Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Apols for the scarce posting - there's something that hasn't been finished, and er, that's about it. But then only Ryan and Az still seem to be set on intermittent, so it's hardly as if I'm the sole shirker.

Anyway, this is the bit where I plumb the depths even further than last time. Yep, I've been distracted by imminent Eurovision (but I can't help it; it's so rubberneckable). I always regard prior knowledge of the songs as detracting from the night itself (and to indicate a worrying degree of seriousness), yet somehow partial exposure has occurred. Which means I've heard the French entry. Not only does this feature a monde bouleversant amount of English, and no fire risk lounging on a piano for once, but I can even understand the non-English bits. Possibly this is because it somehow sounds like Canadian French (although I've only heard sung Canadian French, which is sung with a striving to be American accent, all the south of the border antagonism seemly vanishes when it comes to music; even Canadians sing mid-Atlantic).

So no sooner than I become excited at being able to understand "Je suis perdu", than I discover that apparently, according to Language Log, it's French sung a l'anglaise. Hence being comprehensible to the rest of the world. It's odd then that the English sections are distinctly Francophone in accent. You can take the French out of French, but you can't take the French out of English.

Which possibly means that if I'm supposed to be reacquiring my French, it's not really a good thing to listen to, being somewhat lacking in what one of my French teachers termed 'donkey noises'.

And, of course, revising French was the only reason I cliquezed sur l'entrée français, and it had nothing to do with it being an endlessly wet Friday, and wanting to listen to some abysmal, yet catchy (so catchy in fact some appear to have caught [how shall I put this?] strong inspiration from distinctive sources such as the Star Wars theme) music sans totalement l'astroturf usuel (the hype-seeding claim to a fake grass roots movement: see myTube. Les moutons du monde, nous suivent! [pre-Babelfish: Mouflons de la monde allez avec nous! (Where did mouflon come from?) Which shows how well my French is going. Possibly I'm not yet past Un sanglier, par Jove! even though that's the wrong god and possibly in the wrong language. But conveniently a restaurant we're going to does have boar on the menu, along with 'mouse of lamb'. And remind me to switch the spellcheck back to ENUK, having first looked up why 'have' is not underlined. Seemingly, it's a man called John from Ghent, when with a circumflex]).

So in conclusion, if you're the type of person who actually wastes money voting, vote for France, not least because it'll be fun seeing a French audience in Paris trying not to walk out in fury at the use of bad French and, worse still, English when the song gets reprised next year. Plus it'll really irk them that the rest of Europe thinks such a thing is both good and French. Vive l'Elderflower Cordiale!

Vous pouvez voir le vidéo ici, ou bas-chargez* le mptrois ici (et les autres ici**).

* Sorry, Tricolore was a bit pre-all-this.
** How confusing are Turkish country names? İsveç is not Iceland, and I never knew there were so many Stans in Europe (I'm definitely remembering Yunanistan for use when the plethora of ellas and daksis gets too much). And would Rum Kesimi happen to be The Helvetian Conspiracy Supported Pirate Republic of? Apparently 'rum' means 'Greek' and 'kesimi' comes back as untranslatable.

Je pense c'est tout.

Alors,

PS. How kind, Paypal just emailed me to say I can have free delivery from Harrods on any order over £85 if ordered during May. So let's see, propping up Al Fayed or popping into Lafayette [Galleries thereof] using a cunning Eurostar voucher? Ce n'est pas difficile.