Eurovision 2010 prediction : the final

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear Pete Waterman claim that the Eurovision song he's penned for the UK has "every chance" of winning. I can understand how he might just have been labouring under that delusion back in March, but to still feel able to say that after having heard the competition demonstrates that he just never really 'got' Eurovision. Doubtless when the UK finishes somewhere in the bottom five (very possibly last) Pete will claim - as others have before him - to be utterly bemused, and put it all down to the bloc voting. And, to be fair, he might even be half-right if he does - but the bottom line is that Jade Ewen, Jessica Garlick and Imaani have all demonstrated that the UK's in-built disadvantage in the televoting age can be overcome with the right song and the right performance. Neither will be on offer this time.

In a sense, Waterman's comments are a classic case of putting 2 and 2 together and making 22, because he was clearly aware that Azerbaijan were the favourites, and after hearing their underwhelming performance in the semi-final instantly concluded that all bets are off. Well, he's maybe being wildly optimistic about the implications for the UK, but he's certainly bang on the money in his assessment of Azerbaijan - it really isn't looking like a winner, even taking into account the reports of an improved rehearsal. The early results from Esctoday's prediction poll seem to suggest that Armenia are poised to pick up the pieces - as I mentioned last night, I'm not convinced, but given its highly favourable draw, it certainly can't be ruled out.

At this point I could pray in aid the fact that I correctly predicted the winner in both 2008 and 2009, but those were both total no-brainers compared to this year. But I shan't be daunted - here's my wild stab in the dark of how I think it might all shake out...

Winners - Germany
2nd - Turkey
3rd - Romania
4th - Armenia
5th - Iceland

Possible dark horses - Denmark, Belgium

My gut feeling immediately after the second semi was that Turkey might just sneak it, but the glowing accounts of Germany's latest rehearsal have given me second thoughts. Lena could hardly have a better draw, and the song is going to stand out an absolute mile. But really there are half-a-dozen or more potential winners, and it's anyone's guess.

In my heart of hearts I don't really believe Denmark are going to come close to winning, but I do think you can just about build a plausible case for it. The song (which admittedly many people loathe) has a kind of I've Had The Time Of My Life vibe about it, which means performing last ought to be the dream draw. But to have any chance they'll have to nail every aspect of the performance - the vocals were fine in the semi-final, but the visual side still lacked a bit of sparkle compared to the Danish national selection.

Other intriguing questions - who will the UK vote for? The reintroduction of the juries complicates matters, but when we eventually see the televoting breakdowns, I'll be very surprised on past form if the British public haven't put one of the following countries in first place (admittedly I haven't a clue which one!) - Ireland, Greece, Turkey, Iceland or Cyprus.

As for me, I'll be following my long-standing personal rule and voting for my favourite of the songs not sung in English, which gives me a staggering total of six to choose from! I'm pretty sure that means I'll be voting for Portugal for the third year in a row.

Your breasts are a deadly weapon, Ljubica

Well, actually that's a line from the Serbian song that qualified on Tuesday night, but it could also very aptly apply to the Armenian singer, whose performance tonight bizarrely started with an extreme close-up of her bosom. It evidently did the trick. A more (well, even more) wholesome highlight of the evening was Niamh Kavanagh's amazing performance for Ireland - the song has improved out of all recognition since the national selection, but she could have been singing the Dublin telephone directory and it would still have sounded fantastic. She's certainly the class singer of the field, as she was all those years ago in Millstreet. I can't believe that some people on the forums are denouncing her performance - pulling out of the last note slightly early hardly negates the whole of the previous three minutes.

The only other standout performances from my point of view were Romania and Turkey. My general impression is that it was a weaker show than Tuesday's, which is peculiar given that it had a larger concentration of the generally favoured songs. Israel and Azerbaijan may have made it safely through, but I'm not sure either are really looking like potential winners anymore. So where does that leave us? If the bookies are to be believed, the next most likely winners are Germany, Armenia and Turkey. With all due respect to Armenia's Eva Rivas, I'm not sure her bosom (or even her apricot stone) is quite that dangerous, and while I love the German song, I'm not sure how well it's going to translate on stage. So my gut feeling at the moment is that Eurovision might just be Istanbul-bound for the second time in seven years. But the great thing is that - unlike the last couple of years - it looks very open and unpredictable for Saturday night.

As for my prediction...well, eight out of ten wasn't at all bad given the two shocks that very few people seemed to anticipate - the failure of both Sweden and Croatia to qualify. Bizarre though it may seem, I actually voted for Israel and the Netherlands - if I'd been voting 'honestly' I would of course have gone for Ireland, but as I've mentioned in previous years, I have a personal rule of only voting for entries sung entirely in a language other than English. As ghastly as the Netherlands' song was, I thought they deserved some reward for an endearing performance, and for doing what I never thought they'd do again - singing in Dutch!

Hold on, be strong, find some earplugs

I've just been having a peek at Esctoday.com for the first time in many months (for the uninitiated, it's the biggest independent website devoted to the Eurovision Song Contest). I was hoping to find out a little more about the scandal I vaguely heard about a week or two back, concerning a few dozen Azerbaijanis who were tracked down by the authorities and questioned...about why they had picked up the phone and voted for Armenia in the contest in May. Apparently there was nothing unusual or untoward in the request for an explanation. I note that Freedom House currently rates Azerbaijan as 'Not Free' - but surely the country should get special dispensation for only interfering in their citizens' lives on the grounds of dubious musical taste?

Anyway, no obvious sign of that controversy on Esctoday's main page (I'm sure it's there in the archive somewhere), but what I did find instead was a poll to decide the best Eurovision song of the decade, which has now been narrowed down to a grand final of 24. Rather refreshingly to my eyes, it's not a million miles away from a shortlist I might have drawn up myself - the two big omissions being Once in a Lifetime by Ines (Estonia 2000) and the brilliant If I Had Your Love by Selma (Iceland 2005). The absence of the former can probably be put down to the passage of time, and the latter perhaps never had a chance due to the ropey live performance which saw the song crash out unexpectedly at the semi-final stage. However, another song that met the same fate, Je t'adore by Kate Ryan (Belgium 2006) does make the cut. I'm delighted because it's one of my two all-time favourites - the other being the enchanting Icelandic ballad, Is it True?, that finished second in Moscow this year. So who to vote for? Looks like I've still got time to ponder that one.

Although I do wonder what a certain Irish Eurovision enthusiast, a man with no little pride in his unerring judgement, makes of the list. How on earth did Hold On, Be Strong go from being "clearly the worst song in the contest" in 2008 to being in the running for best song of the decade?

Solutions to the Eurovision political voting problem

I went out of my way to defend Terry Wogan on the All Kinds of Everything blog yesterday (I know, I've got an unhealthy fixation with that place), so it was a bit disappointing to hear him make such fatalistic remarks about the future of the Eurovision Song Contest in his commentary tonight. If he's ready to call it a day, that's his prerogative, but the idea that the entirety of western Europe is going to join him in doing so is a bit melodramatic. I wouldn't deny for a moment there's a serious problem with political voting, but the irony is that this is the year a significant first step was made towards addressing that issue. The new rules that applied at the semi-final stage successfully produced a fair balance between western and eastern qualifiers for the first time in years, so now all that's needed is a similar innovation to sort out the problem in the final. Off the top of my head, I can think of four possibilities that would provide at least a partial solution.

1) Allow each country to award points to fifteen different entries, instead of the current ten. This wouldn't have been feasible in the past, but now that only the top marks are read out, it would no longer slow proceedings down at all. Of course, under this system the top points would still be awarded on a neighbourly basis, but it's reasonable to assume the lower set of points would be distributed more on merit, leading to a fairer overall outcome. An example to illustrate - if a country happened to finish twelfth out of twenty-five in every single televote, under the current system it would finish last with no points at all. That simply can't be considered a fair reflection of the result people are actually voting for.

2) Allow each country to award points to five eastern countries, and five western countries. This would have the advantage of still allowing viewers to decide the result, and still to vote for whichever country they like - indeed it would be a strong incentive to cast two votes - but it would also, at a stroke, neutralise the in-built advantage eastern countries currently enjoy.

3) The BBC could surrender its 'Big Four' status in exchange for something more worthwhile - separate representation in the contest for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It would be the right thing to do on its own merits, but it would also produce a new British Isles voting bloc that could balance out its counterparts in the Balkans, the Baltic, Scandinavia, and the ex-Soviet Union. And if anyone tells you Scotland would never award high marks to England, I can tell you for certain they're wrong. Apart from anything else, about 8% of the population is English-born.

4) Revert to a 50/50 weighting for the jury and televote. Probably the simplest solution, in that it's been done before, at least in some countries.

On the contest itself, I was a bit disappointed to see Russia run away with it - as I said before Serbia, Portugal and Albania were my favourites, but I would still have been much happier to see Greece, Ukraine or Armenia take the crown than Russia. Ah well, it's all a matter of personal taste at the end of the day. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing my prediction turn out to be close to the money, although it wasn't exactly a tough one to call this year! And at least the song that was 'clearly the worst in the whole contest' (© Keith Mills 2008) somehow managed to finish 5th out of 43 entries. Wonder how it managed that?

Prediction for Eurovision final (Saturday)

There's an episode of the 1980s sitcom Just Good Friends where Jan Francis' character repeatedly tells Paul Nicholas there's "something missing" in their relationship without specifying what, which eventually results in an exasperated Nicholas screaming "WHAT IS THIS THING?". I felt a bit like that today when trying to make sense of the reports of Jelena Tomašević's performance in the final round of rehearsals. The most frequent comment was that she was in good voice, but that there was "something" missing. WHAT IS THIS THING?

Even leaving aside this missing thing that everyone seems utterly incapable of articulating (maybe Andy Abraham's nightmare vision has already come to pass), I was always a bit sceptical that Serbia could quite pull it off. In my view, it's definitely the class song of the field, but then I thought the same about Serbia & Montenegro in 2004 (they came second) and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2006 (they came third). So my prediction for Serbia is top three, but without any embarrassing need for Zeljko Joksimovic to present the trophy to himself. ("Great song, Zelkjo." "Thanks, Zeljko, you did a great job presenting too. And I love what you've done with your hair.")

But if not Serbia, then who? The bookies seem to agree (although they've been spectacularly wrong before) that the only other countries in serious contention are Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Sweden, and possibly Armenia. Personally, I just can't see Sweden winning - Hero is slightly higher quality than their usual fare, but it's still sticking to the same basic formula that frequently delivers them fifth or sixth place but no higher. I think Greece and Armenia will similarly come up short, so that leaves a battle between Ukraine and Russia. If that's the case, I feel Russia might just sneak it, if only because it cunningly draws the ice skating and violin-loving demographic into the pool of potential televoters (I'm being flippant).

So my prediction is :

Winners - Russia
2nd - Ukraine
3rd - Serbia

Potential dark horses :

Portugal
Norway (aka 'clearly the worst song in the contest', © Keith Mills 2008)

Mr Mills' musings also lead me to have an even greater interest in the fate of the UK this year. He confidently stated at a ridiculously early stage (when many songs had yet to even be selected) that Andy Abraham was 'certain' to finish in the bottom five, and was highly likely to finish last. I responded that I felt he could achieve the UK's best result since Jessica Garlick, which would mean a top fifteen placing. Unfortunately, I made that prediction before the UK received its lousy place in the draw, so I'm less confident than I was, but to be honest I'd settle for top twenty - since that would be sufficient to show up Mr Mills' "certainty" for the closed-minded nonsense it always was. Here's hoping.