Just finished the fifth series of the West Wing. I really don't understand the people who say the show suffered a marked drop-off in quality after Aaron Sorkin left. It's a different show, I'll grant you: often bleaker, less warm, sometimes missing the wit of the first series. But I don't see as that's a problem. The characters are so established by this point that their dialogue probably writes itself. We all know how everyone is going to react to any situation. Also, it's coming toward the end of the term, so the politics is getting serious, while the characters are getting jaded and tired. That makes sense to me from a story-line point of view.

And John Wells throws so much new stuff into the series. The Access episode. The fading in and out before the shutdown. And An Khe, with the shooting down of the aircrafts, which is a brilliant weaving of two stories together as one. The series contains two great liberal triumph episodes ("Shutdown" and "The Supremes"), another minor one in the "Slow News Day" episode, great character development in CJ, plus another gripping season finale (I make that five from five). Also, "We don't like Asians".

My feelings toward the West Wing are always going to be a little biased, but still, why so little love? More love please.

This is totally not self indulgent. I'm just talking.

So, it was finally and conclusively proved that rock and metal are superior to pop and hip-hop this weekend with all of Europe (including this country) voting for horror-death-hardcore-heavy metallers Lordi to win Eurovision. Conclusive proof. In the same way that Atomic Kitten beat U2 to number 1 proved to them that pop was better than rock.

By the way, Lordi, if anything, are a power metal band. Big chorus, big riffs, melody, daft lyrics and not really all that heavy. Think Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. They might not even be metal, owing more to hard stadium rock bands like ACDC or Rainbow or Queen.

But the whole thing rekindled an idea I had for a metal Eurovision. Europe is so full of metal at the moment the EU is looking to add countries like Turkey just so it has somewhere to put it all. And maybe next year a lot more countries will embrace rock and the whole thing will be great and watched by sixteen people. Or, maybe we'll send another thirty-something plumber to rap with girls dressed up in school uniforms and proudly declare our contribution to music.

So anyway, the Metalvision lineup would go as follows. Sweden is easy to start with, being the home of melodic death metal. In Flames or Dark Tranquility would be the obvious choice, but I'm gonna plug for my new favourite band Scar Symmetry as the best example of the genre. Norway would be fun, with all the black metal. There's Satryicon or Dimmu Borgir, and I go with the latter, because they have that great symphony sound. Finland would be represented by Sonata Arctica, who I heard recently and loved.

Italy: Lacuna Coil. Next. Poland has a great death metal scene, with Vader and Behemoth acheiving mainstream success. But Decapitated would be the entry. France... France, France France... Only French band I know is Dagoba, who are pretty good. Germany and Rammstein are basically the same word, who I would choose over metalcore bands like Caliban. I was hoping to avoid any metalcore bands, because we haven't got to be influenced by America in everything. I've got a CD by a death metal band from Belgium called Deformity, and seeing as I know nothing else about metal in Belgium, they'll do.

And then, the UK. Possible choices include any old NWOBHM bands that are still together (which includes both Priest and Maiden), any of the millions of metal-core or "new-not-nu" metal bands who watched Kerrang for a while and thought they could do that, or one of our extreme bands, like Akercocke, Anaal Nathrakh, Venom, or Cradle of Filth. But I'd go with grindcore masters Napalm Death, as one of two things we contributed to metal music.

And that's my list. As I said, not self indulgent at all. Poland would win, but it would be all political. And Terry Wogan would still host, and make fun of the facepaint.

Craig