who was working on this story for Saturday's paper and he wanted a rundown on how the city had fared at Contests past for the accompanying boxout.

But my contribution was nowhere near as interesting as the main article. Actress Margi Clarke (whom I sometimes see walking about the streets of Aigburth, the part of Liverpool we both live in) wants to represent the United Kingdom at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest with the ;leccy' dance track Holographic Disco. Younger BBaBers will know Margi for her role as brassy Scouse mum to Tyrone Dobbs in Coronation Street (although I will always love her best for playing Queenie in Making Out in the late '80s and early '90s). She does have some musical background though, having performed with Half Man Half Biscuit on a version of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and isn't a stranger to belting a tune out on stage. Whether she has belted a song out live to 20,000+ people in an arena on an international television show is something that needs to be verified if she's serious about doing well.

By 2005, the unthinkable had happened to Ireland. The nation which could have won the Contest by a mile in the '90s if the singer had just turned up on stage, coughed down the mic, then walked back to the green room, was in dire melodic straits. Relegated in 2002, their return in 2003 almosts saw them back in the Top 10, only for them to plummet once more in 2004, winding up very nearly at the bottom of the scoreboard. This meant the unthinkable; Ireland would have to qualify from the semi-final the following year.

The selection format which Irish telly, RTE, had used in the post-relegation period was a show called You're A Star, where unknowns got the chance to be matched up with a song from an established composer.

When Donna & Joe came through as the winners of the third series of You're A Star, it was clear that the law of diminishing returns meant this particular format was doomed as a way of choosing a song for Eurovision.

This is just brilliant. Even though 2010 only marks 24 years since Belgium's sole Eurovision Song Contest win to date, they've decided to celebrate the silver anniversary of Sandra Kim's 1986 success in Bergen a year early - and in unusual fashion.

An insurance company has persuaded Sandra to re-film the promo video for landsliding victorious ditty J'aime le Vie shot-for-shot in the same locations used in the mid-1980s, all for an advert that appears to be about still loving life enough to take out life insurance. How very tenuous.

Rather handily, the remake is screened alongside the original for comparative purposes and BBaB does rather like the bit where Sand is back in the dance studio doing a spot of shimmying and thrusting with abandon.

It's all marvellous fun but it does beg the question - just how long are commercial breaks on for on Belgian telly?

And so the rumour mill grinds into life. Reports circulate today that the BBC has approached slightly-faded uber quirky musician Mika to come up with a tune that will help Royaume Uni shift itself off the derrier end of the scoreboard at next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Germany. There really is no more to it than that, if it is true, then the Lebanese-born, London-based composer best known for his number one hit Grace Kelly has only been approached and has yet to come up with a response.

If there is any truth in this, and indeed, if it comes off, it would be great to see a British entry that doesn't fit in with that tiresome 'Eurovisiony' stereotype that 'expert' panellists on the BBC's selection show are convinced will win the competition.

But then, it's July. Newspapers are scrabbling for stories. We'll see.

The black t-shirt bearing the legend 'Jimmy Jump' and the distinctive red hat look just as they did on May 29, but is this man, approaching the World Cup trophy as it waited on its pedestal in Johannesburg's Soccer City prior to kick off at last night's final, the same cheeky monkey who gegged in on Daniel Diges' performance in Oslo?

We still don't know (perhaps there is a team of Jumps, one member of which turns up whenever Spain takes part in a big international event) but whoever it was on the pitch last night, at least he turned up at something that his homeland actually won.

Congratulations to Spain. I had Netherlands in the sweep in the office and could have won £24 if things had been a bit different - but this just seems to be the year for Eurovision's Big 4 countries to win things.

Come on France, come on UK, there's still the Miss World title up for grabs...