Vanja Radovanović will represent Montenegro at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Inje”. 35-year-old Vanja triumphed over his four female competitors at last night’s national final, the first the country had held since back in 2007, the year of its ESC debut as an independent nation.

Held in a seemingly empty function room at the Hilton Hotel in Podgorica (either that or the audience was really unenthusiastic), the show lasted two hours despite featuring just five entries, somehow even managing to justify a three-song superfinal within that. All the televote proceeds went to charity, so perhaps that was part of the logic.

Despite the length, the show was a reasonably enjoyable affair, featuring guest appearances by recent representatives Knez and Slavko, a serious string section delivering pop-classical renditions of ex-Yu and international ESC evergreens, and a spoof documentary about what would happen if Montenegro ever won the contest and suddenly had to host the thing.

In the end, Vanja Radovanović won the 100% televote verdict and will defend Montenegro’s colours in the second half of the second semi-final at ESC 2018 in May.

Incidentally, “inje” means “hoar frost”, which is that specific type of crystalline frost that forms on leaves, grass, wires, spiderwebs and so on. Well, not every song has to be “sieben sieben ailulu”.