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Sunday, May 25, 2008 

To the surprise of practically no-one, Sébastien Tellier did not win the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade last night.

The Parisian electro-popper's song 'Divine' finished 19th out of the 25 finalists, receiving only 47 points. The contest was won by Russia's Dima Bilan, whose song 'Believe' combined the big-blouse appeal of soft-rock and ice-skating.

Tellier, in fairness, made a game effort at standing out and shaking things up ever so slightly. Arriving on stage driving a golf-cart and carrying an inflatable globe, he was accompanied in his performance by backing singers wearing wigs and false beards. For the second verse, he inhaled from his inflatable globe to affect a helium voice.

Prior to the show, 'Divine' had generated controversy among some attention-seeking centre-right French politicans - because its lyrics were entirely in English. Tellier compromised by promising to include French lyrics, and last night he was as good as his word. A capella, he sang one solitary line in French (2 mins 06 secs) which could be construed as an oblique reference to the controversy - "Pour moi, l'amour chante en Français" (for me, love sings in French).

Here's Tellier Eurovision 2008 performance. One of the French TV co-commentators you can hear at the beginning is none other than fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier:

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