Olivia mobbed by fans despite dismal placing

Olivia Lewis received a heroine's welcome yesterday on her return from Helsinki, even though Malta languished at the bottom of the heap in the Eurovision's semi-final scoreboard, placing 25th out of 28 countries.

Around 500 fans choked the airport's arrivals lounge to show their support chanting "Olivia, Olivia" at the top of their voices, crowding in on her to pass on their warm wishes and words of encouragement.

As police and airport security tried to calm the frenzied crowd, Olivia Lewis got the one thing she has been yearning to hold in her arms since she left for Finland nearly two weeks ago - Milly, her cocker spaniel puppy.

Olivia Lewis has been handling the outcome of the result extremely well, despite the initial bitter disappointment and, without mincing her words, she points out that Europe may very well not have liked her song.

Writing in her blog, she describes how her parents encouraged her to close this chapter and move on, to push aside her feelings of sadness and guilt because she had done her utmost and "life goes on".

She is also extremely grateful for the support of the Maltese despite her placing.

"How could it be that after I failed to qualify, the Maltese were sending me all these messages of support? We did the best we could, but we didn't qualify. I'm really sad about this, but Eurovision is like that - you never know what you're going to get," she said.

This year's Eurovision Song Contest, which was won by Serbia's Marija Serifovic with her ballad Molitva (Prayer), has sparked a war of words between the competing Eastern and Western countries.

The political and neighbourly voting was more evident than ever, prompting numerous countries, such as Cyprus and Switzerland, to consider pulling out of the festival.

For the first time in the contest's history there is no Scandinavian country in next year's final. Sweden, which placed 18th out of 24 in Saturday's final, is also nursing its wounds after The Ark, one of its leading acts with a string of chart successes and decorated albums, failed to feature among the top 10.

The top 10 countries dominating the final's scoreboard were mainly Eastern and Central European countries with the exception of Greece, so that Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Belarus, Armenia, Hungary, Moldova and Bosnia & Herzegovina are all guaranteed a place in the 2008 final in Belgrade.

Meanwhile, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, together with Malta, will have to start next year's race in the semi-final, a tough hurdle that is pushing many to ask whether Malta should continue competing or throw in the towel.

An online petition has already started making the rounds in the hope of persuading the government to stop "wasting funds" on the Eurovision, when the money could be invested more wisely in theatre, dance and art.

"Every year, tens of thousands of the taxpayers' money is wasted so that one singer can go for an ego trip around Europe... Maybe finally the money squandered on the contest can be re-routed to more important cultural projects," the petition argues.

However, Maltasong chairman Robert Abela remains adamant that pulling out would be a short-sighted solution.

"I definitely don't think boycotting the festival is the answer. The Eurovision is the only chance Maltese singers have to compete on the international stage; we cannot deny them this opportunity," he insisted.

On the contrary, Mr Abela believes the time has come for all the players in this field - composers, singers and authors - to come together to discuss the way forward and break away from the traditional package Malta presents at the Eurovision.

He is even toying with the possibility of inviting foreign co-producers to work with the Maltese composers and authors to provide "an injection of new ideas".

Composer Philip Vella agrees that Malta should continue participating and though it was time to come up with something different he recalled that Vertigo was the favourite song - with nearly 5,000 fans - in the BigPoll prediciton.

"There's no clear pattern in this contest. How do you explain that the winning song is a ballad, while the runner-up is a farce (Ukraine's Verka Serduchka gave a hilarious and crazy performance)," he said.

"With Vertigo I thought I had the best product, but the circumstances of every festival are different and it's difficult to analyse the situation. How do you explain that The Ark, megastars in Scandinavia, failed to place?" Mr Vella asked.

Mr Abela believes Malta has to change its way of approaching the contest, pointing out that the countries where Olivia Lewis promoted her song had failed to dish out any points to Malta.

This year, Olivia Lewis's song Vertigo and Malta were even promoted on MTV Europe, while the singer had a popular updated blog going. All these didn't seem to help in achieving the desired result, so what next?

"I believe we need to start taking risks, otherwise we're not going to get anywhere. If we pull out it means that we're refusing to learn from our mistakes, accepting failure and refusing to come up with new ideas. We got it right in the past and I'm sure we'll get there again. Let's just not take things too seriously," he said.