Georgia doesn’t want to 'put in' at the Eurovision in Moscow

Georgia is using this year's Eurovision song contest as an opportunity to poke fun at Russia. Not difficult to get their little joke, with a song entitled "We don't wanna put in".

After Russia's heavy-handed offensive on Georgia during their conflict last August, the southern neighbour and ex-Soviet state had decided to boycott this year's contest, hosted by Moscow in May. But now they've come up with a better idea - to turn up in Moscow and sing a disco tune comprising the lyrics "We don't wanna put in/ The negative move/ It's killin' the groove". While it's been received by Europeans as a light-hearted jibe, the gesture is unlikely to go down well with the Russian prime minister.

The performance was filmed on Wednesday night at Georgia's final, when the group, Stephane & 3G, were voted official contestants.

Despite the fact that political content is banned from the contest, this isn't the first time that Eurovision has been used for political gripes between contesting countries. In 1978 Jordan refused to broadcast the Israeli entry, instead airing pictures of flowers. Israel ending up winning, so the transmission was cut and the Jordanian media announced that runners-up Belgium had come first. When Lebanon planned to do the same thing in 2005, they were forced to withdraw for planning to breach the contest rules.

In 2007, it was Israel's turn to squeeze a political message into their entry's lyrics; this time aimed at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his nuclear plans. "Push the Button", talked of "crazy leaders in the world who are trying to trick us" and went on to say "I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun, but nevertheless, he's gonna push the button". Then there was Spain's 2008 entry "Baila el Chiki Chiki", which was forced to remove references made to the King of Spain's infamous "why don't you shut up?" remark at Hugo Chavez.