The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest: 2nd Semi-Final.

Back in 1974 the people of Portugal were forced to live under the fascist jackboot of the dictator Marcello Caetano. However almost the entire country still found the time to be glued to the Eurovision Song Contest. The rumour was that if dancers dressed as soldiers appeared on stage as part of Portugal's entry it would be the signal for a popular uprising to begin. By the time Swedish entry ABBA returned to the stage to perform their winning song "Waterloo" the matter had been more or less resolved and democracy has reigned in Portugal ever since.

Despite Ukraine's civil war and despite Eurovision being a much longer event these days I still think that in comparison this year's contest is relatively chilled out. However I'm still not in any mood to take risks as I make a ham-fisted attempt to discuss some of the 7 acts that were eliminated at last night's semi-final;

San Marino: Anita Simoncini and Michele Perniota who represented San Marino are no strangers to Eurovision having graduated from the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. As the name suggests this is exactly the same as the Eurovision Song Contest only with child performers. Born in the 1950's the idea comes from the entirely innocent tradition of children being forced to sing and dance to entertain the grown-ups at big family gatherings. However once you thrust it into the very adult world of international diplomacy and start filming it can take on some slightly more sinister overtones. As a result discussions about paedophilia and what the age of sexual consent should be are never far away at Junior Eurovision.

The reason why the topics of paedophilia and the age of sexual consent are always such big topics at things like Eurovision and the Olympics is because it's such a complex issue it's near impossible to come up with a definitive answer. For example it is possible to look at a specific case such as Jimmy Savile and say that it is definitely wrong. However human sexuality is so complex and such a powerful part of the human condition it involves many shades of grey. This is a nightmare for politicians, lawyers and Judges who have to write and apply the same law to everybody equally.

An example of this would be to imagine if I had a girlfriend who reached the UK age of sexual consent on her 16th birthday on Saturday (23/5/15). If I was to have sex with her tonight (22/5/15) that would be considered a criminal offence and completely socially unacceptable. However if I were to have sex with her on Sunday (24/5/15) that would be considered entirely legal if not completely socially acceptable. Therefore the question is at which point on Saturday does this imaginary girlfriend suddenly become mature enough to consent to sex?

Another more common example for the UK would be a 16 year old boy having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend which although illegal is I think generally considered socially acceptable. Aged 17 and 16 respectively Perniota and Simoncini perfectly encapsulate that example with a little bit of artistic license for the sake of subtly and to acknowledge the differences in the ages of sexual consent across the Eurovision area.

In the day before the Internet and cellphone cameras this type of childhood sexual experimentation was intensely private. For example for someone of my generation getting a girl to show you her exposed breast behind the bike-sheds at school was the most exciting thing that could happen in a teenage boy's life although perhaps not the teenage boys who make up the majority of the Eurovision audience.

In those days a boy might of rushed off to tell his friends exactly what the boob looked like but these days he can snap a photograph on his cellphone or save a copy a webcam chat. These images then tend to get shared around between teenagers in a phenomenon known as "sexting" which has triggered a whole new form of teenage bullying. In the video for "Chain of Lights" there are lots of shots of light being emitted from cellphones in the hands of teenagers and the back-drop of the stage performance resembled one of those heatmaps that are used to show where Twitter or other social-media topics are being sent and received.

This sexting has also created something of a new legal foible. As I think is reasonably common across the Eurovision area here in UK the sexual age of consent is 16 but the age at which a person can consent to participate in pornography is 18. This creates something of a contradiction where a pair of 16 year olds can have sex with each other quite legally but if they film themselves doing it they are committing a criminal offence and will be labelled by the law as paedophiles and bound in chains.

So I really liked San Marino's entry this year. Although it avoids the Ukraine issue entirely this tiny principality in the north of Italy raised an valid and relevant topic for discussion. The way they executed the idea was also I think excellent. For example in the video there are some very silly visual metaphors such as an image of a padlocked gate cutting to a tasteful image of teenage girls crotch in skimpy ballet leotard and frequent images of teenage male hand stroking and appearing to masturbate a candle. Along with the very upbeat and happy tone of the song it is clear that the director was playing it for laughs.

Portugal: Although they've now exited the European Union (EU) bailout the Portuguese economy is still not in a strong position. As a result it is hard for them to justify spending huge amounts of public money on their Eurovision entry and they certainly couldn't afford to host the contest should they win. As a result their song "Ha Um Mar Que Nos Separa (The Sea That Separates)" is pretty much just a pleasant pop-song. Due to the language barrier it's unlikely to be a huge hit across the Eurovision area but should do quite well in the Portuguese speaking world.

However it does touch on some wider political issues. For example they're keen to be let it be known that their singer "Leonor Andrade" was born in 1994 making her both 21 years old and exactly 21 years younger then Trijntje Oosterhuis who represented The Netherlands this year with a song that was ostensibly about female ageing. She also seems to have an air of Chole Bennet who stars in the worldwide smash-hit sci-fi show "Marvels Agents of SHIELD." With more then a few references to "The Lord of the Rings" films the sci-fi/fantasy genre appears to be emerging as something of a mini-theme this year. With her very her very dark and brooding look and a song about an intense yearning for a lost lover Andrade does seem to have the air of a nightmare girlfriend about her which is the sort of thing that people can have some fun with.

The yearning across seas of the song can obviously be used as a metaphor either for Portugal's yearning to remain part of the EU or the Mediterranean migrants yearning to reach the EU. Arguably they are one and the same thing.

Malta: Malta is the type of tiny island where normally the idea of a big news story is one neighbour parking in front of another neighbours driveway. However in the past year they have been plunged straight into the front-line of the Mediterranean migrant crisis and don't even have Italy's limited resources to respond. Therefore their song "Warrior" is very much about the big battle they face. To further emphasise this it is made clear that "Amber" who represents them has done charity work in Africa where many of the migrants are coming from and in Italy where - apart from Malta - a lot of the migrants end up.

The fact that their song title "Warrior" has been stolen by Georgia raises further questions about how Georgia made it through to the final where there will be lots of people talking about Ukraine's civil war but almost no-one reference the migrant crisis. I like the way that seemingly in response the Maltese played up the fact Amber is a green-belt in Judo. Russian President Vladimir Putin is of course a black-belt.

Switzerland: "Melanie Rene" who represents Switzerland is of Mauritian descent which immediately brings up the issue of immigration particularly African migration to the EU. Switzerland has a reputation for being extremely anti-immigrant and in fact has opted to stay outside of the EU in order to prevent it from having to take in migrants. Listening to the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming out of the UK recently it is clear that some would like to form a Swiss-style free trade arrangement with the EU rather then full membership. This of course makes Switzerland a natural ally of the UK at the moment.

Rene has apparently traced her ancestry back to a marriage between and Indian Princess and a French sea captain. Although Mauritius is located in the Indian Ocean this is intended to invoke the story of Pocahontas who was a Native American Indian Princess who married a British settler by the name of John Rolfe who is often wrongly assumed to be either a sea captain or an army officer. This obviously sets the scene for all those Cowboys and Indians storylines you got in the Spaghetti Western movies of the 1960's and 1970's.

Despite being of Mauritian descent and born in Switzerland Rene has also spent a lot of time in the UK particularly studying music at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM). Brighton is one of those places where everything is quite close to everything else. However BIMM's main campus is particularly close to a Brighton house I used to live in. In fact I would often find myself cutting through BIMM's car-park several times a day.

In what is possibly one of the highest tributes imaginable my time in Brighton seems to have inspired the 2002 "American IV: The Man Comes Around" album by country and western legend Johnny Cash. Apart from the anthemic cover version of "Hurt" this album also includes the song "Sam Hall" which seems to be a reference to my lesbian wife's then girlfriend who may or may not have gone by the name "Sam." Eventually little Samuel was replaced by the UK Establishment with a medical researcher by the name of Anna who really didn't like me. The idea being that I would be quickly killed off, Anna would cure cancer and all known diseases, together they would have lesbian babies and Britain would rule their world with its brilliance.

With lyrics about standing up and holding your ground the song "Time to Shine" seems to be Switzerland urging the UK to stand up and be proud of what has proved to be a highly controversial program. However with me still very much on the scene, cancer not being cured and no babies appearing and even Ebola seeming to think that Anna should be Cross at her failure telling the UK to stand up and show the world what it has achieved could also be interpreted as Switzerland telling the UK to sit down, shut up and do as it is told.

Ireland: The Republic of Ireland has a long and proud history of success at Eurovision. This stems largely from Ireland's famous neutrality which allows everyone to give it some points without it being a big political statement. However in 2014 Ireland got into politics in a big way with the song "Heartbeat" which with lyrics about breaking the border was intended to give the impression that resurgent after emerging from an EU bailout Ireland's Catholics would soon attempt to push the British Protestants out of Northern Ireland finally fulfilling the dream of a united Ireland.

However people who do Eurovision every year were well aware that as part of it's colonisation of Ireland Britain killed a lot of Catholics and imported a lot of British Protestants in order to change the demographic make-up of the population. As a result Ireland's entry bombed and they failed to make it to the final for the first time in their history.

This year's entry "Playing With Numbers" was clearly a Protestant attempt to revisit the reasons why Ireland did so badly last year. The artist "Molly Sterling" shares her first name with "Molly Smitten-Downes" who represented the UK in 2014. Her last name "Sterling" is a reference to the UK currency Pounds Sterling.

With the song itself being little more then a poor rip-off of the 1997 Sarah McLachlan song "Arms of an Angel" Ireland's entry was forced to rely heavily on support from outside the contest. For example there was UK Prince Charles controversial meeting with Gerry Adams on a State visit to Ireland and today's Irish referendum on gay marriage which is traditionally a way to win friends at Eurovision. There was also the "Asher's Gay Cake" ruling in Northern Ireland.

Although I support gay-rights this troubled me because legally it doesn't seem that Ashers had refused to serve a person because they were gay or refused to provide a product that might be used at, say, a gay wedding. Instead they refused to provide a cake bearing the logo of gay-rights political campaign group and the political slogan "Support Gay Marriage." So to my mind the Court appears to have ruled that people are not allowed to abstain from political campaigns. This is troubling because I think it inhibits the freedom of political expression which is a particular issue in Northern Ireland where during the Troubles it was almost impossible to find a political neutral.

That tangent aside though I think Ireland's main problem was that their entry wasn't particularly good and all the outside interruptions went against the spirit of the contest and made it feel too much like hard work.

Finally I should point out that Israel are through to the final so for sporting reasons I can't go into much detail about their entry at this time. However "Nadav Guedj" who represents them was born in France before his family emigrated to Israel. You don't need to be a Eurovision expert to draw comparisons between this and the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo terror attacks or perhaps more relevantly the associated attack on a Jewish supermarket.

16:30 on 22/5/15 (UK date).