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.

My predictions for Tuesday's Eurovision semi-final

Marcia is quite right - it's high time for Scot Goes Pop to revert to being a Eurovision blog for a good few days (albeit a Eurovision blog that reserves the right to immediately drop everything if a new referendum poll is published!).  I must say I'm a touch underwhelmed by the standard this year - there are certainly songs that I like, but not a huge number, and there's nothing that has really got under my skin in the way that I Feed You My Love and Crisalide did last year.  However, if you go back to virtually every Eurovision that took place up to and including the year 2000, there were rarely more than a tiny handful of good songs, and yet the contest was still a great spectacle in a variety of other ways (the utter chaos of Rome 1991 being my own favourite example), so hopefully that will be the case again this time.  I do worry that the semi-finals may drag a little more than in recent years, though.

Of course what any Eurovision fan looks out for in the line-up of entrants is old favourites from the past, and as usual there are a few.  Most obviously, Valentina Monetta (aka "the only singer in San Marino") is representing her country for a third year in a row. I would imagine that must be some kind of record - Peter, Sue and Marc famously represented Switzerland four times in the 70s and 80s, but not in consecutive years.  Monetta's first two entries couldn't have been more different, which is odd because they were both written by Ralph Siegel.  The first was an excruciatingly awful - but strangely compelling - novelty song about Facebook, while the second was the aforementioned Crisalide, a powerful pop ballad which in my opinion ought to have been a strong contender to win the whole contest, but which ultimately failed to even make it out of the semi-final.  I'm relieved to say this year's effort Maybe is much closer to being in the Crisalide mould, but it's considerably blander, so logic would suggest it probably isn't going to make it through.  Strangely enough, though, it's still one of my six or seven favourite songs in the contest - it's got the slightest hint of a "60s/70s Bond theme" vibe to it.

Also returning - although we won't see them until Thursday's semi - are Romania's Paula Seling and Ovi, who finished third in the contest back in 2010 with the song Playing With Fire (which I seem to remember Doug Daniel saying was just about the best Eurovision song he'd ever heard).  This year's entry Miracle doesn't have quite such a strong hook, but it's still got tonnes of energy, and up against an unusually weak field it wouldn't completely surprise me if Romania sneak into the top five again.

And last but not least we have Sweden's Sanna Nielsen, who has never actually appeared at Eurovision before, but who has nevertheless been associated with the contest for years and years due to her multiple attempts to win Melodifestivalen - a massive annual Swedish television event in its own right, but which doubles up as the Eurovision national selection.  (Although she came closest in 2008 with Empty Room, the one that sticks in my mind the most is Du Och Jag Mot Världen in 2005 - and she certainly looked a bit different back then!)  Not only did she finally seize the Melodifestivalen crown this year with Undo, but she's also rated by the bookies as one of only two entries with a serious chance of winning Eurovision.  The other is Armenia, which I've listened to a number of times and somehow can't quite picture as a winner - I think the style of the song is going to divide opinion too much.  So almost by default I've come to the conclusion that Sanna Nielsen will probably emerge victorious.

In many ways, that wouldn't be great news for the contest, because it would mean a third Scandinavian winner in a row, and the second Swedish win in three years.  However, maybe my expectations will be different after watching the semi-finals, and there's always a chance of a slightly weaker song coming out of nowhere to win on the basis of some inspired staging, as Latvia did in 2002 and Azerbaijan did in 2011.

So here's my prediction for the ten qualifiers from tonight's first semi...

Near certainties :

Sweden
Armenia
Ukraine
Hungary

Fairly likely :

Estonia
Azerbaijan
Russia

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

Montenegro
Netherlands
Iceland

That would mean San Marino, Latvia (who are singing a song about baking a cake), Belgium, Portugal, Moldova and Albania all missing out.  Of those six, probably Belgium are the most likely to make it through - it's an intensely irritating song, but it does have a big finish.  In my personal opinion San Marino, Portugal and Albania all thoroughly deserve a place in the final, but I just can't see it happening unless the juries go for them very heavily.

Marcia pointed out the other day that everyone's new favourite Tory astroturfing campaign 'Vote No Borders' were tragically too late to put forward Flowers of the Union as the UK's Eurovision entry, although of course we shouldn't entirely exclude the possibility that Children of the Universe was originally entitled Children of the United Kingdom before falling foul of the EBU's rules on political lyrics.  But it set me thinking about previous Eurovision songs that extolled the virtues of Europe as a united entity - perhaps those could have provided some kind of model for our anti-independence friends?  Take for example the Irish entry from 1990, which managed to finish joint second mainly by name-checking pretty much every country in western Europe...

"Don't you remember those Adriatic days?
I miss your laughter and all your little ways
I can still see you in London, walking on Trafalgar Square
And drinking wine in Old Seville, how I wish that we were there

Meet me in Paris on a Champs Élysées night
We could be in Rome again, 'neath the Trevi fountain light
We should be together, maybe we just might
If you could only meet me somewhere in Europe tonight"

A Rory Stewart twist on that song might have reminded us that the 'baa' noise that sheep make in Lanarkshire is uncannily similar to the 'baa' noise that sheep make in Lancashire, before building up to this rousing chorus -

"So I've driven all the way from Penicuik to Hull
Oooh yeah baby, just to get it through your skull
That I don't really care where you hold my hand
Just so long as it's somewhere in the Middleland"

* * *

Sticking to a musical theme, you might remember that at the end of Celtic Connections I mentioned a band called The Cask, who were brave enough to perform a song at the Danny Kyle Open Stage that explicitly called for a Yes vote in the independence referendum. Well, Michael McElligott (who wrote the song) got in touch with me the other day to mention that he's just made a studio recording of it. I've had a listen, and it's rather wonderful. I'm not sure whether I was being given permission to post the sound file here, so to be on the safe side I'd better not, but it'll be available on iTunes soon. Be sure to look out for it - it's called Make Alba Shine.

Haba Haba, hujaza kibaba

I follow quite a few fellow Eurovision obsessives on Twitter, and I spotted a tweet from one of them the other day expressing shame that an entry in Anders Behring Breivik's diary reveals him - bizarrely - to be a fan of the contest...

"May 14th : It's the Eurovision finale today. I just love Eurovision … ! :-) It's a lot of crap music but I think it's a great show all in all. I've seen all the semi-finals and will take the time off to watch it later today, online. My country has a crap, politically-correct contribution as always. An asylum seeker from Kenya, performing a bongo song, very representative of Europe and my country … In any case; I hope Germany wins!"

In truth, I think we Eurovision fans can actually be quite proud of the fact that he took such exception to the Norwegian entry, and Norway can also be proud that they chose a song partly in Swahili, performed by a Norwegian-Kenyan (not an "asylum-seeker"), in this year of all years. I must admit it wasn't my cup of tea, although the chorus was strong.

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!

Spread your wings and fly, fly, fly high

A final, final Eurovision post of the season (probably).  I've been having a look at the split between the jury and public votes, and a few interesting things leap out -

1) The reintroduction of the juries is having precisely the effect it was supposed to in relation to Russia.  In the televote the Russian entry finished a ludicrous eighth as a result of neighbourly voting, but the juries placed the song last, resulting in a somewhat more realistic placing of sixteenth overall.

2) The juries had the opposite effect they were supposed to have on the UK, which on televoting alone would have been in fifth place, rather than eleventh.  It's not clear why the juries hated the song so much, although their votes were based on the dress rehearsal, in which it was suggested Blue had severely underperformed.

3) On the other hand, it appears that Amaury Vassili's poor performance on the night can't fully explain why France failed to live up to their status as hot favourites - the juries had the song in twelfth place on the basis of an apparently much better dress rehearsal performance.

4) Italy's surprise second place was courtesy of the juries - in fact, if it had been a jury-only vote, Italy would have been the landslide winners.  In the public vote, they were only eleventh.

5) On a couple of songs which I didn't think I got the results they deserved : the juries were far more appreciative that the public of the Austrian entry, but the opposite was true of Spain.

6) I'm relieved to see that the rumours suggesting the tedious Swedish entry had won the televote were wrong, albeit only just.  With the juries, it was a mere ninth.

So on balance I think this shows that the juries are having a positive effect, even though they've clearly failed to wholly eradicate the political effect on the final placings.

Or perhaps it was the message that needed tweaking?

According to the Independent, "Europe's last dictator" may be in danger of losing the plot -

"The Belarusian leader has long been seen as a skilled political operator...but analysts are now asking whether the moustachioed strongman might have lost touch with reality. Mr Lukashenko's rhetoric in recent weeks has become increasingly aggressive, as he has criticised "nauseating" democracy and the country's political opposition, and even suggested that Belarus's failure to qualify for last weekend's Eurovision Song Contest was part of a sinister Western plot against the country."

Granted, vote-rigging is one logical possibility for what went wrong at Eurovision. Another possibility is that the people of Europe may have been somewhat bemused that a country trying to shed its image of being caught in a Soviet time-warp would want to enter a song entitled I Love Belarus, and featuring the following lyrics -

"I'm feeling great and it's easy to be strong
When all the hearts keep on beating as one
The sky is blue and I'm writing a new song
Saying that I'm free, friendly and young

I have so much and I'm ready to show you
Let's come together, so here is my hand
We're gonna fly watching lakes in their full view
Fields are full of gold, and it's all my land

I - LOVE - BELARUS, got it deep inside
I - LOVE - BELARUS, feel it in my mind"

All that's really missing is "glorious is our leader, purging the counter-revolutionaries". But we shouldn't knock it - the song may not have qualified for the final, but it did receive twenty more points than Latvia's somewhat less ideologically-driven call for us to "stare me with candy eyes, love me with luscious thighs".

Actually, it occurred to me the other day that the sole advantage of Eurovision's recent notoriety for political voting is that the contest is now virtually immune (or at least ought to be) from the paranoia over vote-fixing that plagues so many TV talent and reality shows. If the EBU were going to rig it, they'd surely go about it in a slightly more subtle way.

And you'll fly over lands where your eyes can't find the end

Well, if I had any sense I would hang up my Eurovision prediction shoes at this point, but I don't think I'll be the only person feeling that way tonight! Although few anticipated Italy's runner-up spot, with the benefit of hindsight it's not hard to understand how it happened, because stylistically the song stood out an absolute mile. But Ukraine in fourth? I'm still scratching my head. OK, they're one of the countries who traditionally benefit from political voting and that was certainly the case tonight, but that can't be the whole of the explanation. It's hard to escape the conclusion that people were voting for the sand-artist rather than for the song or the singer.

Even though it wasn't the outcome I anticipated, I'm reasonably happy with it - at least the Azerbaijani song had a bit of charm and warmth about it, which is more than can be said for the typically formulaic Swedish offering. But it's interesting to see that Azerbaijan didn't win their semi-final (they were second behind Greece), so clearly there was nothing inevitable about the result. I was also really delighted when Italy pipped Sweden to second place with the very last vote cast. Hopefully this success should now cement Italy's place in the contest after a fourteen-year absence - although it has to be said that when they called it a day after 1997 it was off the back of an excellent fourth-place finish, so you just never know!

As I find myself saying at this point every year, it's undeniable that political voting continues to plague the contest. It probably didn't decide the winner this year, as all of the top-placed countries had natural allies (even Italy had San Marino and Malta), so it would have evened itself out to some extent. And we also know from Finland's victory a few years back that it's possible for countries with few allies to overcome the bias and win big. But there's no getting away from the fact that it's a significant disadvantage for some countries, and unquestionably affected the final rankings tonight. It's hard to see an obvious solution other than something very contrived such as giving each country a 'blacklist' of neighbours and friends they're not allowed to vote for. Even returning to a 100% jury vote wouldn't necessarily resolve the problem - Greece and Cyprus used to routinely swap twelve points every bit as much in the old days.

Incidentally, my one small criticism of Graham Norton (who in general was excellent again) is that I wish he would study a map of Europe before commentating on the voting. I couldn't believe he didn't pick up on the significance of Romania and Moldova voting for each other!

My own votes went to France and Spain - and funnily enough I think I might have done that even without my personal rule of only voting for songs not performed in English. I hadn't previously paid a huge amount of attention to the Spanish entry, partly because it wasn't involved in the semi-finals, but I completely fell in love with it tonight. Sad to see it didn't get the support it deserved - and the lowly ranking of Austria disappointed me a bit as well.

Last but not least, I'm really chuffed to say that this blog received the biggest number of visitors in its three-year history yesterday (ie. Saturday) as people landed here after searching for Eurovision predictions. Thanks to everyone for dropping by - I just wish I could have been more accurate for you! Ah well, at least I can cling to having got Denmark in the right place...

Eurovision 2011 prediction : the final

Welcome along to my fourth annual attempt to predict the result of the Eurovision Song Contest final. Now, as I may possibly have made reference to once or twice before, I successfully picked the winner in 2008, 2009 and 2010 - and for good measure I got the top three in the correct order last year. So what does that tell you? Yup, that's right, it tells you that the law of averages is about to kick in and as a result I'm going to fall flat on my face. But am I deterred? Pah! Not a bit of it.

To my mind the three class songs in the field are France, Germany and Hungary. The fact that 50% of the vote goes to juries comprised of musical professionals should mean that the cream has a fair chance of rising to the top this time, but even so I think we can safely rule Hungary out of contention. Kati Wolf's vocals have been a wee bit shy of perfect, and in any case dance tracks have such an atrocious record in the public vote that I'm not sure even a good placing with the juries will be able to save her.

As I mentioned when I ventured my pre-rehearsals prediction a few weeks ago, I think the puzzle at the heart of this Eurovision is whether France will win by a country mile, or won't win at all - I don't think there's going to be a middle way. I'm not really any closer to solving that puzzle, and if younger televoters don't go for the song, it wouldn't completely surprise me if France finished well down the leaderboard. But the next question is "if not France, then who?", and having watched the semi-finals and seen some of the rehearsals, no-one is really leaping out at me. The obvious answer a couple of weeks ago might have appeared to be the UK's Blue, but the general view is that they've been underperforming. Jedward are clearly going down a storm for Ireland assisted by some inspired staging (and also by the fact that the "backing" vocalists are doing the singing for them), but it's hard not to feel that the juries will mark them less favourably than the public. So, almost by default, I'm plumping for France as the winners, but without a huge amount of confidence. Here is my top five...

Winners - France (Sognu - Amaury Vassili)
2nd - Germany (Taken By a Stranger - Lena Meyer-Landrut)
3rd - Ireland (Lipstick - Jedward)
4th - UK (I Can - Blue)
5th - Denmark (New Tomorrow - A Friend in London)

Possible dark horses - Austria, Estonia

Of the obvious favourites, I've left out Azerbaijan simply because I don't think the song is strong enough, although it certainly can't be discounted altogether because it's beautifully staged and choreographed. I changed my mind at least five times about whether to have Denmark or Austria in fifth place - Austria have the better singer and a more favourable draw, but I think the anthemic Danish song is slightly more memorable.

I have Lena of Germany pipping Jedward to second place for a couple of reasons - we know from past experience that she'll nail the vocals on the night, and she'll probably be preferred by the juries. But for all that and everything, Taken By a Stranger is such a laid-back, offbeat, ice-cool entry that I just struggle to see it winning Eurovision outright. So I suppose what I'm saying is that if France do falter, Jedward may find themselves next in line for victory, which is...well, a startling thought.

With Ireland, France and the UK all in genuine contention, tonight's result could have some significance in the overall history of the contest. If either France or the UK win, they'll move clear of the other and of Luxembourg to become the second most successful country in Eurovision history with six victories - just one behind Ireland. But if Ireland notch up their eighth win, they'll move three clear of the others once again. One curiosity is that six of Ireland's seven victories to date occurred in the 1980s and 90s, whereas the most recent of France's wins was as far back as 1977 - although to be fair they couldn't have come much closer in 1991, losing to Sweden on the countback rule.

One prediction that is an absolute banker for this evening is that the UK public will want to award twelve points to Ireland (although whether the UK jury will play ball with that is another matter). And Ireland may even return the compliment, although I must admit that when I heard the Icelandic entry the first thought that went through my head was "douze points from Ireland".

It's your future, it's your choice, and your weapon is your voice

First of all, apologies to the people who left comments on this blog over the last two or three days. Blogger has been having some kind of unspecified problem - it was on read-only mode for about twenty-four hours, and midway through that period whole posts and comments started disappearing into the ether. However, I realised to my relief a few minutes ago that they're still accessible via the feed, so if they don't reappear of their own accord I'll try to restore them manually at some point.

Anyway, what I was going to do before I was so rudely interrupted was shamelessly blow my own trumpet about correctly predicting nine of the ten qualifiers in the second Eurovision semi-final - although just for the moment I can't prove that, because it's one of the posts that has since vanished! The one qualifier I didn't have on my list was Ukraine, which is irritating because I had it on my original list before I realised I'd forgotten all about Moldova.

Which brings me neatly on to my highlight of the evening - Scott Mills earnestly writing off Moldova's chances on the grounds of sheer silliness. This is the Eurovision after all - rarely has a gasp of disbelief been so utterly predictable an hour-and-a-half in advance!

Eurovision 2011 prediction : Thursday's semi-final

NOTE : I'm reposting this (backdated) because it vanished when Blogger was down.

The big news from the rehearsals for the second semi-final is that two of the early favourites to win the contest outright, Estonia and Sweden, may be struggling to even qualify for the final. Having watched the performances on YouTube, I must say I can't really see what the problem is - Estonia in particular looks and sounds near-enough identical to the national final performance that won so many plaudits. But of course that may not be the best guide - the sound quality on the YouTube videos isn't great, and you're only seeing the performance from one fixed shot. Nevertheless, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I still expect both to make it through, although clearly I'm going to have to revise my prediction from a few weeks ago that Estonia were heading for victory!

So to my full prediction for tonight. I had ten countries pencilled in, but then I realised that I'd left Moldova out by mistake - and they're surely likely to make the cut courtesy of an insane visual performance featuring Ku Klux Klan hats (well, not really, but if you can imagine black Ku Klux Klan hats you get the idea) plus a random fairy riding a unicycle. I've had to strike Ukraine off my original list as a result, although I'm not entirely sure about that, if only because they have one of the most stunning backdrops. Anyway, this is what I'm left with...

Estonia
Sweden
Ireland
Cyprus
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Denmark
Austria
Romania
Moldova
Slovenia

So, yes, I'm predicting that Jedward will make the final, and terrifyingly the consensus seems to be that they're absolutely storming through.

I can't hold back, I can't go back, I must be free

Some Eurovision semi-finals are extremely predictable, some produce thrills and spills, and tonight's was definitely in the latter category. I was wrong about three of the ten qualifiers I had pencilled in, but they weren't the three I thought I might be wrong about (if that makes sense). One of the biggest shocks was Norway's elimination. I'd always had mixed feelings about the song, though - I thought the chorus was very strong, but the rest of it was excruciatingly bad (especially the lyrics). Albania's failure has taken most people by surprise as well, although to be fair it was the performer who was considered impressive, rather than the song itself.

I'm pleased that my gut feeling that Switzerland might just sneak through was borne out, and I'm absolutely delighted to be proved wrong in leaving Hungary off my list. It was undoubtedly the class entry of the field, although I still don't hold out a lot of hope for it in the final. As for myself, I ended up voting for both Poland and Serbia - that was down to the language issue, but I must admit the Polish song has really grown on me, and I was a bit sad that it didn't make the cut.

Nothing I saw changed my view that this is the weakest Eurovision in terms of musical quality since Stockholm in 2000, but the staging can cover up a multitude of sins, and it was an enjoyable show. Roll on the delights of Thursday...which may or may not include Jedward. Here they come, here they come, dum da dum da dum da dum.

Eurovision 2011 prediction : Tuesday's semi-final

I've been so wrapped up in the Holyrood election and its aftermath that I've barely paid any attention at all to the Eurovision rehearsals this year. Anyway, I thought it was high time I got my priorities straight, so I've put myself through a bit of a crash-course over the last hour or two. In no particular order, these are the ten countries I think might qualify from the first semi-final...

Greece
Switzerland
Norway
Albania
Turkey
Serbia
Finland
Azerbaijan
Russia
Iceland

I'm more than a touch surprised to find myself including Albania in that list, and with a fair bit of confidence at that - I didn't hold out much hope for them after I first heard the song back in December, but the traditional Cinderella effect has kicked in yet again. Compared to other predictions I've seen, the song I seem to be going out on a limb with is Switzerland - but I'm guessing its simplicity and charm might just see it through. Strictly on merit, Hungary really should be on the list and Russia shouldn't, but I've learnt from long experience that you don't get anywhere from a) betting on dance tracks at Eurovision, or b) betting against Russia at Eurovision. Hungary seem to have had problems in the rehearsals in any case.

This is the semi that UK viewers are allowed to vote in. I of course have my long-standing personal rule of only voting for songs performed entirely in a language other than English, but depressingly that doesn't leave me with many options on this occasion. Although Portugal are sticking with their usual practice of singing in their native tongue, I'm afraid I won't be able to vote for them for a fourth successive year - the song is unspeakably dreadful. So that only leaves Poland and Serbia. I'll need to have a think...

Ultra-early prediction for Eurovision 2011

As long-term readers will know, since this blog started in 2008 I've made an annual eve-of-Eurovision prediction for the top 3-5 placings in the contest. I thought for the purposes of comparison (and also just in case I've lost interest in blogging by May!), I'd attempt an additional, much earlier prediction this year, unaffected by reports from the rehearsals which are always such a huge factor in trying to fathom out what is really going to happen.

I think the puzzle this time can be summed up fairly succinctly - will France walk it, or not? It's the best song in the contest by miles, it's hugely distinctive - but it's just possible that it might be distinctive in the wrong way, ie. in the sense of not having enough of an appeal to younger televoters. We could see a repeat of the Natasha St-Pier/Sandrine François scenario, when France also had the best song and the best singer, but never really threatened to win. It's hard to say whether that will happen, but if France does fall short the winner then becomes extremely tough to predict, because bubbling under are five songs that are fairly evenly-matched - Sweden, the UK, Germany, Estonia and Hungary.

My instinct is that Sweden can't win - they've been banging away with these formulaic show-stopping efforts for as long as anyone can remember, and in recent years haven't come within touching distance of victory. The shadow hanging over Hungary is the strikingly poor record of out-and-out dance tracks in the contest over the years - one of my all-time favourite Eurovision entries Je t'adore failed to even qualify for the final in 2006. Germany are presenting a class act in every sense, and although I've always felt the song was a touch too low-key to win, Lena Meyer-Landrut's fame and popularity across the continent may offset that problem. And the UK? Although my first impression was positive, the more I've listened to the song the more I've come to feel that it's a bit 'forced' and soulless - although, again, Blue's fan following may partly come to the rescue.

So, by a mixture of process of elimination and a gut feeling at this stage that France won't win, here is what I've come up with -

Winners - Estonia (Rockefeller Street - Getter Jaani)
2nd - France (Sognu - Amaury Vassili)
3rd - Germany (Taken By a Stranger - Lena Meyer-Landrut)
4th - Sweden (Popular - Eric Saade)
5th - UK (I Can - Blue)

So I'll see if I'm still saying that in a few weeks' time after the rehearsals! Although France is my personal favourite, it would be nice to see Estonia back on top - their fine run of results in the late 90s/early 2000s (crowned by unexpected victory in 2001) was one of the great fairy-tales of the contest's history, and it's been a shame to see them regress since then.

Corsica to the rescue

I was encouraged to learn on a few blogs that France had pulled a late rabbit out of the hat in what thus far has looked like being the worst Eurovision since the 1999 contest in Jerusalem. Having had a listen to Sognu, I'd agree it's probably the best song in a very weak field, surpassing my previous favourite Taken by a Stranger (Germany). And I'll actually be able to vote for my favourite this time, because that won't transgress my long-standing personal rule of only voting for songs not performed in English. Better still, it's not even sung in French, but in the Italian-sounding Corsican language, which is the rough equivalent of the UK putting forward a Gaelic-language entry. I think we can safely assume that will never happen, given that it's difficult enough for Scottish acts to even get into the UK national selection - just one since 1997, with the last Scot to actually go on to represent the UK being Scott Fitzgerald way back in 1988. Indeed, on recent form, Scots have a much better chance of representing France or Cyprus than the UK!

The last remaining pieces of this year's Eurovision jigsaw are the Swedish Melodifestivalen final at the weekend, and the long-awaited presentation of Blue's UK entry on Friday night. As far as the latter goes, we're promised something wonderfully anthemic, and the best entry in years. Hmmm. I'll keep an open mind until I actually hear it, but as a reality-check it's worth bearing in mind that Pete Waterman honestly seemed to believe he'd crafted a potential winner last year...

UPDATE : The UK song has now been leaked, 24 hours ahead of its official unveiling, and the reaction so far seems to be overwhelmingly positive. It's not my cup of tea, it's not as distinctive as the French song, and it's not as imaginative as the German song. But, whether by luck or judgement, it's just possible that the powers-that-be have stumbled across the formula to take the UK to a second top-five finish in three years. Credit where it's due!

Stranger things are starting to begin

Perhaps this is the time of year that I always think this, but I'm beginning to seriously despair of the 2011 Eurovision crop. Of the songs I've heard from the national selections so far, a mere three have really reached out and grabbed me (although there may be some good ones I haven't caught up with yet), and of those, two failed to win the ticket to Düsseldorf. Admittedly there were special circumstances - a sympathy vote following the death of another song's original performer - that partly explain Jóhanna's failure in Iceland, but the overlooking of Nicki Ponte's I Don't Wanna Dance in this evening's Greek final is utterly beyond me.

The one gem that has made it through comes from that unlikeliest of sources - the hosts Germany. Much as I never found Lena Meyer-Landrut half as irritating last year as some people seemed to, I was still slightly dubious about the wisdom of allowing her to 'defend her title'. However, with a brave choice of song that once again suits her quirkiness down to the ground, it looks like it might just pay off - at least to some extent. Taken By a Stranger is probably a bit too low-key to win outright, but the way things are going it may well deserve to.

One thing that occurred to me when I was listening to it the first time round was that, just like Satellite, the lyrics seemed a bit too offbeat and intricate to have been written by a non-native speaker of English. Sure enough, they appear to have been penned by an American. That's surely one of the biggest downsides of the scrapping of the language restrictions twelve years ago - now that Germany have established it can be an advantage, we'll probably see more and more songwriters from English-speaking countries being drafted in, narrowing the contest's 'gene pool' considerably.

Come back, Dustin the Turkey, all is forgiven

In the light of the BBC's decision not to allow the public any say in the selection of this year's UK Eurovision entry for the first time since 1987 (indeed I believe it's the first entirely internal selection ever), I thought I might as well make sure I voted in this year's Irish national final - UK residents were able to vote by mobile phone, thanks to the dedicated numbers for Northern Ireland viewers. For slightly complicated reasons I had to watch the RTÉ webcast with the sound down, so I could only guess at what was going on at various points. However, Cheryl Baker's presence on the panel - love her though I do - didn't exactly inspire confidence that the people of Ireland were being offered the most up-to-date advice on how to go about winning Eurovision. It could, of course, have been worse. It could have been John Barrowman.

Anyway, having listened to the five songs in advance, I decided to vote for Nikki Kavanagh's Falling. It wouldn't have been the most inspiring entry, but when I tell you that her main competition was Jedward - I'll say that again, JEDWARD - you might understand my thinking a little better. In my naivety I had thought the 67/33 split in the voting between juries and the public probably meant that sanity would just about prevail, but...well, see for yourself. I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for Dustin the Turkey.

Twelve hours to save Portugal from itself

In the past, it's been quite rare for countries to allow non-residents to vote in their Eurovision pre-selections. I think the only time I managed to vote in a selection other than the UK's was Greece a couple of years ago, which was a slightly interminable experience, because I had to sit through a mammoth show waiting for the very narrow voting window. Ireland allowed votes from the UK last year (presumably to encourage participation from Northern Ireland) but a similar problem applied and I gave up in despair! So I'm delighted to say Portugal have made it really easy this year, and are holding an online-only preliminary vote to decide the twelve songs that will go through to the final of Festival da Canção 2011. The poll seems to close at noon today, the 27th (although it might be midnight - the Google translation is a bit ambiguous).

But...a mystery. I defy anyone to listen to the snippets of those songs and not conclude that Carla Moreno's dance track Sobrevivo is the best choice by some distance. So why on earth is it trailing so badly behind the cringeworthy A luta é alegria? Perhaps the only thing that can be said in favour of the latter song is that it's vaguely reminiscent of the quirky O meu coração não tem cor, the song that took Portugal to its best ever placing in the contest in 1996 (a mere 6th). But it doesn't have anything like the same charm, and in any case 1996 might as well be a million years ago in Eurovision terms.

In spite of the title of this post, there's no way of actually preventing the offending song from going through at this stage - with twelve qualifiers, it's bound to make it. So instead of fretting over the "top of the table clash", I decided I might as well use my vote more effectively by looking at the two songs that are effectively battling it out to secure the twelfth and last place in the final. Irritatingly, I found I liked them both more or less equally (which can't be said for several further up the leaderboard). But as Margaret Beckett once sarcastically told Neil Kinnock, "you have to choose...you have to choose all the time". So I've plumped for Esta Noite Vamos Curtir by Pop Pins. May God forgive me.

A cut out and keep guide to navigating through the voting process in Portuguese :

1. You have three votes.

2. You can cast all three votes for the same song, or spread them around.

3. After clicking on the song you want to vote for, click on 'Vote Nesta Música'.

4. Enter your email address and the verification code provided.

5. Click the activation link you are sent by email.

6. Do NOT vote for A luta é alegria. Please. I'm begging you.

On a Nótt like this...

I just had a little frisson of excitement (OK, I'm easily pleased) when I spotted on Esctoday that Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir - singer of my all-time favourite Eurovision entry - participated in the semi-final stage of the Icelandic national selection last night. That rang a bell from somewhere - I must have read the news of her return a while back but forgot all about it. Anyway, having had a quick listen to the new song Nótt, while it inevitably doesn't scale the heights of Is It True?, it's probably the best of the handful of prospective entries I've got round to checking out so far this year. Refreshingly, it's sung in Icelandic, although reading between the lines of Jóhanna's interview, there's probably a less-than-even chance it'll stay that way if it makes it through to Eurovision.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Iceland have foolishly discarded some real gems in their national selections in the past (not least in 2006), but this one is over the first hurdle at least.