BEACHCOMBER 108 YEARS OLD AND STILL MUSICALLY ASTUTE...

LAST Saturday, I had an invidious decision to make: should I watch the Eurovision Song Contest or go to Glyndebourne to see their first ever performance of Wagner's Parsifal? After looking at the titles of the Eurovision entries, I went for Glyndebourne, as my analysis correctly predicted that a Eurovision victory for the UK was out of the question. They had clearly not looked at the statistics before choosing the song title.

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First, there was the matter of the number of words. "What The Hell Just Happened" comprises five words, which was not a good omen. Only four songs with five-word titles have won Eurovision, while titles with one or two words have each notched up 15 victories and three words has had 13. Sweden did win in 1999 with a five-word title - Take Me To Your Heaven - but not only did it include the word "Heaven" which is far more likely to be Eurovision-friendly that "Hell", but the title began with a T - the most common letter for a Eurovision winner.