The Full Montenegro

This internet mullarkey truly is a wonderful thing, and especially at this time of year.

Thanks to super-fast connections and webcasts, it means that card-carrying fans of that Song Contest called Eurovision can have a sneaky peek at how countries around the continent deal with choosing their representative for the great big musical bun fight in May.

And last night, I could watch those newly independent Montenegrins having a crack at it, all from the comfort of our spare room.

What Brits may not realise is how much effort everybody else (except the French) puts in to finding the best song/singer combination for the Contest.

Last night's national heat in Podgorica wasn't even about finding the song, it was all about choosing the right act to go forth for Montenegro, who'll be handed their tailor-made ditty in about three weeks time.

Broadcast live from the sort of disco you see attached to backpacker hostels, the presenters for the evening were a rather tall bearded gentleman and a lady with two-tone hair who kept saying the wrong thing and repeatedly getting told off (live on air) from behind the camera.

Although I tuned in too late to see the majority of acts belting the tunes out, I did catch the last bloke on stage, a Stefan Filipovic (pictured), who sang something unbelievably bland, but managed to get many a whoop and cheer from the gaggle of attractive blonde ladies clapping along to his MOR melody and looking in danger of swooning at any given moment.

Once Stefan had left the stage and the female quotient in the audience had regained their composure, there was a quick ad break (Montenegro telly only seems to have one advert, a man with designer stubble pushing a credit card), before the presenters returned with a large A4 envelope containing the results from three mobile phone operators, which viewers had been texting their votes to.

The scoreboard was clearly provided by the makers of Acorn Antiques, and after the lady presenter was told off from behind the camera (again) for not giving T-Mobile an on-air plug, the results were read out. Slowly, rows of digital zeroes on the board were dilligently replaced with the appropriate results by somebody backstage, typing the numbers in as they were called, then deleting the zeroes which remained - just in case the group Grim's score of 57 from one operator could be mistaken for a rather less grim 57,000 points. It was great fun to watch.

And the winner? None other than Stefan Filipovic.

He'll head over the border to Belgrade in Serbia, but lord knows what he'll be singing.

Despite the extremely amateurish production values, it's worth pointing out that there was a lot more enthusiasm about Montenegro's show than the BBC's annual line up of has-beens and D-listers, singing songs which have been gathering dust in a composer's demo drawer for the past decade.

If us Brits could make just a little bit more effort about this Eurovision thing, we could easily finish in the Top 10 again. At least it's one European Championship where we always qualify.

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