Tonight I've been glued in front of the TV, watching the Eurovistic cringeometer rise to 4,000 (and let's face it, Austria should have won for turning Fred Durst into Antoine De Caunes over a three-minute breakfast cereal commercial).

Unlike their football teams, the Italians did fuck all, although the impending possibility of Mannini and Petrachi joining their ranks could have speeded up the possibility of instant demotion regardless of the historical sanctity of their allegiant brethren.

But then, what is the point of history?

Another reason to shelve a decision?

A fitting excuse to destroy past conquests?

Normally it's an excuse to dehabilitate those on a one trick pony story to Mars from hyperventilation but hey, there is no point in sleeping. You'll only suffocate in your own vomit anyway.

And what's that sound?

Oh, they're called Laundrette and they come from Ancona, thus proving that our European cousins do have more to offer than second rate dance music and portly Celine Dion impersonators.

'Weird Place To Hide does have a tendency to ape REM's greenest days in places (see_ 'Smash Mountain Man'_ with its Buck-lite palette of sound noir) but when Laundrette do find their own voice, such as on 'Every You', where Massimo Bartera gently opines "I fail to remember why we first met...", they leave the rest of the post/math (call it what you like) rock competition behind.

When all is said and done, 'Weird Place To Hide' is like a lone phoenix rising from some mediterranean shipwreck that marries the spendour of Stipe with the melancholy of Halstead and Goswell in their prime.

I guess Laundrette just scored douze points against the Eurosceptics...