Please indulge me for a few minutes while I enter a competition...

This isn't the sort of post I would normally write (ie. blogging about blogging) but I've never been able to resist a competition, and quite frankly I'm still smarting over not receiving Gisela's dress through the post two years ago in spite of my correct prediction that Susanna Georgi would win the Andorran national selection for Eurovision. Anyway, there's currently a contest running to write a blog-post listing three good things about CMF Ads (one of the blog advertising networks you can see midway down the sidebar), so I thought I'd give it a spin. As it happens, there are genuinely quite a few things I really like about CMF Ads, so hopefully I can do this without compromising what might laughably be described as my integrity. OK, here goes!

Good Thing No. 1 : Although it's billed as essentially a network for advertisers, it works really well for publishers as well. Probably the main reason for that is the payout threshold of $2.50, which is quite a bit lower than the main competitors - I've been paid three or four times so far, most recently a few days ago. But there's also the satisfaction of being able to (virtually) sell advertising space on your blog directly to individuals - you can set your own price for a month-long ad, and CMF Ads only take a relatively small cut. At one point last week, I had six ads running that had been bought that way. Although there's another blog advertising network that operates a very similar system (Project Wonderful), the beauty of CMF Ads is that if nobody buys your ad space directly, it doesn't really matter - the gap will be filled by other types of ads.

Good Thing No. 2 : It's constantly improving. When I first toyed with the idea of joining the network as a publisher, I was really put off by the 50% cashout "tax" which essentially meant that whatever you "earned" was halved unless you used it as a virtual currency to spend on advertising of your own. But the people who run the network clearly recognised this was having a deterrent effect, and slashed the tax to just 10%. Similar progressive changes have been made to the advertising options available - initially there were only the "campaign ads" that I described earlier, in which advertising space is sold individually for each blog. Many low-traffic blogs found it impossible to get anyone to advertise, but this was remedied by the introduction of "network ads" which are shown across all blogs in the network, with each publisher receiving a share of the revenue in proportion to the number of ad impressions delivered. This still left a problem for advertisers, though - you could be sure of getting plenty of ad impressions for your money, but there was absolutely no guarantee of a lot of ad clicks. So there was another swift innovation - "spike ads", in which you pay for a set number of unique clicks. But even that still left one big snag - all the clicks came from the relatively small pool of CMF Ads members. That in turn was put right very recently by the introduction of "firework ads", which offer a guaranteed number of visits that can come from anyone.

Good Thing No. 3 : Very friendly customer service. A few months ago I found I couldn't log-in to the CMF Ads website, and in spite of the fact that it turned out to be my own stupidity, I received an email within a few hours advising me what to do, and then another email within minutes congratulating me on the resolution of the problem! It certainly made a refreshing change after the query I had previously sent to another website, to which I received a reply approximately a month later that read : "Thankyou for drawing this to our attention, but it isn't a priority for us right now". (Funnily enough, I think I might have gathered that without being told.)

So that wraps it up. Thanks for your patience - normal service will (probably) be resumed shortly!

Ah ah ah I, I knew I was right

Except in the case of Andorra, who in spite of me wishing as hard as I could failed to make it through. Quite simply, the live performance didn't match the quality of the song (almost the exact reverse could be said of Malta). I also seem to have had something of a blind spot with Sweden, which most people were expecting would qualify but I thought would fall short. Probably it was distinctiveness that won the day there. But the qualifier that completely flabbergasted me was Finland - the song is OK but the performance was as uninspiring as in the rehearsals. It can't be put down to political voting so it will remain a mystery (unless it transpires it was the song saved by the juries). So in the end I only correctly predicted seven out of the ten qualifiers, although in my defence I did say that Israel were the next most likely qualifiers (on the subject of which, what has Mira Awad done with her hair?).

I said last night I would be voting for Bosnia, unless there was some sort of revelation in the live performances. As it turned out, there was a revelation, and ironically it came from a song I already rated highly - Portugal. As much as I loved the song, I couldn't imagine it translating well to the Eurovision stage, but I couldn't have been more wrong. So, for the second year in a row, I voted for Portugal!

Thoughts on the show itself - well, I'm not sure 'magic buttons' are really much of an improvement on envelopes. It's still not too late for a drastic rethink before Thursday night, though. How about a 'magic tree', from which a 'magic apple' falls off every time you give it a good shake. And then the apple 'magically' splits open to reveal the name of a qualifier for the final. No? Oh well, just a thought.

My prediction for first Eurovision semi-final (Tuesday)

Before I begin, I'll just modestly point out that I correctly predicted all ten of the qualifiers at this stage last year (and I'll conveniently gloss over my prediction for the second semi!). Anyway, in no particular order, here are the ten countries I think will qualify for the final tonight -

Turkey
Switzerland
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Andorra
Romania
Malta
Armenia
Iceland
Portugal
Belarus

As with last year, I'm basing this partly on my opinion of the songs, partly on what I've seen of the rehearsals via YouTube, and partly on the familiar political voting patterns (although of course the fact that the juries choose one qualifier complicates matters). I have to admit there may be a danger of my heart ruling my head here - as regular readers will know Iceland and Andorra are my two favourite songs in the contest by miles, and I've also got something of a soft spot for Portugal. I think I'm on fairly safe ground with Portugal and also with Iceland (whatever Keith Mills might think) but Andorra is a borderline call after their particularly ropey first rehearsal. Things have improved somewhat since then, but not enough for me to be fully confident. If they fail to make it, I think Israel might be the next most likely qualifier.

And you might be wondering - which will I be plumping for in the public vote, Iceland or Andorra? Answer (bizarrely) - neither! As I mentioned last year, I have my own long-standing personal rule that I only vote for songs sung entirely in a language other than English, so I just choose the best one that fits into that category. In this case (barring a revelation in the live performances) that will be Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Eat your heart out, Keith 'the Oracle' Mills

I hope it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that, in spite of my absurd self-doubts, I was naturally correct in my prediction that Susanna Georgi would sweep to victory in tonight's Andorran selection for Eurovision. And in true self-effacing Mills fashion, let me just also observe that this extends my incredible track record of correctly predicting the outcome of Andorran national selections to an astounding one year in succession.

Andorra - it's a game of skill not luck

You really know you're a Eurovision obsessive when you've just wasted twenty perfectly good minutes poring over the entries in the Andorran national selection. The explanation is that Esctoday very helpfully spread the word of a 'guess the winner' competition Andorran television are running, and how could I possibly resist? As there are only three contenders in the selection, I was rather hoping the likely winner would be obvious and leave the competition as a sort of de facto lottery (rather like Philip Schofield asking "is France - a) a country, b) a tractor or c) Norman Tebbit's real name"), but unfortunately it's a bit more of a poser than that. I think we can safely rule out the truly awful Exhaust by Lluís Cartes, but it's a toss-up between the other two. Passió obsessiva by Mar Capdevila does remind me a little of a couple of previous Andorran entries, so that could be some sort of indication - but I went for my heart over my head and picked La teva decisió by Susanna Georgi because I liked it the best. Possibly a mistake, but as the prize I stand to miss out on is a dress - that's right, a dress - I dare say I can live with it.

Either way, I somehow don't think we're off to Andorra la Vella for Eurovision 2010. By the way if you fancy entering the competition yourself - go on, I dare you - you've only got a few hours left to watch the songs and e-mail your prediction.