While comments in other countries which, like Malta, had their singers eliminated from the Eurovision Song Contest finals, ranged from the amused to the sarcastic, those in Malta were, generally speaking, outraged. Mainly, people in Malta were more than satisfied with Olivia Lewis’ participation and song but outraged at the blatant block vote among neighbour nations that was evident on Thursday. This feeling was shared by some who expressed their comments on the BBC website yesterday: “ESC is now the Eastern Europe Song Contest, as can be seen from the countries that qualified last night. The balance of voting power has shifted due to the new eastern State broadcasters becoming part of the EBU,” said Colin from Epping. Louis Grima from Malta wrote: “As shown in Thursday’s semi-finals, and also in very recent years, Eurovision is fast becoming a joke. If EBU wants to save this festival new voting rules have to be implemented – perhaps by a system of an equal number rotating judges based on geographical areas, with the Big Four judges being allocated a specific number of extra votes (both for semi-finals and final) – thereby lessening the risk of such more bloc vote ‘games’ in future... which has nothing to do with music.”