Eurovision Song Contest 2014: Be your own Judge with this Game to Play at Home

The 2014 Eurovision Song Contest is looking to be one of the most talked about contests in recent years, with an Austrian transvestite upsetting Russia's sense of decency with her shocking talk of "tolerance and artistic freedom".

Meanwhile Russia's entry to the "Europe-wide gay parade" (surprisingly, not Pussy Riot) consists of the Tolmachevy twins, Nastya and Masha, who got through to the final, albeit with a few boos, with their song Shine: "Shine into my darkness. Shine into the night my rising sun. Drive away the madness. Can you be a masterpiece of love?" See video below

Also in the running to win this year is the Ukraine with their entry Mariya Yaremchuk, who took the opportunity on getting to the final to talk about the crisis facing her country: " "I am proud to be Ukrainian, and I am singing for all the Ukrainians - there are 46 million of them," she said. "My main message is that time is now, and there are more important things than politics. Eurovision is a better way to unite people than politics."

Politics aside, this year's Eurovision also has some standardly bizarre offerings from across Europe. Poland is serving up hip hop, while France's entry Twin Twin look like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air opening credits vomited on them.

To make watching the annual flamboyant song contest even more fun to watch, IBTimes UK has devised a game to play at home.

What you will need:

Pens

Paper

Ruler (optional)

TV

Enthusiasm

Getting started:

Before play, you must come up with some categories for marking each individual country. These will be marked out of 10 and should be counted up to give each entry a final score.

While these can be anything you want, suggestions include:

How elaborate the costume is

How good the key change is (if a Eurovision entry does not have a key change it should be given 0 as standard)

Lyric quality – the sillier the better*

Dance routines

Overall enjoyment (this can boost scores where no there is no key change)

*Turning on the subtitles can greatly enhance your Eurovision enjoyment

Playing the game:

Making a sweepstake of the game makes it more fun. Cut out bits of paper with each country's name on and hand out to the players until there are none left.

NOTE: Players should not score their own countries because this is not fair.

Next each player should create a grid like system on a piece of paper, listing the country down the left hand side. Going across the top the categories should be written and the last column should be marked 'total'.

For each entry, score countries according to your categories and total up.

Winning the game

One or two people should then be nominated to collect score cards and add up the total for each country from each player. The person who has the country with the most points wins!

Prizes

The prize could be money – players could each put in a pound for each country they have, for example. A novelty gift could also be purchased.

The winner should also perform the winning song when it comes back on the TV, complete with dancing and emotion.