Nelly Furtado
Maneater
Universal

Whoa, Nelly! After disappointing sales of her sombre, primarily acoustic Folklore album, Nelly Furtado’s hooked up with R&B uber-producer Timbaland (Aaliyah, Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake) for the dancefloor stormer of the year so far. What next, we wonder, a Neptunes/Jewel collaboration? Maneater struts like an ageing hooker from bass-driven verses to immaculate eighties synth pop choruses and even manages to find room for the immortal lyric: “Move your body around like a nympho.” Maneater is sexy, infectious and a thoroughly bad influence: the song you wish you’d been listening to the first time you drank too much Strongbow and fell into Mrs Gordon-from-up-the-road’s mulberry bush.

Everybody loves singles reviews, don’t they? Especially when they’re about Morrissey, Mariah Carey, The Streets, Sugababes and Embrace. And that’s what you’ll be getting, right after the jump…

There comes a point at every single house party where, after the casuals have trundled off home, someone will say “Put Dark Side Of The Moon on,” and everyone will sit around talking about how Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World is, like, a metaphor for life while The Great Gig In The Sky plays in the background.

And this part of the house party is always rubbish. But we’re digressing. Legendary Pink Dots have been peddling this ’3am talking shit’ shtick for 25 years now, and the latest Legendary Pink Dots album Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves is another yet example of this. Which would be annoying, if only Legendary Pink Dots didn’t do it so bloody well.

Welcome one and all to the hecklerspray Eurovision liveblog 2006. We’ve spent the last month tearing through the Eurovision betting odds of each country; and now that Eurovision is finally here, we’re going to be liveblogging the arse off it.

Eurovision is now just a matter of minutes away, and all of the Eurovision stars are preparing to show Europe that they can be just as spangly and incomprehensible and crap as anyone else in this goddamned continent. Lordi are strapping their prosthetic noses on, Daz Sampson is going “What did you learn? What did you learn?” over and over into a mirror like Robert De Niro at the end of Raging Bull, that Maltese bloke is furiously tweaking his annoying soulpatch and the Greek Eurovision hosts are visibly questioning if this was really the right career choice for them.

And us? Why, we’re only vaguely certain that we’ll be able to get all the way through the Eurovision Song Contest without a) bursting into tears or b) trying to pop our eyes with an unfolded paperclip…

So here we go! Liveblogging Eurovision 2006! Yee-ha! Don’t forget to place a Eurovision bet if you haven’t already, and don’t forget that the most recent stuff is going to be on the top. Ready? This won’t be pretty…

There’s just a few more days to go until the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest is unleashed – and that means there’s just a few more days of Eurovision betting left.

Eurovision betting is as easy as it is fun – PaddyPower even want to give you free stuff if this is your first bet – and it’ll make Eurovision around a thousand times more exciting than usual. You want to, don’t you? Don’t you? Go on…

Here are the latest Eurovision betting odds for Turkey and the Ukraine, with help from PaddyPower.com…