Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
E.T steals Eurovision
Holly Willoughby posed a huge question on This Morning last week: “Are UFOS flying about the night sky and are we being abducted and experimented on?” Dunno, Holls. But if there is something funny going on, I reckon that mob up there may have returned a few lab subjects just in time for Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest. Eurovision is always ridiculous, but it really outweirded itself this year. Italy had a bloke in Rowan Atkinson’s old Not the Nine O’clock News gorilla costume. Azerbaijan had a stern Roxette type standing in front of a chalkboard that had random words scrawled on it, like some old-school version of a Donald Trump tweet. Behind the chalkboard there was a bloke up a stepladder wearing a horse’s head. And Croatia had a chunky bearded guy – who by now must surely be the picture on Rylan Clark-neal’s fridge – having a pop-opera argument with himself. That was all before a stage invader draped in an Aussie flag dropped his trousers and showed the world his outback during a performance by last year’s Ukrainian winner Jamala. Needless to say, I loved every minute of it. We can only hope Europe reacts to that Portuguese joy-hoover’s dreary win by making next year’s show even more bonkers. With that in mind, the UK should repeat the trick of conscripting a former X Factor finalist. Only, don’t send someone credible like Lucie Jones. It’s clearly Wagner time. Once the aliens have let him go again, obviously.