My prediction for Thursday's Eurovision semi-final

This is the weaker of the two semis in the sense that it doesn't feature any of the favourites, but it perhaps has more strength in depth, and it's certainly the much harder one to predict. Of the fifteen entries, I think basically everyone but Georgia has got some kind of chance of progressing. I eventually managed to come up with a list of ten that I was reasonably happy with, and then I realised that I had left out Switzerland and Ireland, who instinct tells me are both likely to sneak through. But I compared those two entries with all of the ten I have on my list, and I just can't see who should drop off. So I'll stick with logic and leave Switzerland and Ireland out, even though it doesn't feel quite right.

Near certainties :

Israel
Norway

Fairly likely :

Greece
Romania
Austria

I'm not at all sure about these but I'll have a punt :

Malta
Poland
Macedonia
Slovenia
Finland

That would mean Switzerland, Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania and Ireland all missing out. I hope I'm wrong about Ireland, because it's the song I feel the strongest connection to, having voted for it in the barking mad Irish national selection a couple of months ago (it almost ended in a fist-fight!).

The UK votes in this semi, and that presents me with another dilemma. I normally follow a personal rule of only voting for songs with exclusively non-English lyrics, but for the first time ever it's literally impossible to do that. So I'll have to plump for one of only three songs that are at least partly in a language other than English, namely Israel, Slovenia or Poland. I have a feeling that it'll be Slovenia, by a process of elimination.