I was going to write about the performances in the Eurovision song contest, but, well, we all saw it....
What has been interesting is different people's (and nationalities) views on it.
The British seem to be bored by the whole thing and who can blame us when we have terrible 'poppy' entries that are quite frankly emabarassing and completely out performed by the Turkish nu-metal entry. I think the apparent lack of interest is a self defense mechanism.
An Irish friend was so happy that a trip back home would coincide with the final as he would be able to party with his friends. They all seem to enjoy the kitschness of the show.
A Swedish friend said how last year she had gone round the bars in Lyon, convinced that they would be broadcasting the competition and was disapointed in her quest.
The French girls at work have made no comment on it at all.

The commentry on the French TV was fantastic and wonderfully biased. I tuned in slightly late and so wasn't exactly sure who they were, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. From the begining they were actively telling the viewers to call their French friends in other countries and get them to vote for the French entry (which incidently had to win the prize for the most Classic Eurovision Lyrics) informing everyone it was song number 18 and the singer was 'Adorable!' Then there was a big debate on the gender of the Serbian singer and who can blame them? They were disapointed with the number of entries singing in English so gave high praise to those who sang in their own languages - especially the Portugese entry (they seemed to like her a lot), and were beside themselves when the Icelandic song contained French phrases.
One of them obviously spoke English and was translating, he did well on the prounciation of the Belgium singer's surname - Dice, though his colleague insisted on 'dix', but they both struggled with Niamh Kavanagh.
In true Terry Wogan style they moaned throughout the voting and talked about a 'Jeux Political' and everytime an obvious 10 or 12 points went to a neighbouring country it was accompanied with a 'eh voila!' Then they were in fits of giggles over one results presenter's dress, which they didn't recover from for 3 more sets of results.

For me personanlly the moment of the night wasn't Most Weird Costume - the Belarus butterflies or the Most Outrageous Use of Hair Extensions - Amenia, but seeing Graham Norton surrounded by Union Jacks. So European!

Just a quick note to remind myself, when on a hot date and you're a noodle bar - don't order noodles, stick to the rice dishes as noodles, chopsticks and looking good, don't always go together.

It is a lovely day here today and it seemed that all of Lyon were out and about. I was picnicing in the local park and watched with fascination a couple of different events that were going on.
Directly in front of us a family had strung up a tight rope and they were all practising hard, Mamon, Papa and their two daughters. It was quite amazing. There appears to be a technique just to get up and stand on the rope. After a couple of hours it appeared that the father and the older daughter had this sussed. Then to walk along the rope seemed to involve some manovre with the big toe but I wasn't close enough to see exactly what.
To my left there was a group of families with children in the 3-5 year age range and one bike. Yep, it was that time of teaching the children to ride without stabilisers. I really don't remember this episode of my childhood at all but I must have done it at some point as I now ride my bike around the streets all the time and don't worry about falling over. There seemed to be about 3 children taking in turns to 'ride' with various parents running alongside and shouting encouraging words 'Allez, ma puce!' 'C'est superb' etc. The parents also looked incredibly hot and sweaty (well it was about 26c). It amused me to think that the two sets of parents who did not own the bike, were probably cursing one set who had brought the bike along.

The thing that I did get from it all though was how easy it is for us to try something new, fail at it and walk away and yet all these people were showing me how important and how much pleasure you get from persisting and then succeeding - a little lesson I need in my life right now!