Happy Valentine

I was up late last night working. When I finally turned off the light, it was nearly 2am and I found it difficult to get to sleep. I hate it when my mind is so restless that I can't sleep. So today, I've been tired and my head has felt a little woolly.

I got my wife roses and a card this morning, about an hour and a half after receiving my card from her as soon as I woke up. She didn't seem to mind, which was lucky. As far as I remember we aren't a couple who spend much time celebrating Valentine's day. It has never been a special day for me, I'm sure there must be some people who really love it but my wife was talking about how she saw some desperate men hunting for flowers in Tesco's as she was picking up some wine tonight. Poor bastards.

The one glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for me is that the Eurovision Song Contest is getting closer as each day passes. What can I tell you about this? I love it. Countries of Europe send singers or groups to compete against each other to win the contest. Whichever country wins gets to host the following year's competition. The big thing is, after all the songs have been performed each country is visited in turn and asked for their scores. This takes an absolute age, honestly you'll want to slit your own throat by the end of it. But eventually someone wins and they can all go home. Now here are the things I love about this contest:

• the short videos introducing each country
• the German entry (usually some bonkers guy with a moustache and a big shirt)
• when pop singers are dressed up as rock chicks or goths to sing a slightly rockier song
• the UK entry (usually good for a laugh, I wish Jordan had performed last year - pregnant in a skintight pink leather jumpsuit)
• the scandalously political voting where countries give the highest points to their nearest neighbours
• downloading the scoring sheet and marking acts on various aspects of their performance and comparing my own scores with the votes (very sad I know, you should hear the abuse I get for this)

Well, that's about what I love about the comp, a lovely night in in my books. A beer or two usually helps as well.