No one in our Eurovision party last Saturday night expected Portugal’s ballad to win. Well, all except me.  (And I’m aware that the revelation that I was at an EV party may be revealing a little too much about me.  So what?!  It was great fun!).

So, with a vested interest in the song, as the only one around the table that night who identified the winner, I was interested in what the BBC had to say about Sr Salvador Sobral in its next-day EV report:

“To say the 27-year-old is a popular victor is an understatement. Where others brought slick precision sheen and dancing gorillas to the contest, he brought heart, sincerity and a simple, guileless charm … He is, simply put, one of a kind – an antidote of sorts to Eurovision’s history of short-lived fads and trashy kitsch, and all the more refreshing for it.”

Whatever your views on the kitsch, the musicality, the sustainability, the political voting of EV in general, or the 2017 event in particular, I thought it simply wonderful that the contest should be won by a song and a singer that said, “I dare to be different.”