It was a major disappointment to see Fabrizio Faniello finish last in last Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Generally speaking, Malta fared extremely well in previous recent editions, bar one, and we were expecting that, at least, Fabrizio’s song would have put Malta directly into next year’s final.

As it turns out, next year the winners of the local Song for Europe festival will have to go through the semi-final stage to participate in the final. And this is certainly no easy matter.

From what has happened in recent contests it is clear that originality attracts votes.

Finland comfortably beat the rest last Saturday because they presented a group whose song was not that brilliant, but which elicited votes because of the original way the group presented themselves on the stage.

I am not saying that next year Malta should send a group of “monsters”. But we must certainly provide something different if we are to achieve success.

One other thing that I would like to point out is that we do give more importance than necessary to the competition.

Lithuania cheekily participated with a song, the title of which was We won the Eurovision.

Again, it was not one of the best songs of the night but its originality enabled this country to finish sixth.

We must take the contest less seriously and come up with something that is unusual.

S. Fenech

Mosta