A night of shame for the Bunker BBC and the Bunker European Broadcasting Union

I'm a lifelong Eurovision fan - I've only missed one contest since I was five years old, but never before has it been quite such an uncomfortable watch.  The European Broadcasting Union should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, as should many of the individual national broadcasters, most notably the BBC and the German public broadcaster NDR.  Countless viewers told the EBU that they needed to learn from the catastrophic mistake of last year, when not only was Israel allowed to compete but received special protection with the use of audio technology to filter out the booing during the song.  Well, it's clear that the EBU did "learn from their mistakes", but in completely the opposite way from what was demanded - they identified the places in last year's broadcast when they had allowed the full sound of the booing to slip through the net (particularly during the results section), and took all possible steps to "rectify" that.  The speaking role for the EBU executive supervisor was even cut out completely for the first time in decades, because the audience kept booing him last year.  Absolutely anything was sacrificed to protect Israel.  Anything.  This was bunker EBU and bunker Eurovision.

The only people who really came out of it with any credit were the Spanish broadcaster RTVE who put out a message in support of Palestinian rights immediately before the contest, and probably some of the members of the national juries, who it seemed to me were deliberately marking Israel down.  They probably imagined they were just making their own private protest, but in the end they may well have saved us from the ultimate catastrophe of an outright Israeli victory, because by the time the public vote was added into the mix there were only a few dozen points separating the Austrian winner and the Israeli runner-up.  Israel won the popular vote, but that was not because the European public wanted them to win.  It was simply because the Israeli diaspora throughout Europe, and right-wing nutjob sympathisers of the Netanyahu genocide, organised themselves and used their full twenty votes per phone number to create the synthetic impression that Israel was wildly popular throughout Europe.  Much the same thing happened last year, so it wasn't a huge surprise to me that Israel were so close to winning, and I voted tactically for Sweden (the pre-contest favourites) on the theory that they were most likely to avert the disaster if Israel were close.

Pretty much everything involving Israel during that broadcast was like watching a propaganda film from the Nazi era - this was a depiction of an 'alternative Europe' in which everybody is continuing to treat Israel like a normal country, and everybody is totally cool with the genocide, and everybody just adores Israeli popular music.  Even people booing Israel in an arena have to be technologically transformed into people cheering Israel in an arena.  It's just sheer cynicism.  Cynicism beyond that which we could really have thought the EBU and the BBC were even capable of until a couple of years ago.

What happened tonight cannot be allowed to happen ever again.  If the people of Palestine are still being exterminated by Israel a year from now, the broadcasters of countries like Ireland, Spain, Norway and Iceland have got to make clear they will withdraw from the contest unless Israel is excluded.  (Nobody is realistically expecting the BBC to develop a conscience any time soon.)  And if that causes other countries like Germany to storm off in a huff, I do not think that would be the end of the world by any means.

Get them OUT NOW #BanIsraelfromEurovision pic.twitter.com/DPBTSqT1TF

— 𝓑𝓵𝓪𝓴𝓮 🇸🇪 🇫🇮 🇪🇪 🇩🇪 🇲🇹 (@NllNKUCHACHACHA) May 17, 2025

Thoughts on Eurovision 2022 (with a prediction)

Scot Goes Pop more or less started life as a Eurovision blog, so I try to keep that tradition going to a small extent every year with a little bit of Eurovision coverage.  Last year that came in the form of a podcast, and I was planning to do the same thing this year, but alas, the clock has beaten me.  There was an Alba NEC meeting this morning (which was a very upbeat affair, by the way), so I didn't dare burn the midnight oil too much with all the finickity edits that would have been required to get a podcast ready in time.  But instead, here's a blogpost with a few thoughts about what to expect from the grand final tonight.

In the podcast last year, I was looking ahead to a truly fascinating showdown between two entries - France and Italy - which were practically level in the betting, but which couldn't conceivably have been more different from each other.  That made the outcome very unpredictable, because it was hard to judge which way the juries would jump, or which way the public would jump, or indeed what the synthesis of those two results would look like.  This year it's a very different story, because we have an overwhelming odds-on favourite - on the betting markets Ukraine are estimated as a roughly 70% chance to win outright, which is pretty incredible in a field of 25 songs.  But there's still a really interesting story beneath the surface, because it's by no means clear that Ukraine is actually the best song.  I'd probably have it in my own top six or seven, but I'm not convinced that it's objectively better than the UK, or Italy, or the Netherlands, or even Estonia, which is absolutely nowhere in the betting but leaped out at me in the semi-final as a possible dark horse.

The reason Ukraine are strong favourites is, of course, that they have a decent song at a time of massive public sympathy across Europe for the country's plight.  So it's assumed they'll win the public vote comfortably, and I'm inclined to agree with that assumption.  But the public vote only accounts for 50% of the points, so it's still conceivable Ukraine could fail to win if the juries go heavily against them.  OK, even the juries are composed of human beings who may be influenced either consciously or subconsciously by outrage at the brutal, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country.  But I recall back in 1993-4 that there was speculation that Bosnia-Herzegovina (then in the grip of a horrendous civil war) might win the contest on a sympathy vote, and that didn't even come close to materialising.  In those days, points were 100% determined by national juries.

Basically if Ukraine finish in the top three in the jury points, they should have enough public votes to power to victory.  But if they slip below the top three, it might be more of a challenge for them.  For what it's worth, the current betting for the jury vote alone has the UK ahead and Ukraine in second place.  That could conceivably be based on a leak of the actual results, because the jury vote took place last night on the basis of the performances during what is known as either a "rehearsal" or the "jury final".  So if it is a leak, we're perhaps looking at an overall Ukraine win - but I've lost count of the number of times people have assumed that movements in the betting markets were caused by leaks, and then been proved wrong.

The other big story here is that the UK, perennial also-rans in the contest in recent years, look like one of the two or three most probable beneficiaries if Ukraine stumble.  I'm not quite sure how to feel about that - I always used to wholeheartedly support the UK entry until about a decade ago, and then my attitude changed completely.  As we know, anything that creates a feel-good buzz about the UK "brand" can be potentially non-optimal for the Scottish independence movement.  Not that a UK Eurovision win would be a killer blow or anything remotely like that, but it would certainly be on the front pages of all the papers, and then there'd probably be a campaign to bring the 2023 contest to the Hydro in Glasgow (a campaign that would likely fail, so it would be a double-edged sword for the Better Together brigade).  However, although the UK are now clearly in the top three in the betting, they're still only rated as less than a 10% chance to win, so we probably shouldn't be panicking just yet.  

We may need to brace ourselves for the UK being in first or second place for long stretches of the scoring, though, because the public votes are only added into the mix right at the end. 

For what it's worth, here's my prediction, which is not a particularly radical one - 

Winners: Ukraine (Stefania - Kalush Orchestra) 

2nd place: Italy (Brividi - Mahmood and Blanco)

3rd place: UK (Space Man - Sam Ryder)

I'll actually be pretty happy if Ukraine win, because it would be the second year in a row that an entry sung entirely in a language other than English has come out on top - I think that would be a very good thing for the contest.  But a big talking-point after any Ukrainian victory will be whether it's feasible to actually host the 2023 contest in Ukraine - because for forward planning to take place, there would need to be stability.  There's a non-trivial chance that next year could be the first time since 1980 that the previous year's winners haven't hosted the contest.  (Israel won on home soil in 1979 but the Netherlands hosted in 1980, with Israel not even taking part.)

As I said earlier, Estonia and the Netherlands look like possible dark horses to me for tonight.  Estonia is the sort of song that would have easily stormed to victory twenty or thirty years ago - it's strongly anthemic, with a country tinge, a charismatic singer and a gimmick (he lugs a guitar around on his back).  It might be a value bet for a decent placing, at the very least.  And the Czech Republic entry is lifted by very eye-catching staging, which is probably why they've been given the opening slot in the running-order.

Are you a newspaper columnist and want to say Scottish democracy should be dismantled without anyone noticing? Try smuggling it into an article about the Eurovision Song Contest...

Via Professor John Robertson's blog, I caught up with professional troll Mark Smith's latest column in the Herald. If you doubt my characterisation of him as a professional troll, bear in mind that his last-but-one column was titled "What can reasonable people do about the SNP?", which I believe is technically known as a QTWTAIVFTOTCBBVAOTL (Question To Which The Answer Is "Vote For Them On The Constituency Ballot But Vote Alba On The List"). 

His new piece invokes one of my own favourite subjects, the Eurovision Song Contest, and innocently inquires what Scotland can learn from it. The punchline comes at the end, when he mentions that the Eurovision voting system does not automatically give the majority what they want, but instead gives weight to expert opinion, because experts sometimes know best. "Interesting" says Mark. So this appears to be a call for democracy in Scotland to be semi-dismantled and replaced with an electoral college system in which only 50% of the vote goes to the public, and the other 50% goes to unionist "experts". And that is, to be fair, pretty much the only "voting system" I can think of that might have any chance at all of electing Douglas Ross as First Minister. 

But well disguised, Mark, I'm sure no-one even noticed how barking mad your worldview must be. 

* * * 

While I'm on the subject of Eurovision, this is the final call for any genuine Eurovision fan who has heard this year's songs and fancies giving opinions on them in a special edition of the Scot Goes Popcast, ideally to be recorded at some point tomorrow. If no-one volunteers, you'll be getting a monologue, I give you fair warning of this. My contact details can be found in the sidebar on the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.

Le Royaume-Uni, nul points: Big majority of public demand a SCOTTISH ENTRY in the Eurovision Song Contest, in bombshell for the BBC from Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll

So you've got to allow me the occasional indulgence, OK? Out of a large number of questions in the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, I asked just ONE about the Eurovision Song Contest.  Frankly, you should be praising me for my restraint, because I can think of at least two follow-up questions I could have asked.

At the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest, there will be a United Kingdom entry.  However, in 2019, Scotland and Wales both competed in the Eurovision Choir event as countries in their own right.  In future years, how would you prefer Scotland to be represented in the Eurovision Song Contest?

By a Scottish entry: 60%

By a United Kingdom entry: 40%

That's much more decisive than the slim 53-47 majority in favour of a Scottish Olympic team in the Scot Goes Pop / Survation poll in January.  I can think of a few possible explanations for the difference: a) it could simply be caused by pollsters' house effects, ie. perhaps Survation have fewer people in their panel with a strong Scottish identity, b) it may be that people have more of an emotional attachment to Team GB at the Olympics due to specific memories from the past (Torvill & Dean, Linford Christie, Steve Redgrave or whatever), or c) people might have been deterred from abandoning Team GB because larger countries tend to win more medals.  The latter worry is irrelevant to the Eurovision, where smaller countries are not disadvantaged against larger ones.  (Ireland are still the most successful country in the contest's history with seven victories, although they now have Sweden breathing down their necks with six.)

Another difference with the Olympics is that there's no rule that would prevent Scotland competing without first having to become independent - as can be seen not only from the participation of Scotland and Wales in the Eurovision Choir event, but also from Wales having twice had entries in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.  BBC Alba are believed to have toyed with the idea of a Scottish entry in Junior Eurovision but decided against it - although whether that was because of pressure from London isn't clear.  The bottom line is that it's up to the BBC - if they tell the EBU they want a Scottish entry, it would almost certainly happen.  Now that we know what licence fee payers in Scotland want, will they listen?

As I always point out, no Scot has even represented the UK since Scott Fitzgerald in 1988.  Incredibly, Cyprus and France have both been represented by Scots more recently than that.  (Karen Matheson of Capercaillie fame sang for France in 1996.)  The lack of Scottish representation deprives us of a golden opportunity to promote Scottish culture and boost tourism.

I shall now embark on the unusual task of giving you the Eurovision preferences of various demographic and political groups.  Women are significantly keener on a Scottish entry - the majority is 64-36 among female respondents, compared to a narrower 55-45 among men.  Yes voters from 2014 are overwhelmingly in favour of Scottish representation, and among current Yes supporters there's near unanimity - only 7% want to be represented by the UK.  The position isn't quite so clear-cut among No voters - 34% of people who voted against independence in 2014, and even 25% of people who would vote No in a new referendum, would like a Scottish entry.  Labour voters are close to being evenly divided (44% for Scotland, 56% for the UK), which suggests that even the rump Labour vote still includes a decent number of people who strongly identify as Scottish.

There's a big age divide - under-35s prefer Scottish representation by a majority of almost 3-1, while over-55s are split right down the middle.  And fascinatingly, there's a narrow majority among English-born respondents (53-47) for a Scottish entry.

It's worth making the point that because the Eurovision question is to some extent a proxy for Scottish/British national identity, and because 40% of respondents plumped for the British option, it may well be that certain people in the SNP are over-optimistic about the prospect of Yes support rising consistently above 60%.  The idea that we should wait for that to happen before firing the starting gun on a referendum may be tantamount to giving up on independence completely.

Now, I'm not necessarily going to claim there's a strong thematic link here, but the next two questions in the poll are about nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons were banned by an international treaty that came into force in January this year.  However, the nine countries that are currently believed to possess nuclear weapons, including the UK, have so far refused to sign the treaty. Do you think the UK should join the treaty and dismantle its nuclear weapons?

Yes: 47%

No: 33%

With Don't Knows removed -

Yes 59%

No 41%

There have been polls in the past that have purported to show support for Trident in Scotland, so this could be an early indication that the new treaty is a game-changing moment that will make it a lot easier for campaigners to make the case for disarmament.  As you'd expect, the figures for SNP and Tory voters are reverse mirror images of each other (71% of SNP voters support disarmament and 71% of Tory voters oppose it), but what's much more significant is that Labour voters break 46-37 in favour of joining the treaty and disarming.  That suggests the type of 'atomic unionism' espoused by Jackie Baillie has the potential to cost Labour a lot of votes.  Additionally, 30% of people who voted No in 2014, and 22% of people who would currently vote No, want to sign up to the nuclear ban - which highlights a possible means by which a future Yes campaign could win more converts.

The UK government argues that its nuclear weapons protect the public due to a 'deterrent' effect.  However, others argue that the presence of nuclear weapons on the Clyde puts the public in greater danger by making the area a target for nuclear attacks, and by creating a risk of serious accidents.  Do you personally feel more safe or less safe due to the presence of nuclear weapons on the Clyde?

More safe: 24%

Less safe: 42%

Makes no difference: 34%

After I saw this result, it occurred to me that some of the 34% who chose the "makes no difference" option may be people who live nowhere near the Clyde and are naive enough to think that makes them safe.  In reality, you'd probably need to be in Shetland to escape the effects of a nuclear attack on Faslane.

There's an age and gender divide on the nuclear questions as well.  Although a plurality of over-55s want rid of the UK's weapons and say they feel less safe because of them, it's a fairly tight result in each case.  And women are significantly less likely than men to think Britain should not disarm or that nuclear weapons make them safer.

*  *  *

There are still more results to come from the poll.  If you'd like to be the first to know, feel free to follow me on Twitter HERE.

The annual Eurovision post

Well, actually there are usually several annual Eurovision posts - this is the first year since starting the blog in 2008 that I haven't posted predictions for the two semi-finals.  But don't worry, I wasn't boycotting Israel or anything like that, so there's no need for Fiona Robertson to launch a bigotry inquiry.  I just ran out of time.

I know some of you get mildly homicidal when I start writing about Eurovision, so to sweeten the pill this year I thought I might make a small departure from my usual prediction post, and instead offer you some betting tips.  Even if you're not interested in Eurovision itself, you might be interested in making a little money out of it.  Obviously what you do with this advice is entirely at your own risk - it's just some general speculation about where the value might possibly lie.

The Netherlands, oddly enough, are the red-hot favourites to win this year, and if they do, it'll be their first triumph since the quintessentially dreadful Ding-A-Dong way back in 1975 (a song that Edwyn Collins memorably turned into a Bond theme two decades later).  Over the last few years, strong favourites have tended to win at a canter, but if you go further back, the contest is littered with highly-fancied entries that crashed and burned.  The most recent example was 2011, when France were expected to win but finished a poor fifteenth, which allowed Azerbaijan to emerge from the pack.  In this case I'm fairly confident the Netherlands will finish close to the top of the leaderboard, because the song is likely to be the favourite of the juries.  But whether it wins outright will also depend on the public vote, and that's where one or two doubts creep in.  It's actually possible to bet on the outcome of the public vote alone, and I'd suggest that the eye-catching Australian entry and Russia are both quite generously priced on that front.  Russia are particularly tempting, partly because they're the kings of political voting, and partly because their singer Sergey Lazarev won the televote (but not the jury vote) three years ago.  And at the risk of fuelling David Leask's suspicions, it's not a bad song at all.

When I first heard the UK's song in February, I thought it was "our" best entry for years and years and years, and I still think that, but it clearly hasn't caught the imagination of the fans, and you can get odds of close to 500/1 against a UK win.  In spite of uninspiring staging, I believe the song is significantly underpriced, probably due to fatalism brought about by years of poor UK results.  Probably the most sensible bet would be the 25/1 on offer for the UK to merely finish in the top ten, which seems insanely generous.  (For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think the UK will make the top ten, but I do think there's a greater than 4% chance of that happening.  4% is the percentage chance implied by the odds.)

The catchy-but-appalling San Marino song is also a rank outsider to make the top ten, and that's a semi-tempting one because you can guarantee the public will be voting for it as a laugh.  But you'd assume it'll be hammered by the juries.  (There again, the juries ranked the Israeli novelty song as high as third last year, so anything is possible.)

There are a few other entries that are odds-against to make the top ten, but which might be a value bet - the Czech Republic song is very infectious, Serbia have followed the dramatic Balkan ballad template that proved so successful for them a few years back, and Cyprus have a song that is fairly similar to their runner-up from last year.

*  *  *

And for those of you who aren't interested in either Eurovision or Eurovision betting, here is YouGov's latest Scottish subsample for the European elections.  It's an unusually large subsample of more than 600 respondents, which makes it almost as good as a full-scale poll, because YouGov (unlike other firms) are believed to weight their Scottish subsamples correctly.

SNP 39%, Brexit Party 20%, Liberal Democrats 13%, Greens 10%, Conservatives 7%, Labour 6%, UKIP 2%, Change UK 1%

Seats projection: SNP 3, Brexit Party 1 or 2, Liberal Democrats 1, Greens 0 or 1

Eurovision 2018: Prediction for Saturday's grand final

So I got a slightly patchier 7 out of 10 qualifiers right on Thursday.  The three I didn't pick out were the Netherlands, Serbia and Slovenia.  Country music isn't really my thing (as I discovered conclusively on a hellish trip to Millport circa 1995), so that's probably why I underestimated the Netherlands' chances, but I can see why they went through.  I'm delighted to have been wrong about Serbia, which sent an uncompromising piece of ethnic music in the Serbian language and deservedly didn't pay any sort of penalty.  I must say I have absolutely no idea how Slovenia managed to get through, but I suppose there always has to be one that leaves you scratching your head.  I know some people will shrug their shoulders and say "that's the Balkan bloc vote for you", but in fact Slovenia has traditionally benefited much less from neighbourly voting than the other ex-Yugoslav nations.

On to tonight, then.  Until a few days ago, it looked like this year's contest was going to be a simple case of working out whether the overwhelming favourites (Israel) would meet expectations, or would spectacularly fail on the night as quite a few overwhelming favourites have done in the past.  But, remarkably, Israel do not even go into tonight's final as favourites, because they were dramatically overtaken by Cyprus as the rehearsal videos started to filter through.  A couple of days ago, the betting odds seemed to be pointing towards a straight fight between Cyprus and Israel with everyone else as also-rans, but then Ireland stormed out of nowhere into a decent third place.

I'm not sure I can make much sense of all that.  I agree that Cyprus is a much more plausible winner than Israel, but it's just one of several strong songs/performances that are all roughly on a par with each other, so I can't understand why it's in quite such a commanding position in the betting.  My guess is that the Irish surge is due to a couple of factors - a) the favourable position in the draw, and b) the publicity over a Chinese TV station being banned from broadcasting Eurovision because they censored two men dancing together as part of the staging of the Irish song.  In other words, people seem to be putting their money on the story behind the song, rather than the song itself.  That can sometimes be a dangerous thing to do - if a story is enough, why didn't Bosnia come close to winning in 1993?

What I've just said makes it sound like I don't rate the Irish song.  In fact, the opposite is true - it's one of my personal favourites, and it's beautifully sung.  I just fear that it's too low-key to do much damage.  Just occasionally, very gentle songs can stand out so effectively among all the identikit screeching that they win by a mile - last year's Portuguese winner is an excellent example, of course, as is Ireland's own victory in 1994 with Rock'n'Roll Kids.  But for what it's worth, my gut feeling is that it probably won't happen this time.

My suspicion is that Cyprus will be in the mix tonight, but that their main competitors will not be Israel and Ireland, but Norway and Sweden.  I struggle to separate Cyprus, Norway and Sweden, but I think Norway (in spite of having the most irritatingly catchy song of the evening) is perhaps the least likely of the three to win if only because of its place in the draw.  Probably just as well, because the mind boggles as to how insufferable Alexander Rybak would become if he has anything more to be smug about.  Cyprus v Sweden is almost a coin-toss as far as I'm concerned, but I'll cop out and go with the conventional wisdom that Cyprus will win.  I expect it to be a close one, though.

Here's my full prediction -

Winners: Cyprus (Fuego - Eleni Foureira)
2nd: Sweden (Dance You Off - Benjamin Ingrosso)
3rd: Norway (That's How You Write A Song - Alexander Rybak)
4th: Estonia (La Forza - Elina Nechayeva)
5th: France (Mercy - Madame Monsieur)

Possible dark horses: Austria, Australia

UPDATE (7.20pm): Of course, another potential explanation for the sudden Irish surge in the betting is that the full results of Tuesday's semi-final (which are supposed to be absolutely secret until the end of the contest) might have been leaked.  Unlikely, but possible.  If so, it could be Dublin next year.

Eurovision 2018: Prediction for Thursday's second semi-final

So I correctly picked eight out of the ten qualifiers in the first semi.  The two I overlooked were Austria and Ireland, which is really odd, because those are genuinely two of my personal favourites.  I should have had more faith, but I thought the Irish song would suffer from being low-key, and with Austria I don't think I got a full sense from the rehearsal videos of just how effective the staging was.  The live vocal was superb as well.  I still don't think Ireland will do any damage in the grand final, but Austria just might.

As for tonight, here are the ten countries I think will make it through -

Norway
Ukraine
Sweden
Hungary
Moldova
Russia
Denmark
Malta
Australia
Poland

Russia is my 'wildcard' pick out of that lot.  Most people expect it to fall short, and it may well do...but Russia are the kings of political voting, and political voting at the Eurovision most certainly isn't dead.

Eurovision 2018: Prediction for Tuesday's first semi-final

Yes, it's that time of the year again, and with non-heartfelt apologies to the handful of people who traditionally storm off in disgust at this point, here is the eleventh (gasp!) running of the annual ritual of the Scot Goes Pop Eurovision prediction.  As David Dimbleby used to say about the BBC exit poll, it's sometimes accurate...sometimes not so accurate.  2010 was my golden year when I got almost everything right, although I've correctly picked the winner for five of the last ten years.  Sometimes that was relatively easy because there's often an overwhelming favourite, but I've noticed over the years that overwhelming favourites for the Eurovision tend to go one of two ways - they either win by a landslide as expected, or they crash and burn and don't even get close to winning.  In a sense, the latter is what happened to last year's Italian song Occidentali's Karma (although admittedly by that point it had been caught in the late betting by Portugal).

This year, as you may know, there's once again been an overwhelming favourite over the last few weeks in the shape of Israel.  I must say I have my doubts about whether it will win, although I'd better be cautious in case my own personal tastes are interfering with my judgement.  But I have a suspicion that the juries won't go for it, and that it may even be a bit too 'challenging' for a lot of televoters.  [UPDATE: And I see in an echo of last year that Israel has just been unexpectedly displaced as bookies' favourite by Cyprus.]

I don't think Israel will have any great problem qualifying from tonight's semi, though.  In no particular order, here are the ten countries I think will make it through...

Estonia
Cyprus
Lithuania
Albania
Greece
Israel
Czech Republic
Bulgaria
Finland
Azerbaijan

Of those, the one I'm least sure of is Greece - although with Cyprus in the same semi, there's a guarantee of points from at least one source!

Scot Goes Pop is 10 years old today!

I'm not quite sure whether I should be excited or terrified about this milestone, but there's no point denying it - the calendar doesn't lie.  It all started on 3rd May 2008 with this post about Plaid Cymru's impressive (but under-reported) gains in the Welsh local elections, and Boris Johnson ousting Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London.  If memory serves me right, the blog was read by literally only three or four people on the first day, and I had to actively promote it just to get that far.

By complete chance I had a huge political story to get my teeth into a couple of days later, when Wendy Alexander (then Scottish Labour leader) started hinting that Labour was about to make an unanticipated U-turn by supporting an independence referendum.  What unfolded from there is one of the most dramatic, but strangely also one of the least-remembered, episodes in recent Scottish political history.  If Ms Alexander hadn't been ousted as leader a few months later, the likelihood is that the first independence referendum would have taken place in 2010 rather than 2014, and would effectively have been jointly sponsored by the SNP and Labour.  We can only speculate as to how differently things might have turned out as a result.

All the same, being a Eurovision fan, the vast bulk of my blogging for the remainder of May 2008 was non-political and was instead dedicated to the upcoming song contest in Belgrade.  The blog was basically a diary for my own benefit - practically nobody was reading it, although I was excited to get a sudden spike of search engine traffic on Eurovision weekend itself.  I can't remember if it was the Saturday or Sunday, but on one or other of those days I hit the giddy heights of 71 unique visitors - which for two or three years afterwards I regarded as the benchmark for an exceptionally successful day.

I abandoned the blog for the time being at the end of the 2008 Eurovision season - it was too time-consuming, and I couldn't quite work out why I was even bothering with it.  But at the start of 2009, the commissioning of Andrew Lloyd-Webber to write the UK's Eurovision entry caught my imagination, and I felt the sudden urge to start writing again.  So Scot Goes Pop was revived as an essentially Eurovision blog, with just the occasional political post chucked in here or there.  But strangely enough it was the political posts that started attracting comments (I think this was the first one to be published), and that was probably the biggest factor in the blog eventually becoming politics first, Eurovision second.

The ten year history of Scot Goes Pop can basically be split into two distinct halves, with a short transition in between.  There was the period up to early 2013 when the daily audience was typically in the dozens or at most the hundreds, and the period since 2014 which has seen thousands of unique readers per day, and tens of thousands per month.  There's no magical secret to how the transformation from obscure personal blog to leading alternative media site occurred - it was simply down to the chance factor of the independence referendum, and the fact that people were suddenly looking for something (hard polling information without the customary unionist spin) that only Scot Goes Pop seemed to be providing.  I wasn't doing anything different to before, and the spontaneous change required quite a tricky mental adjustment.  I had to get used to the fact that if I said something that was a bit too close to the bone for some people, it was likely to get a strong reaction, whereas in the past nobody would have noticed or given a monkey's.

At present, if the website Traffic Estimate is to be believed, Scot Goes Pop is the fifth most-read alternative media site in Scotland, with approximately 80,400 unique visits in the last thirty days.  That places it only just behind CommonSpace (a site that enjoys far more free exposure in the mainstream media) which is in fourth place with 84,500 unique visits.  Indeed, for several consecutive weeks earlier this year, Scot Goes Pop was estimated to be slightly ahead of CommonSpace.  Quite a contrast from the days when I considered myself freakishly lucky to get 71 visitors on a Eurovision weekend!

Would I recommend this blogging lark to others?  Well, put it this way.  As a direct result of writing Scot Goes Pop, I've been interviewed on TV four times, and on radio twice.  I've written more than ten articles for The National newspaper.  I've been a columnist for the International Business Times, the TalkRadio website, and iScot magazine.  I've addressed a rally outside the Scottish Parliament.  I've participated in a theatre show (of sorts).  I've taken part in umpteen short films, podcasts and live-streams - including the blind terror of a 55-minute live debate with Tommy Sheridan.

So think carefully before taking the plunge.  You might imagine you're safe enough when you start out with an audience of two men and a dog.  But you just never quite know what you're letting yourself in for...

It's now thirty years and counting since a Scot last represented the UK at Eurovision

I was half-thinking of foregoing the Eurovision posts altogether this year, because some people seem to get weirdly irate when I do them.  But as Bill Palmer of the US went out of his way the other night to ask for some Eurovision blogging, consider this a 'request post'.  To answer his specific question: no, Scotland does not take part in the contest and has always been nominally represented by the UK entry, which is selected by the BBC (or by a process devised and overseen by the BBC).  The corporation would probably argue that the rules make it impossible for there to be a Scottish entry for as long as Scotland is part of the UK, because each entry is put forward by a national broadcaster that is a paid-up member of the European Broadcasting Union.  However, a special exception is made for Australia, and given that the BBC are one of the contest's biggest financial backers, I'm not totally convinced that they would fail if they were to vigorously push the suggestion that the four Home Nations should be separately represented.  The obvious compromise would be for the UK to give up its automatic place in the grand final in return for four places in the semi-finals.  But it's the BBC we're talking about here, and with the upholding of British nationalism effectively written into the BBC Charter, it's highly unlikely they would ever make that case.  So the dream words "Écosse, douze points" will almost certainly have to wait until after independence.

What you'd think the BBC might do, though, is make sure individual Scots are at least given a fair crack of the whip at representing the UK in the contest.  But not a bit of it.  The last Scot to sing for the UK was Scott Fitzgerald exactly thirty years ago, when he famously lost to Celine Dion by just one point after the final national jury failed to award him any points at all.  As I always point out, and incredible though it may seem, both France and Cyprus have been represented by Scots more recently than the UK has.  (Karen Matheson of Capercaillie sang for France in the Breton language in 1996.)  What's truly shocking, though, is that in all of the UK national selection finals since 1988, there seem to have only been two Scottish acts - Do Re Mi featuring the late Kerry McGregor in 1997, and City Chix in 2006.  I don't know whether such an obscene under-representation says more about the southern-centricity of the BBC or of the British music industry, but it's certainly not happening by random chance.

To turn to tonight's national selection for 2018, I wasn't totally unhappy with it - I voted for the winning song for the second year in a row, and the overall standard seemed a little higher than in past years.  It's heartening to see the selection being given a prime-time slot on a mainstream channel (albeit BBC2 rather than BBC1) - gone are the dark days at the turn of the century when it had a graveyard slot early on Sunday afternoon.  What I couldn't understand is why the announcement of the winner was once again so truncated - with the use of a 50/50 jury/public vote system, there was obvious scope to crank up the tension with a gradual reveal of points.  (And given that the eventual winner started the night as a rank outsider, that might have worked particularly well.)  The voting segment is one of the things people love about the Eurovision itself, and with a full ninety minutes to play with, it's hard to see why it was excluded.

Overall verdict: the UK have ended up with a decent entry, but barring miraculously effective staging or a very weak field, it's unlikely to be an outright winner.  It's the sort of song you could maybe imagine finishing a creditable sixth or seventh on a good night.

"Remarkable" Scottish poll incoming?

Probably the less said about my Eurovision prediction the better, although I've got a few crumbs of comfort to cling to - I was correct about Bulgaria finishing second, I was right about Moldova doing better than the betting suggested (although I still underestimated how well they would do), and all of the songs I had in the top five finished in the top six.  However, I've been completely wrong about Belgium the whole way through, and I significantly overestimated Italy and underestimated Portugal.  I was right about the UK doing much worse in the public vote than with the juries, but that wasn't exactly a tough prediction.

I'm delighted that a song performed entirely in a language other than English has won for the first time since 2007 (last year's winner was partly in Crimean Tatar but also had English segments).  Mysteriously, Julia Hartley-Brewer said it was "a victory for the English language", so if anyone has the slightest clue what she might mean by that, be sure to let her know.

Turning back to the general election, there is apparently a "remarkable" Scottish poll in the Sunday Times, but I can't find any trace of the results online yet, and with it being almost 2am presumably we're going to have to wait a few more hours for whoever drew the short straw to #buyapaper.  I would imagine "remarkable" is most likely to be code for "good for the Tories", but let's not jump to conclusions - I suppose it could also mean a record low for Labour or something like that.  But even if our worst fears are confirmed, we should treat the poll with a measure of caution - it's likely to be from Panelbase, who have already produced the Scottish Tories' best showing in this campaign so far.  It's just possible there's a house effect at play.  We could really do with a much wider range of full-scale Scottish polls than we've had, but of course after the polling disasters of the last two years, newspapers are much more reluctant to spend money on polls that have no guarantee of accuracy.

(There's also the possibility that this will be an anti-climax and it won't even be a voting intention poll at all.)

UPDATE : As has been pointed out in the comments section below, there is a Britain-wide YouGov poll in the London edition of the Sunday Times, which could be classed as "remarkable" due to the strength of the Tory vote and the collapse of the UKIP vote.  It's possible that's what Jason Allardyce was referring to in his tweet, in which case we'll all be able to breathe a sigh of relief.  I had just assumed he was talking about a poll in the Scottish edition of the paper, which he edits.  Doubtless the mists will clear soon enough.

Eurovision 2017 : Prediction for Saturday's grand final

When I thought ahead to making this prediction a few weeks ago, I imagined it would be the routine task of explaining why I was going along with the conventional wisdom by backing the overwhelming favourites Italy.  So it's a tad disconcerting to reach the day of the grand final and find that Italy are no longer the overwhelming favourites - in fact for a short period yesterday and today, they were no longer favourites at all, although they've now marginally overtaken Portugal again.  I do rate the Portuguese song (in fact I voted for it in Tuesday's semi), but I'm puzzled by the amount of people who see it as an outright winner.  An unusual back-story will only take a song so far in the public vote, and in theory the juries should be totally unmoved by that sort of thing.  There's always just the slight concern that the surge in the betting may be influenced by inside knowledge of how voting went in the semi, but I'm going to discount that theory and stick with my gut feeling - that Portugal is more of a natural third or fourth place, rather than a natural winner.

If it's not going to be Portugal, it surely has to be Italy.  Apart from being possibly the best song in the contest on its own merits, it's also got no fewer than three irresistible gimmicks in the shape of the "ale!" chant, the gorilla, and the silly dance moves.  One or two irresistible gimmicks have more than sufficed for previous Eurovision winners, so I strongly suspect Italy will at least win the public vote.  If so, the million dollar question is what the juries will do - and there is a genuine warning here from the Sanremo Festival (which doubled as the Italian national selection), where the song failed to win the jury vote by quite some distance, and indeed was only barely in second place.  So it's possible Italy may have to come from behind in the second stage of voting (as Ukraine did last year), but even if that's the case, I think they'll have just about enough public support to seal the win.

I've had a sneaking suspicion for a while that the betting may be underestimating Sweden somewhat - it's possible they may even outpoll Bulgaria on the public vote, although presumably the juries will favour the worthier Bulgarian entry.  I'm still baffled by the expectations that Belgium could be in the top five - it's a great song, but it's very low-key, and I thought the live performance in the semi was distinctly ropey.

Winners : ITALY (Occidentali's Karma - Francesco Gabbani)
2nd : BULGARIA (Beautiful Mess - Kristian Kostov)
3rd : SWEDEN (I Can't Go On - Robin Bengtsson)
4th : PORTUGAL (Amar Pelos Dois - Salvador Sobral)
5th : MOLDOVA (Hey, Mamma! - Sunstroke Project)

Possible dark horses : Croatia, UK

There's been an authentic buzz about the UK in a way there hasn't been for many a year, but I think the fears of political voting are more than just paranoia, especially this year of all years.  My guess is there'll be a respectable result on the jury vote, and then a rude awakening when the public vote is revealed.

Eurovision 2017 : Prediction for Thursday's second semi-final

I'm a bit short of time, so this one will have to be a bare-bones prediction.  The ten countries I think will qualify tonight are...

Estonia
Netherlands
FYR Macedonia
Hungary
Romania
Israel
Austria
Denmark
Bulgaria
Belarus

Eurovision 2017 : Prediction for Tuesday's first semi-final

Well, I always hate to break a sequence, so for the tenth year in a row (gulp) here is the annual ritual of the Scot Goes Pop Eurovision prediction.  The ten countries I think will qualify from tonight's first semi-final are...

Portugal
Sweden
Australia
Moldova
Georgia
Slovenia
Finland
Greece
Azerbaijan
Armenia

Of the main favourites, the one I've left out is Belgium.  That'll probably come back to haunt me (it usually does when I leave out a favourite), but I've been slightly baffled from the start as to why it's so strongly tipped.  It's a decent song, but it's very low-key, and it looks like the rehearsals haven't been a rip-roaring success.

If you're looking for a small bet, you could do worse than Montenegro - not because I think it's likely to qualify, but simply because the odds are crazy.  It probably has around a 20-25% chance, not the 10% chance the odds would imply.  So it ought to be a value bet.

If Ukraine don't back down, they must be banned from their own Eurovision

Apologies for a Eurovision post as early as March, but the events of the last couple of days have been truly extraordinary.  First of all, the Ukrainian authorities announced that the Russian entrant wouldn't be allowed into the country to compete in this year's contest (taking place in Kiev), because she performed in Crimea without their permission.  Russia of course now regards Crimea as an integral part of its own territory, so whatever you may think of that state of affairs, it would have been totally unrealistic to expect a Russian citizen to apply for Ukrainian permission before going there.

I suggested on Twitter yesterday that the EBU couldn't possibly accept a Ukrainian veto on who can compete for Russia, and that if there was no U-turn they would have to think about the unprecedented step of allowing Julia Samoilova to compete via a live feed.  After a little indecision, the EBU came to precisely that conclusion today.  But now the Ukrainians are apparently attempting to veto even that solution, and are saying that it would somehow be a breach of Ukrainian law to broadcast the Russian song if it is performed under these circumstances.

There is a very clear precedent covering this scenario.  In 2005, Lebanon seemed set to join the contest, and selected a beautiful (if a tad old-fashioned) entry in French called Quand tout s'enfuit.  I was really disappointed when they were forced to withdraw, but the logic was impossible to argue with - Lebanese law forbade the broadcast of the Israeli entry, and that would have made a mockery of the whole contest.  Exactly the same principle applies here.  It's probably too late to strip Ukraine of their hosting rights, but if they refuse to broadcast the properly-selected Russian entry, they shouldn't be allowed to participate in their own contest.  If they don't back down and they aren't banned, the integrity of the competition (stop laughing at the back) will be fatally undermined.

Thunder and lightning, it's getting exciting

I knew that the sight of Australia racking up a huge Eurovision lead on jury votes, but losing it all on the public vote, reminded me of something.  It took me a while to put my finger on it, but of course it was the SNP totally dominating the constituency vote in the Holyrood election, before the list vote didn't work out quite so well thanks to flippin' tactical...well, you get the picture.  But at least Nicola Sturgeon still won the election by a country mile - there's no such solace for the Aussies tonight.

Normally when one country is 100 points ahead, and the host says "but everything can still change", it provokes little more than a weary and hollow laugh.  In fact that was probably the case tonight, because I don't think anyone really thought Australia could be caught, but the new points system worked its magic better than we could have dreamed.  It won't always be like this - often in the Melodifestivalen (where the system is borrowed from) the juries and public are in agreement.  But a split decision is probably more likely to occur at the Eurovision, simply because the public vote is always heavily distorted by neighbourly bloc voting.

From the point of view of my own prediction, it was a slightly irritating final outcome, because I got so many things right, and yet I still somehow contrived to get the overall winner wrong.  I correctly predicted that Australia would win the jury vote and would do reasonably well on the public vote.  I was also correct that Russia would be hammered by the juries but would win the public vote.  But what I didn't foresee was that a third country would come through the middle by finishing second on both the jury and public votes, and in particular I didn't foresee that the country that would do that was Ukraine.  They were doing pretty well in the betting, and some Eurovision bloggers predicted they would win, but no matter how many times I listened to the song, I just couldn't see it happening.  I thought it was too dark and complex to do well on the public vote (even allowing for Ukraine's in-built advantage courtesy of the ex-Soviet bloc vote), and I wasn't even 100% convinced that the juries would like it.  I suppose part of the explanation is the emotion in the performance, although even that didn't come across as fully as it might have done if the song had been entirely in English.

But I can't say I'm disappointed - I would have preferred Australia, but the most important thing is that a credible, non-formulaic song won out over Russia's derivative effort.  (And of course if Australia had won, the contest would have faced credibility problems of an entirely different sort.)

Graham Norton is a great commentator, but I do think he got a bit of deserved comeuppance tonight after repeatedly slating the Georgian song and saying it was baffling that it had made it through to the final when Ireland hadn't.  (It really, really wasn't baffling at all.)  He clearly wasn't sure quite how to react when the UK jury, comprised entirely of music professionals who presumably know their stuff, gave Georgia the maximum twelve points!  Norton also isn't quite as sharp as Terry Wogan used to be in his observations on the voting.  In this case, he was reading far too much into the lack of political voting among the juries, which actually isn't a great surprise if you look at the voting patterns prior to telephone voting being introduced in the late 1990s.  Greece and Cyprus used to swap twelve points as a matter of routine, but that was pretty much it  - there was no reliable Nordic bloc vote, or anything like that.  There also shouldn't have been any surprise tonight that the UK did much less well on the public vote than with the juries - that's been a fairly consistent pattern in recent years, although until now it hasn't been quite so visible.

There used to be a tradition at the Olympics that the IOC president would finish his remarks in the closing ceremony by declaring the latest edition of the Games "the best ever".  I think the EBU could be forgiven for making an equivalent boast tonight.  I don't think the contest has ever been as well hosted, the jokes were actually funny rather than cringe-inducing (which is almost unheard of), the climax of the voting was a thriller (which has been rare of late), and the quality of the music was pretty high (by Eurovision standards, I mean, which is the only test that can be meaningfully applied).  It really was the complete package - no complaints at all.

Eurovision 2016 : prediction for Saturday's grand final

Well, this is all getting rather uncanny - I correctly predicted all ten qualifiers from the second semi-final, after getting the first one mostly right as well.  I'm bound to come a cropper at the final hurdle, but here goes anyway.

The majority of hot favourites at the Eurovision end up winning, but some narrowly fall short, and a significant minority end up on the bottom half of the scoreboard (as happened to France in 2011, for example).  I don't think the latter fate will befall the Russian song this year, but I do think it's a relatively weak favourite by recent standards.  For all the similarities to the winner from twelve months ago, it's formulaic and derivative where its predecessor was fresh and creative.  I find it hard to believe that the juries will place it top, so the big question is whether it'll at least be in the game at the end of jury voting.  If it's in the top three at that point, there must be a very good chance that the pro-Russian bloc in the televoting will push it to victory.  In fact, here's a betting tip, if you're that way inclined - if by any chance the juries do have Russia in first place, pretty much any in-play odds on Russia to win would be worth taking, because it'll be about as close to free money as you'll ever get.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Russia may take a real pounding with the juries, in which case the song favoured by the juries would probably only need to finish second in the televoting to be guaranteed of victory.  The snag is, though, that jury voting is much harder to read in advance than televoting, and so it's hard to know for sure which song is most likely to emerge from the pack.  All I can say is that my own view after watching the semi-finals (and also some of the rehearsal footage) is that Australia have the strongest song in the contest, and they definitely have the finest singer.  So logically I have to conclude that the juries would be most likely to plump for Australia, a song which I also think could do reasonably well in the televoting.  Without an enormous amount of conviction, then, I'm predicting an Australian victory.

One obvious problem with trying to work out whether the conventional wisdom overestimates or underestimates a song's chances is that personal taste can interfere with the radar.  In this case, my instinct is that France, Ukraine and Sweden have been overestimated and that Belgium, Malta and Bulgaria have been slightly underestimated.  But I watched the whole of the Melodifestivalen final and was baffled by the winner, so it could be that I'm missing something about the Swedish song that most other people can see.  Perhaps I'll be surprised again, but I'm going to stick with my gut feeling and say that it'll be outside the top five.  I'm more confident in predicting that France will fall short of expectations - I like the song a lot, but I just don't see anything at all in it that will make it stand out.  It's the sort of entry that has finished a routine fifteenth in previous contests, so I'm not quite sure what all the fuss has been about.

My initial feeling after Thursday's semi was that Belgium might be headed for the top three, but their hopes have taken a slight hit after being placed right at the start of the running-order.  But first is better than second, and it's so different from everything that'll come afterwards that people will probably still remember it by the end of the show.  Conversely, the Maltese song won't stand out as much, but it's extremely well performed and has an enviable draw.  I expect Bulgaria to be in the mix because the juries will probably recognise its quality - I'm not so sure how it will fare with the public, though.

So this is my best guess as to how it will shake out -

Winners : Australia (Sound of Silence - Dami Im)
2nd : Russia (You Are the Only One - Sergey Lazarev)
3rd : Malta (Walk on Water - Ira Losco)
4th : Belgium (What's the Pressure - Laura Tesoro)
5th : Bulgaria (If Love Was a Crime - Poli Genova)

Possible dark horses : Israel, Netherlands, Italy

If Australia do win, in one sense it'll be great for the contest, because musical quality will have unexpectedly won out over the do-it-by-numbers approach.  But in another sense it'll be a bad outcome, because it'll draw attention to the fact that the contest's status as a European event has been hopelessly undermined over the last couple of years.  I haven't bothered to check this year's rules in relation to Australia, but I presume it's still the case that if they win, they won't be allowed to host the contest next year, and will instead have to pick a European country to 'partner' with.  That may be the UK's only hope of hosting the Eurovision in the foreseeable future, although I have a feeling Australia might want to avoid any impression of mutual Anglo-Saxon back-scratching, and would go for a more left-field choice instead.

By the way, I'll be voting for Austria.  The decision has been made for me.  I have a personal rule that I only vote for songs performed entirely in a language other in English, and Austria is literally the only one left!

Eurovision 2016 : Prediction for Thursday's semi-final

After my success in correctly predicting nine out of ten qualifiers in the first semi, let's see how spectacularly I can fall from grace in round two.  Here are the ten countries I think will make it through tonight...

Ukraine
Latvia
Serbia
Bulgaria
Israel
Australia
Belgium
Poland
Lithuania
Georgia

I couldn't make up my mind between Georgia, FYR Macedonia and Norway for the final spot.  I almost plumped for FYR Macedonia on the basis that they usually get through even when their song isn't up to much, but then I realised that they don't really have many neighbours voting tonight - just Serbia and Albania (although admittedly that could still make all the difference).

Once again, I'll be looking out for a live performance strong enough to challenge Russia in the grand final.  The only one that leapt out at me as a possibility on Tuesday night was Malta (and you can guarantee Ira Losco will wangle a few bonus votes from being a) pregnant and b) the girl who was robbed in 2002).

Eurovision 2016 : Prediction for Tuesday's semi-final

I'm very late in the day with this annual ritual, so it'll have to be a bare-bones prediction.  Here are the ten countries I think will make it through tonight...

Russia
Malta
Armenia
Czech Republic
Cyprus
Hungary
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Netherlands
Iceland
Austria

Probably Austria is the most doubtful of those ten, but I certainly hope it sneaks through for the sake of variety - it's one of only three songs tonight either wholly or partly in a language other than English.  (It's in French, strangely enough.)

It'll be interesting to see how all of the entries come across on screen, but at the moment I'm struggling to see past Russia as the overall winner of the contest.  Some people think France are in with a shout, but as much as I like that song, it reminds me of entries that have finished well outside the top ten in the past.  It's pleasant, but it doesn't jump out of the screen and demand attention.

Terry Wogan

While watching the tennis this morning (which was a painful enough process anyway), I was absolutely heartbroken to look at my phone and see the news about Terry Wogan.  Of course I'm a Eurovision fan, but even if it wasn't for that, some of my earliest childhood memories are of getting ready for school in a freezing Kilsyth kitchen while my mum listened to the Wogan breakfast show on the radio.  He was like a kindly uncle, who was constantly there somewhere in the background throughout my life.  And unlike a number of other BBC celebrities who made their name at around the same time, I think we can confidently predict that his legacy is never going to be tarnished in any way at all.

There are so many highlights from his decades of Eurovision commentary, but this one particularly sticks in my mind from 2002 in Estonia.  Unfortunately the final line is partly cut off, but it was : "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.  You cannot beat the Eurovision Song Contest.  Where else are you going to see that kind of thing?"