THE Eurovision Song Contest is an annual spectacle that certainly divides opinion, five decades after it originally launched.

It’s somewhat old fashioned premise, questionable fashion, even more questionable songs and lyrics and partisan voting have barely changed since the first collection of ditties graced the stage 53 years ago.

But the appetite for it has only grown.

For every person that hates it, there are a thousand more who love it so much they hold parties - and even theme their weddings around it.

It’s not intellectually challenging and it is certainly a tad odd at times but this is probably its unerring attraction.

This year we once again settled down to watch it, hoping upon hope we might mark the 20th anniversary of our last British win by taking home the title again.

Alas, it was not to be, although for the first time in a long while we were in the top half of the results thanks to a half decent song and a most respectable performance from X-Factor alumni Lucy Jones.  For me, though, the joy of this show is in its slight naffness.

Graham Norton obviously does not use this term himself but he got it spot on when he said the event last year in Sweden was just a bit too good.

They even had Justin Timberlake performing in the section where voting takes place.

All this is good but we like the curios even better, for example the Italian entry where a man, for no real reason I could discern, was dressed as a gorilla stood next to the performer and another where a woman stood halfway up a ladder holding a fake horse head.

Well, I think it was fake.

Would you believe the Ukrainian hosts were celebrating diversity in their staging of the event - by having three male, white men doing the presenting duties.

But this is all the fun of the fair with Eurovision, there is no rhyme or reason to it but it shows no sign of going out of fashion.

And who will ever forget the sight of the poor woman who won last year’s event trying to stretch her five minutes of fame even further having to deal with a man pulling down his trousers halfway through her act whilst draped in an Australian flag.

He wasn’t even from Australia. But then, Australia isn’t in Europe and this is an entirely different can of worms.