However, I think there's definitely a lot to take away from this year's Eurovision Song Contest - and if I'm honest, I'm not sure that things are moving in a great direction.
1. It's all about the politics
So, after years of me insisting it's all about the song, that assertion was blown right out of the water by Ukraine's victory. The late Sir Terry Wogan must be looking down and saying "I told you so". On absolutely no measure could anyone claim that Jamala had the best song in this year's contest. It was a dark, intense ballad with remarkably depressing lyrics and ear-splitting wailing - completely radio unfriendly and absolutely failing the sing-along test. For God's sake, it was about her family being murdered by Russians!
The only reason Ukraine won was the "fuck you Russia" factor. And look, I completely get it - my own great-grandparents were murdered by Russians (true fact!) so I have sympathy for the idea that Ukraine and its allies want to stand up to the Big Bear. But by having such a political winner - and make no mistake, it's the most political winner Eurovision's ever had - shifts the whole dynamic of the contest and renders the music pretty much invalid. It's a sad move, given that recent years the contest seemed to be moving towards recognising great contemporary songs as winners (e.g. Sweden's win last year).
2. Russia has a Europe problem
With Ukraine's win, the run-away favourite Russia was frozen out, finishing in third place. Russia had absolutely thrown the kitchen sink at this year's contest - Sergey's staging was ridiculously impressive, and even though the song was a bit naff, it would have been a perfectly understandable and respectable Eurovision winner. To illustrate, please see the conversation I had with my other half during the performance (he was watching at work):
After two years of close finishes - they came second last year with a much better song - Russia are going to have to take a step back and take a good hard look at themselves so they understand why they can't crack the top spot. Hopefully it doesn't involve tanks.
3. Some people shouldn't be allowed to have phones
The contrast between the jury and televoting scores was particularly marked this year, given Sweden's new way of revealing the votes. The jury scores were pretty understandable and sensible, but as soon as the televotes started to come through the scoreboard just lost its mind.
Great party bangers got hardly any points, while dreary ballads sucked up the votes. Some countries did absolutely mad stuff - the UK and Ireland gave 12 points to Lithuania's poodle-permed Donny Montell, Switzerland really liked Serbia's depressing domestic violence ballad and bloody everyone voted for Poland's Weird Al lookalike - more on him below.
4. Poland's diaspora is ridiculous
Now while this may sound strange coming from a Polish passport holder, something has to be done about the absolutely unfair televote advantage Poland gets from its diaspora across Europe. There must be more Poles in every nation of Europe than there are in Poland itself, and they're all picking up their phones to vote for the Motherland in Eurovision.
Seriously, Poland can send any old shit and absolutely dominate the televote. I mean, Michal - a Charles II lookalike with a ridiculous song - finished third in the televoting, beating us! Thankfully the juries saw sense and he only finished 8th overall, but it was ludicrous to see him up there at the end in the voting reveal. Of course, if Poland had actually sent a good song (*ahem* Margaret) they would have won the whole shebang.
5. Australia was the real winner
Ok, this sounds like sour grapes, but I think it's pretty universally acknowledged that Dami Im was the real winner of the song contest. She absolutely dominated the jury vote, and her song is exactly what Måns was like last year - a radio-friendly, well-staged contemporary song performed by an engaging artist with a spectacular voice. In short, it wasn't your typical Eurovision song - it was actually good.
And that was backed up in the comments coming through on Twitter - even the UK viewers who probably enjoyed the schadenfreude of us losing at the last minute, were united on the point that Dami was the best singer of the contest. As someone put it "this is like when a professional turns up to the karaoke night".
All hail Queen Dami - she'll get some great European exposure out of this, and it's well-deserved. Of course, the bigger question is whether Australia will be back again next year. It's a bit unclear whether we'll get another invitation - and even if we did, whether we'd ever be able to win if Dami couldn't crack it this year.
6. Poor UK
So even though they threw loads of shade at us for not even being in Europe then coming over to dominate Eurovision, you had to feel sorry for the UK. They had a great song this year, performed by two extremely likeable young guys, and they actually seemed to be giving it a red hot go. They started the voting off pretty well, getting some well-deserved points from juries including 12 from Malta.
But then they only got 8 points in the televote, and ended up finishing in third last place. That was completely undeserved, and so it's no wonder they're going through a dark night of the Eurovision soul and questioning what is the point of competing at all. Can the UK ever win again? Unless they unleash Adele, the answer is probably no.
7. Sometimes we just want to have fun
Despite the depressing result, there were some bright spots in the darkness. Finishing in fourth place was Bulgaria with an upbeat dance number that was pure Eurovision fun: wacky costumes, native language element and insanely catchy chorus.
The delightful Amir from France also lived up to his pre-contest favouritism, coming sixth with his fun, uptempo number - giving the French their best finish in years. And cute-as-a-button Laura from Belgium also made it into the top 10 with her bouncy disco number - Australia loved it so much, both the jury and the public gave it douze points. These results at least prove that there's still some element of the crazy Euro dance party still alive in Eurovision, and long may it reign.
8. The US will never understand Eurovision
Amazingly, this was the first year ever that Eurovision had been broadcast in the US. While there's a small but dedicated fanbase for the contest over there, Eurovision fandom has been nowhere near as widespread as in other non-European countries like Australia.
To help celebrate this milestone, and the Swedish songwriter stranglehold on US pop music, they invited Justin Timberlake to perform as the interval act. Between his blatant promotion of his latest cartoon film and clueless pronunciation of Eur-O-vision, it wasn't an out-an-out success. Indeed, Petra and Måns absolutely blew him out of the water with their own interval performance. Will the US ever 'get' Eurovision? Not on this evidence.
9. Sweden should host every year
I've already waxed lyrical about Petra and Måns, but it really can't be said enough. They were absolutely everything Eurovision hosts should be: fun, funny and professional. Petra was also epically sassy to all the national spokespeople while they were reading out their points, which was a delight.
Sweden also showed they were not above making fun of themselves, or the contest, with a series of funny spoof docos about how Swedes came to dominate pop music and that fantastic Semi Final 2 broadway-style opening number.
But it was this amazing Grand Final interval performance from Petra and Måns which was the undoubted highlight of Eurovision 2016. A sly yet affectionate look at the contest itself, it sums up all the best bits of Eurovision and should be required viewing for every fan:
10. We don't know where we're going
Where to from here for Eurovision? Given such a blatantly political outcome, it's going to become increasingly hard for the EBU to deny that politics plays no part in the contest and they're going to have to work hard to put the focus back on the music.
One thing's for sure: the traditionally-strong Scandinavian countries will have to pull their socks up next year - none of them made it to the Grand Final, apart from host nation Sweden who was already guaranteed a place.
Ukraine hosting in 2017 is also somewhat of a concern, given the instability that still exists, particularly in the country's west. They only just managed to host back in 2005 after they first won the contest - with the president stepping in to pull it together at the last minute after Sweden was put on standby to takeover hosting duties. And Russia is also already threatening a boycott next year due to the results - if they follow through, it will be interesting to see if anyone else joins in.
So it will be interesting to see how next year's contest shapes up. One thing I'm sure about is that 2016 will go down as something of a turning point in the contest's history.
