Songfest circus comes to town

LITTLE women with big hair, men wearing dark glasses indoors and a fake ostrich ridden by a man wearing a hat marked "Austrian": welcome to Eurovision.

The circus was cranking itself up in Dublin's Point Theatre yesterday for tonight's Eurobash. Even the climate had turned continental. Somewhere inside, Terry Wogan, Pat Kenny and their 70 European counterparts were given the commentator's briefing. The words "grandmother" and "suck eggs" sprang to mind.

Only the chosen few hundred wearing a laminated card on a chain around their necks are allowed past the gate. Exotic, leather clad Eurotypes blinked in the sunshine outside the building when gardai cleared it for a "routine" search.

With the arrival of Boyzone, the group of teenage girls at the gate screamed over the noise of trucks thundering towards the docks as, one by one, the members of the Irish boy band arrived for rehearsal.

Back inside, and the Dutch girl band, Mrs Einstein, cut a swathe through the bar with its entourage. Singer Marjolein said the band was also a theatre company. "Our next show was gonna be about Eurovision," she said. So was their entry just research? "Maybe. We were going to call it Mrs Einstein Goes Europe."

Paddy Power bookmakers were giving Ireland, Britain and Italy joint favourites with 4-1 for a win. In Virtual Eurovision Land, Estonian eyes were smiling, according to RTE Online. More than 1,400 web surfers had voted their song the best.