Plan.

Bonjour.

As a bit of a distraction until the Eurovision season starts proper - and by proper I mean late January at the earliest (I cannot be dealing with December NF's) - i'm going to be using this blog to recall and review my favourite entries from The Noughties. First of all 'The Noughties' is not my kinda phrase. I'm not that guy. But it does the job of defining the time period without having to write "2000-2009" rather more often than I'd hoped. I will endeavour to use it as infrequently as possible, however it may crop up from time to time. Just saying.

Anyway, for a long time now, i've wanted to rank and rate all the Eurovision entries from the above time period. And now I'm sure you're saying to yourself "But Eurovision 2009 was like a year and a half ago, what's the hold up boyo?". The answer to that question is suitably two-pronged. Firstly, I feel a contest and it's songs cannot be fully judged until another full contest has passed. That way you can look with some distance at the lasting impact of the songs and how they stand-up when they aren't particuarly fresh; we all loved Jade Ewen at the time, but how does "It's My Time" fare now? etc etc. Secondly, I'm pretty lazy and this was supposed to happen in the summer. Apologies.

And so, the first part of my plan is finished. I've rated and ranked the songs. All 336 of them. From "Be Happy!" in 2000 to "La Noche Es Para Mi" in 2009, both glittering like only Eurovision bookends can. I've fought through the drama. You may think it doesn't get bleaker than determining whether Ireland 2001 is actually worse than Latvia 2006. But infact, that's the easy bit. The worst bit is sifting through the thousands upon thousands of entries (um, not really) that come in the middle. Because it's almost fun finding out which entry comes dead last, 336th on you list, it's less fun finding out which entry comes in 207th (coughPortugal2004cough) place.

So i'm going to put my conclusions online. Not all 336 of them mind. I couldn't possibly do that to myself/you. But the Top 100. In reverse order. A few things before we start. I'm hoping to update as often as I can. But I know what i'm like. Come 2016 I'll be hovering around the 87th place mark or suchlike. If you do stumble across this page, don't be bewildered to find that nothing's happened in 3 years. I haven't been killed in some terrible accident involving some glitter or a parasol or a bear attack (careful now), I will probably just be napping. Feel free to poke me, but let's hope it doesn't come to a poke-based situation. That would be embarrassing for us all.

One final note; the list has a slight leaning towards more recent entries. I imagine because there are more of them (2008 has 43 entries, 2001 had 23), the staging at Eurovision now can make almost the worst songs look epic and hey, i'm a modern fellow with modern ideas.

The next time you read this, I'll be reviewing my 100th favourite entry of the Noughties. See, I did promise I wouldn't not use it . . .

Seanster/Euroboy.