EUROVISION 2010: SOME SONGS, SOME HOPES!

Here the Roundup reviews some of the entries in this year's ever popular Eurovision Song Contest.

ISRAEL

Some people are confused that Israel should be taking part in a European competition, as it is a little bit like Ireland competing in the Pan-African Games.

However, this year those perplexed people are set to become even more confused.  This year the Israeli entry in this song competition is - mystifyingly - a mime act!

Yes, the biggest surprise of all in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest is the entry from Israel, the gay mime act "Contortions", featuring Shlomo Weiszman (48) and his young friend, Mordecai Grudz-Already-Yet-Still (21).

This hugely talented pair, a mime act from downtown Jaffa, has attracted record crowds at bus stops all over Israel with their compelling representations - performed entirely in mime - of great political events, of great songs and of great instrumental music.

They are hoping to win this year with their frankly frenetic mime representation of Stravinsky's Firebird.

BELGIUM

Belgium can always be relied upon to give a good entertaining performance in Eurovision, having come second in the competition on 24 occasions.  It will be no different his year with the entry of the lady who is coming to be known as Belgium's Blonde Beauty (BBB).

From de Kerkstraat in Dikkelvenne comes mistress of the Belgian triangle, Veerle van Nagelmakkers (18).  Veerle is not only the most accomplished triangle player to have emerged from Dikkelvenne in the past few months, she has also found the time to become a fully qualified pubic hairdresser.

In her spare, she breeds long-haired hamsters and is an avid follower of well-known (in Belgium) soaps such as the gripping 'Wittekerke' and the sometimes raunchy 'Thuis'.  In fact, Veerle thinks she looks just like Femke in the TV show.

She will be giving her 47 minute rendition of the classic Flemish favourite 'De Vlaamse Muis' accompanying herself on her trusty treble triangle.

GERMANY

Hot from the Hamburg club scene comes Germany's surprise ladyboy entry "Die Nussknacker", made up of Guido Schlampe (27), Bodo Heisspumpe (27) and Udo Nagellack (27).

The trio are all sheet metal workers in the same company, where they discovered that they all shared an interest in developing their feminine side.

Meeting up after work for pamper sessions, they also made the happy discovery that they shared a love of singing - or, rather, yodelling.  They began to work up a yodelling routine, which they tried out at their favourite haidresser's in Hamburg, Marco's (a subsidiary of the 'The Male Company' in Hayle).

Gushing in unison (with only the faintest yodel in the voice) the likely lads trilled "Effrevun sought zat ve vere vunderful, darlink!"  They went on to conquer the clubs and then mainstream television with ease in their own show "Boys und Ladies".

The lads will be yodelling for Germany in the coming contest, but will be singing in English in their own composition dedicated to the German Chancellor "I vunt a haircut like Angela!"

UNITED KINGDOM

Desperate to win again, the UK is pinning all its hopes on the man from Relubbus, Benny Bolitho and his Big Banjo.

Benny was originally a Pendeen man and has been charming audiences up and down Cornwall as a well-known and much-loved act for the past fifty years.

From his pictures, people always assume that Benny is playing an outsize banjo.  It is only when they meet him that they realise that the banjo is of a normal size and that it is Benny, who is a bit on the small side.

Using this fact to his advantage, Benny has made a perfectly good living over the years as a mobile garden gnome.  He is also further blessed in that he has, as the Cornish would say, "gotsum voice onun, abnuh?"

Accompanying himself on his banjo, Benny will be deploying his bewitchingly tuneful falsetto voice to give a rendition of the classic Cornish favourite 'Lil' Lize'.

As people in the Greenmarket in Penzance were saying only yesterday "Benny'll walk un easy!"