The Terry Wogan memorial wig Eurovision preview

For me at any rate, childhood Easter holidays always equated with the appearance of Terry Wogan in a sports jacket, sat on a beige set sniggering at that year's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. As a family, it was a guilty pleasure to sit down and snigger along with him. The preview shows have long since been dispensed with by the BBC. Post-Wogan, they shuffled between Gloria Hunniford (inane), Ray Moore (controversial) and Ken Bruce (rather good) amongst others before a final, unpopular tenure under that slice of Scottish stodge, Lorraine Kelly.

Well, I've decided to bring them back. You need to picture me wearing a badly fitting wig, sat by a 1970s smoked-glass coffee table with a smirk on my face. All of the ditties mentioned can be found on You Tube but I'm far too lazy to bother including links.

Viewers in the UK can vote in the first semi-final which includes the following masterpieces.

Austria start things off with the musical equivalent of a teenager having a strop. Natalia Kelly, hailing from the USA region of Austria, should sail through without too much of a problem though.

"It's not fair!" - Austria's Natalia Kelly

The clutch of dull-by-numbers ballads includes a charming if forgettable song from Estonia's Birgit Õigemeel and Russia's Dina Garipova who sounds as though she is just having a bit of a whinge. Cyprus also pitch in with An me thimase, a meandering effort, the memory of which evaporates as soon as you have heard the last note.

If you are looking for something different, try Anouk who's representing the Netherlands with Birds. It's a bit weird in an edgy, fairytale kind of way. Or how about Montenegro's rap act, Who See? The plucky Montenegrins still have not worked out what does and does not float the Euro-voters boat. Whilst daring to be different, it manages to marginalise itself out of existence.

Playing safe can also be a dangerous option as Denmark's Emmelie De Forest may discover. Her tin-whistle laden, breathy Only teardrops, is vintage middle-of-the-road Eurovision. Currently it is favourite to win the whole thing and it certainly has charm. Another one to keep an ear open for is Ireland's Ryan Dolan. it would appear that the Irish have finally escaped from their recent comedy entries and are taking things seriously. Only love survives is about as contemporary as dance numbers get.

Not Jedward for Ireland . . .

Slovenia pushes the envelope a bit further with some dubstep but singer Hannah Mancini gives a shouty performance. Near neighbours Croatia have assembled a bunch of blokes who specialise in the traditional klapa performance, often heard whilst staggering around Split. Despite the title, Mizerija doesn't wallow in self-loathing and it's quite a cheery performance from Klapa s Mora.

If it's Eurotrash that takes your fancy, then feast your eyes on Serbia's Moje 3. Take three unsure female vocals, add some inappropriate clothing and let them bellow at the cameras for three minutes. Their entry, Ljubav je svuda, could quite easily be the stuff of which musical car crashes are made of.

Cheap Spice . . . from Serbia

Of the remaining entries, there is something vaguely electronic and eighties from Lithuania's top-hatted Andrijus Pojavis, a truly nasty holiday song shoutalong from Belarus' singer Alyona Lanskaya and a droning ballad from Zlata Ognevich of Ukraine.

Ten of the sixteen masterpieces will qualify for the grand final in Malmö on May 18th. I'll take a dip into the second semi-final as well as taking a peak at the six guaranteed finalists, soon.