Few countries have achieved the success that Bulgaria has had at Eurovision - we won it right from the beginning, with our very first participation in the contest in 2005, as well as in the three following years.

Yes, that's right, we have won on all four occasions that we've taken part. Morally. Every time our contestants return heads down, we make the world sick and tired of listening to our claims that we were actually the moral winners. Or we just blame it on a lack of luck and bad coincidences in this capitalist, consumer-driven, hostile-to-small-countries and, in the end, anti-Bulgarian world. Note that "moral winner" is a typical Bulgarian expression that explains every unsuccessful attempt, setback, ill success or, if we are to use its real name, nothing more, nothing less than a failure.

We blew in like a storm at Eurovision 2005 with a series of loud, domestic Balkan-type scandals. If you have heard of vote-buying in Bulgaria over the past few years, you should know that it all began with that domestic contest for Eurovision 2005. On one February evening to remember, local TV host, musician, singer, producer, superhero and what not Slavi Trifonov couldn't swallow his failure so he appeared on stage and with the stoniest, angriest and somewhat solemn face said that he would withdraw from the contest because the vote was manipulated in favour of the (then) rather famous band Kafe (Coffee).

Whether it was such or not, Kafe went to the contest and won it... morally, ranking 19th in the semi-finals.

As it was our first time in that big super-important European music contest, passions were still high and we simply couldn't leave it there. We continued ruminating over the topic with the breaking news that the melody of Kafe's song Lorraine was actually stolen from an older song, thus violating Eurovision's requirements for original song, one not released to the public. A cutting local TV show even revealed that more than 10 rather famous Bulgarian and international songs were based on the same melody. It already sounded like a conspiracy. I cannot recall who the real author turned out to be, but I am sure that if he or she was not Bulgarian, with a little bit of digging, we would have found someone's Bulgarian roots.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and somehow imperceptibly we no longer remembered Lorraine and whether she was in the rain, as the song read.

A year later, in the absence of Trifonov, but in the presence of the talented and amiable Mariyana Popova, no vote-buying was mentioned. As we simply could not do without some scandalous spicing, what got tongues wagging was that fact that the not-that-amiable, local flamboyant show phenomenon and, by chance, cross-dressing male vocalist Azis was back-up singing for Popova. As his music genre is considered uncouth and uncultured, the elite raised their voice against him. "How could such a person present us to Europe?" they said. So what if he could actually sing.

Ok, so what if he appeared in a skirt and heavy make-up at the semi-final? So did she. And let's not forget that this was the year when the Finnish Lordi won!

We could proudly say that our moral victory in 2006 was somewhat more glorious than in 2005, as we ranked 17th in the finals.

By the way, after all these years and after I have grown older and wiser, I still cannot understand the video. Why on earth should anyone put a naked couple in a bed, a belly dancer, acrobats, rhythmic gymnasts and break dancers together in one three-minute clip?

In 2007, we decided to try singing in Bulgarian. It was the year that we were closest to turning the moral victory into something more, as Voda (Water) by our contestants Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov ranked fifth in the finals. Their mixture of Balkan music and drum beats was very well received all over the continent, except by our Macedonian neighbours. It was then that the plagiarism ghost crawled out again. These dear neighbours claimed that the song was actually theirs. That was one of those disputes that burst out at once and died down fast, just another in the list of the numerous such Macedonian-Bulgarian arguments.

As to the values of the song, it was Voda that convinced me that words don't really matter. Though a Bulgarian, I couldn't understand what Elitsa was singing because the lines did not make any logical sense in my mind. Having read the lyrics, I realised that they in fact did not. And moreover, it was in Bulgarian, which is not exactly the most popular language in Europe. But still, Europe voted for it.

We felt a bit screwed with what happened to our last contestants. By ranking in the top 10 in 2007, Elitsa and Stoundji (Stoyanov's nickname) won Bulgaria direct entry into the finals category of Eurovision 2008. However, it was exactly at that time that they decided, on the quiet, to change the rules for the contest and all the participants were thrown together into two semi-finals. If that was not an anti-Bulgarian conspiracy, then I don't know what it is! That was why our contestants Deep Zone & DJ Balthazar couldn't make it to the finals, although their song DJ Take Me Away was pronounced the most modern one at the contest. They couldn't make it to the finals despite the two burning turntables, a laser harp and a scratch guitar - a cross between a guitar and a DJ turntable - and the fact that the lead singer Joanna was generously showing off her garter, the special accent in her designer outfit.

What is left for us is the consolation that the contest and Europe are not yet up to such a modern song.

If we were to draw a conclusion from our victories, the recipe for Eurovision success would be: leave aside all crying, girls in the rain, men in skirts and don't show your underwear; add some infectious beats, incomprehensible words and national identity (or what makes you proud). The latter two worked for Russia this year. Although the song was in English, the brutal Russian accent of the Eurovision-addicted Dima Bilan (for whom it was the second appearance in the contest) turned it into a guess-the-language quiz, but in combination with the world champion in figure skater Evgeni Plushenko, it really made the winning mixture.

Now we know what to expect from the next Eurovision - a little bit of a scandal and a huge, loud moral victory. And probably here is the place to say that I personally liked all the songs we sent to Eurovision. I think we should have ranked higher and, to me, these people are the moral winners of the contest.