I always had time for Terry Wogan.

You can however, as the saying goes, have too much of a good thing. There was a time in the 80s when he seemed to be everywhere.

Daily chat show on the telly, daily two hour radio programme every morning, plus Blankety Blank plus the Children in Need marathon every year.

It was relentless. You couldn’t open a broom cupboard without him popping out to introduce someone.

But his finest hour every year, the time that I was always pleased to be with him was undoubtedly for me the Eurovision Song Contest.

His understated mocking of the various energetic antics of the contestants, the timing of his putdowns when the marking came in, he gave the whole ritual the space it needed to make itself look silly.

He then just quietly nudged it over the cliff of absurdity with a few well chosen words. Helped it on its way.

When Graham Norton took over I thought he was actually pretty good.

Big shoes to fill and all the rest of it. But he made a decent fist of it. The only problem is, he’s not Terry, and what can you do about that?

I thought that particular era of humour around the Eurovision Song Contest was over. Gone for ever.

Until this year that is. And Covid 19. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Enter Richard DeDomenici and his invention - the Coronavision Song Contest!

Richard is an artist known for being consistently seconds ahead on his own time.

He single handedly invented the concept, instigated the idea, invited the contestants and invigilated the marking.

Plus he broadcast and hosted the whole shebang from his basement flat in Watford.

This was Lo Fi DIY TV, not the BBC, never OTT, but LOL funny throughout. *(Translation below)

This was like the good old days, this was live TV with all the mistakes. All the technical glitches, gaps and spontaneous madness of live broadcast.

The modern internet is like the wild west – anyone can make a TV programme now.

There were 30 entrants from around the globe. This was a motley bunch indeed. Brazil were in there, of course they were. Plus Australia.

Coronavision had spread the net wide.

Sometimes the link to the assigned country might have appeared a little tenuous, sometimes it was difficult to tell whether the entrants were serious, intentionally funny, lampooning Eurovision or just accidentally hilarious. But this was all just grist to the mill of entertainment.

And in the middle of it all, the utterly absurd looking host himself, a shock of upright green hair lolloping precariously throughout, bearded and buoyant, charming, ridiculous, riding the waves of the technical challenge as they crashed and broke around him. But he came surfing through. Just.

The whole teetering network felt it might just collapse at any moment, but that just added to the fun.

My personal favourite was Fromage Fromage from Switzerland, an inert but highly stylish (think 70s clothes catalogue) trio assembled around a snow globe singing about cheese did it for me.

But when the voting was complete, which we did by gmail polling while Richard sang his own Karaoke songs, it was Canada that emerged victorious with Quelle Est la Date de ton Anniversaire? written and performed by Lorna Melody Rees.

Special mention must also go to Wales for Goats Of Love – possibly the strangest and definitely the most unsettling song I’ve ever witnessed.

Well done Lorna. Well done Richard. Here’s to next year! As I leave you with the prophetic words of Michael Jackson .. “You Got To Be Starting Something….”

* Translation: Low Fidelity, Do-It-Yourself Television, not the British Broadcasting Corporation, never Over The Top but Laugh Out Loud funny.