Hello Helsinki, this is Sydney calling...

The 2007 Eurovision Song Contest was held in the Finnish capital and the theme was "true fantasy". It suited the encore performance by last year's winners Lordi (a monster-masked metal band), the quirky linking vids, the appearance of Santa Claus and the high proportion of dream girls singing/dancing/announcing votes.

Of the 24 songs, there were 13 I'd willingly hear again: Ireland, Finland, Hungary, Greece, Georgia, Sweden, France, Latvia, Germany, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. I'll pass on the acts from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, Belarus, the FYR Macedonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, the UK, Turkey and Armenia.

The ever-political phone/SMS voters of Europe chose Serbia ("Molitva" sung by Marija Serifovic) as their overall winner. She wasn't my favourite, but I won't argue with the quality of her voice. To me, the entries from France, Romania and Greece were closer to the spirit of Eurovision, ie. creatively catchy and upbeat.

Georgia and Bulgaria were my bag, baby.

Ireland's last place was undeserved. The decent music and lyrics were let down by weak vocals. It should have been the UK, a shamelessly manufactured outfit with zero panache. But don't take my word for any of this - go to www.eurovision.tv and watch the routines for yourself (note: may require installing plug-in).