One thing I don't do very often on Boom Bang a Blog is give my own website about the Contest, Whoops Dragovic, a push. That's mainly because it's been going a lot longer (it's 10 next year) and it's a bit fruitier than the stuff you'll find in here.

However, please feel free to pop over throughout December, as Whoops Dragovic is the home of a Eurovision Advent Calendar.

It's become a bit of a tradition on Whoops (this is the third year there's been one) and as long as you're not offended by the occasional bawdy Eurovision-related interlude, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as your visits to Boom Bang a Blog. You'll find the advent calendar here, with a different curiosity every day until Crimbo Eve.

Merry Christmas!

How much you enjoy the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest depends on how much you enjoy watching an already lackadaisical production completely collapse around itself. The main hurdle concerning an Italian-hosted Eurovision is that the Song Contest itself was inspired by the San Remo Festival, the composition competition which remains big news in Italy each year and is held in much higher esteem across the wider music world than its pan-European little brother. With that in mind, why go to all the trouble of giving a hamburger the hard sell when you've got allcomers flocking to sample your sirloin steak?

Belgium has joined Bulgaria in being another country beginning with 'B' to announce its entrant for Eurovision 2010. Carrying the hopes of a nation on his shoulders is a young chap by the name of Tom Dice, who was runner-up in his homeland's version of Pop Idol. We don't know much else about Belgium's plans so far - but if you want to hear Tom in action, this link will take you to his version of Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love.

But isn't that a girl's song?

It has been reported in at least one British tabloid today that Take Thatter Gary Barlow (secret husband of Deidre) will write (or co-write) the UK entry for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo.

Mind you, the same report suggests he's writing it for former Blue member Duncan James, but since he'll be in a West End musical on the same dates that Eurovision is taking place and a casting company has already been inviting people to audition for Your Country Needs You II, there are no guarantees that this particular piece of speculation will realise itself in reality.

But if it is true, and Gary is reading this - something like Shine would be brilliant Gary, something like Love Ain't Here Anymore less so...

At the weekend I attended the Memorabilia convention at the NEC in Birmingham with my other half, Glyn, and our chums Lorna and Catherine (That's me, Catherine and Lorna outside the hall in the pic- and I really do need to get my hair cut).

I was asked by Neil MacDonald at the rather excellent ScyFiLove blog if I'd do a report on the event. If you want to have a read of it, you'll find it here.

Eurovision 1990 is the very first one I watched. It was to be another two years before the Contest would become personal appointment TV for one Saturday night a year, but it is certainly the first one I can ever remember the BBC devoting a fair bit of publicity to before the big night - perhaps because it was one year when they were fairly confident of victory. How wrong they were...

But we'll get back to Britain in a bit. The truly chronic Rock Me brought Yugoslavia its first opportunity to host the competition in a year when the staging state - and a few others - were either starting or on the brink of serious upheaval. The Berlin Wall had fallen between Riva's victory and the 35th Eurovision in Zagreb, Yugoslavia itself would only enter another two Contests after this before it split into the separate countries of Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia who entered the Contest in their own right. Serbia & Montenegro made its Eurovision debut as an independent state much later- and not long before it too split into two states. Russia was also soon set to splinter into independent countries which would enter the competition individually.

The change in the air was so obvious that it even affected the themes of the songs Europe's composers were submitting to the Contest, making 1990 the Eurovision which gave a nod to events in the outside world more than any other.

I wasn't actually in to watch the Junior Eurovision Song Contest last night - I was at a cult telly thing in Birmingham - so I am very pleased to report this morning that the winner was the Netherlands. Hurrah! That's the first Eurovisiony thing they've won in my lifetime, their last victory being 1975 in the main event with Teach-In and Ding Dinge Dong.

Ralf wins Junior Eurovision 2009 for the Netherlands with Click Clack.

Just like the Grown Up Contest, the JESC uses both a jury score and the televotes from the public to determine the winner and that seems to have broken the stranglehold Eastern Europe has had on this event in particular - Russia and Armenia tied for second place and Belgium came fourth.

This bodes well for Proper Eurovision, if a country that hasn't had a whiff of the trophy engraver's apron for more then three decades can come out on top again.

You may not be able to see this if you live outside the UK. Isn't the BBC mean?

British TV may not be showing the Junior Eurowarble this weekend, but it will be showing this instead.

Beautiful People is the very funny (there was an amusing bit last week about a truncheon and a clutch bag) comedy drama based on the book of the same name by Simon Doonan. This series revolves around flashbacks to life in Reading in 1998, coincidentally the last year that the UK hosted Eurovision. That plays a part in tonight's episode and even features a cameo from '98 winner herself, Dana International. In a disabled toilet.

It's on at 9.30pm tonight on BBC Two.

You can be forgiven for not knowing that there's another Eurovision going on this weekend - because not many countries seem to want to enter it. The seventh edition of the Junior version of our favourite Contest takes place in the Ukrainian capital on Saturday night but despite the high hopes the EBU had for the event when it began in 2003, just 13 nations will be lining up in Kyiv's Palace of Sports (the same place that Proper Eurovision was staged in 2005) to have a go at winning the trophy, with the majority of entrants coming from Eastern Europe.

Rumours they are a-surfacing on Facebook that Justin Lee Collins is preparing another of his challenge-type programmes for the new year - but this time, with a Eurovision theme.

It would appear that Justin is going to be filmed doing his damnedest to represent a nation at the Contest in Oslo (but not the UK). Early indications are that JLC has his sights set on Montenegro. That would have been a great idea up until 48 hours ago when Montenegrin telly announced it wouldn't be entering Eurovision 2010 for financial reasons.

We're sure that won't put Justin off, though - and his beardy enthusiasm would be much welcomed on the Eurovision stage. I have a feeling the Finns would warm to him rather easily,