Last week I said that I would tell you the results of the local elections in England and the elections in Scotland and Wales. That means, I shall tell you what happened – who won, who lost.

　　You remember that here in Birmingham we were electing councillors to run our local authority, Birmingham City Council. The result in my ward was that the Liberal Democrat candidate won. In the city as a whole, the Conservative party won three more seats than it had before, and the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition will continue to run the city. This is what we expected would happen – it was the expected result.

　　In Scotland, the result of the election was much more dramatic. For the first time for very many years, the Labour party is not the largest party in Scotland. The Scottish National Party, which wants Scotland to become an independent country, will have one more seat than Labour in the new Scottish Parliament. But it does not have a majority in the Parliament. It is talking with the other parties. The result of these talks may be a coalition between the SNP and some other parties. Or the result may be that the SNP forms a minority government.

　　We can of course talk about the result of a football match – that is, how many goals each team scored. We can talk about the results of an exam – did you pass the exam? how many marks did you get? If you do a Google search on your computer, Google will give you many pages of results for the search. If you are doing a scientific experiment, the data or information which you get from the experiment are called the results of the experiment. In maths, the answer to a calculation or a problem is often called the result. And if you are ill, your doctor may take a blood sample from you, and send it to be tested. Later, he will tell you the results of the test – things like how many white cells there are in the blood.

　　We can also talk about the results of a competition. This weekend, we shall learn the results of the Eurovision Song Contest. If you live outside Europe, I should explain that the TV companies in Europe each year run a competition to choose a song for Europe. Singers and groups from every European country take part. And it is bad, bad, bad! Only very specially bad songs win the Eurovision song contest. The British entry this year is called Flying the Flag. It is sung by a group called Scooch. They are dressed as airline cabin staff and sing wonderful lines like:

　　Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da

　　Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

　　Ba-ba-da, Ba-ba-da, Ba-da-da-ba, ba-da

　　Now that is bad. But is it bad enough? Is it possible that other countries have even worse songs? What will the result be? We shall find out on Saturday. I can hardly wait!