The result of this year’s UMK.

After years in the wilderness, Finland are finally getting this whole national final/ Eurovision concept thing.  UMK has become massive inside Finland and around Europe and this year YLE is broadcasting it in a multitude of languages for the widest possible audience – more power to them I say.

The Nokia Arena in Tampere was the venue for this contest and there seemed not to be a spare ticket to be had in the place.  I reckon that  *might* have something to do with what happened last year! . 3YLE gave us another cracking show, almost on par with Sweden in terms of look and feel, but not in songs, and that is a good thing because there was a wider range of styles.

We were also in the presence of Eurovision royalty as first Katri-Helena and then Käärija sung their songs, to varying degrees of crowd mentalness it has to be said.

The result was chosen by an international Jury (25 percent of the vote) and Televote (75 percent of the vote).  Various spokespeople had their faces on the telly with the UK’s own Olly Alexander being the face of the UK Jury.  The final result is shown below.

Seemingly they are trying to repeat the dose – but this just isn’t any good I’m afraid.