There's still more to vote on!

Once we had completed our look at those who were wronged by the rules of ESC, it was time to move on to something else, we had really got the bit between our teeth now!

The passage of time means that I can no longer remember the exact order that these little contests appeared on Digital Spy, but the next one I will talk about is the National Final rejects , which was run by marrakech.

Here we had a chance to submit any song that didn't make it to ESC from any country and any year. The choices were endless, but as we thought, Melodifestivalen was very well represented. I loved this contest, out of the 19 offerings, there were 8 that I didn't know and had great fun in getting familiar with. Voting was in the usual Eurovision style, 12, 10, 8, 7 etc and the results were as follows:

01ST PLACE - 117 POINTS gottago - Sweden 2009 // Alcazar "Stay The Night"
02ND PLACE - 109 POINTS BigBmad - Sweden 2008 // BWO "Lay Your Love One Me"
3rd - 91 points Pepsi-max kid - Sweden 2010 // Eric Saade "Manboy"
04th place - 84 points marrakech - Slovenia 2006 // Sasa Lendero "Mandoline"
05th place - 74 points big bro geek - Norway 2010 // Venke Knutson "Jealous 'Cause I Love You"
06th place - 71 points. Only_you - United Kingdom 2007 // Cyndi "I'll Leave My Heart"
07th place - 65 points 9ct mould - Ireland 2008 // Leona Daly "Not Crazy After All"
08th place - 62 points ShadyNathan - Spain 2010 // Coral Segovia "En Una Vida"
09th place - 61 points Chickens Hit - Denmark 2010 // Bryan Rice "Breathing"
10th place - 56 points BBAnne - Sweden 2008 // Rongedal "Just A Minute"
11th Place - 54 points ValerianForrest - Estonia 2009 // Laura "Destiny"
12th place - 53 points. breadsticks.roc - Ukraine 2010 // Zlata Ognevich "Tiny Island"
13th place - 51 points. Drew Peacock - United Kingdom 1976 // Polly Brown "Do You Believe In Love At First Sight?"
14th Place - 38 Points wombatofludham - United Kingdom 1962 // Donna Douglas "Message In A Bottle"
15th Place - 29 points. portugal - Netherlands 1990 // Shift "Helemaal"
16th Place - 27th kmmk17 - Russia 2010 // Aleksandr Panajotov "Maya Showtime"
17th Place - 26 points Cherry7Up - Ireland 2003 // Lisa Bresnan "I'll Still Be Right Here"
18th Place - 18 points Pdm1987 - Belgium 2008 // Femme Fatale "Decadence"
19th Place - 16 points EuroChris - Finland 2009 // KWAN "10000 Light Years"

I personally fell in love with Lisa Bresnan from Ireland 2003, and Polly Brown from 1976 (which I have been hearing in all sorts of random places ever since!

Digital Spy Gets Competitive!

So now, all we have to look forward to in the Eurovision off season is acres of wasteland, snippets of rumours, some true, some laughable (thanks for those, oikotimes..) and a whole bunch of nothing until Switzerland announce their entry on December 11th and Albania chose their song on Christmas Day (You never knew Jesus was a Eurovision fan?!)

A bunch of us on Digital Spy http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1351266 were just talking about the shocker that was the departure of Sweden in the second semi, and we then got to thinking about the other travesties over the years.

What better way to put right some old wrongs than through the medium of Eurovision voting!

We took each year individually, and voted on the three songs of those non qualifiers that we believed should have made an appearance in the final .... from these preliminary votes, we got the following qualifiers:

2004:

1st: ESTONIA (10)

2nd: DENMARK (8)
3rd: ANDORRA (8)

2005:

1st: ICELAND (15)
2nd: MONACO (14)
3rd: SLOVENIA (9)

2006:

1st: BELGIUM (17)
2nd: ESTONIA (12)
3rd: ICELAND (10)

2007:

1st: CYPRUS (10)
2nd: NETHERLANDS (9)
3rd: MALTA (8)

2008:

1st: SWITZERLAND (13)
2nd: MALTA (8)
3rd: NETHERLANDS (7)

2009:

1st: MONTENEGRO (12)
2nd: SWITZERLAND (10)
3rd: CYPRUS (6

2010:

1st: SWEDEN (12)
2nd: FINLAND (10)
3rd: NETHERLANDS (8)

This process in itself was fraught with troubles - anyone who knows me knows that I adore Anzej Dezan from Slovenia, and always felt that his exclusion from the 2006 final was the worst thing - and then he only came fourth in the running in my own forum!! Shocking stuff ....

The numbers in brackets above by the way, are the number of votes received from all forum members - you can see that Kate Ryan from Belgium in 2006 and Selma from Iceland in 2005 were really popular, Paolo Meneguzzi from Switzerland 2008 also (he winked at me personally during his semi final, I clearly put him off his game that night!)

The songs above then went forward to a grand final, run by our lovely 9ct mould - where all 21 were voted on my DS FM's to find the biggest travesty in the contest to date ... and here are the final scores:

1^st Anna Bergendahl "This Is My Life" 124pts

2^nd Kate Ryan "Je T'adore" 108pts

3^rd Andrea Demirović "Just Get Out Of My Life" 99pts
4^th Lovebugs "The Highest Heights" 98pts

5^th Paolo Meneguzzi "Era Stupendo" 93pts

6^th Olivia Lewis "Vertigo" 68pts

7^th Kuunkuiskaajat "Työlki Ellää" 68pts
8^th Selma "If I Had Your Love" 66pts

9^th Evridiki "Comme Ci, Comme Ça" 64pts
10^th Sylvia Night "Congratulations" 64pts

11th: Sieneke - "Ik Ben Verliefd (Sha-la-lie)" 59 points
12th: Lise Darly - "Tout De Moi" 58 points
13th: Edsilia Rombley - "On Top Of The World" 48 points
14th: Christina Metaxa - "Firefly" 45 points
15th: Omar Naber - "Stop" 40 points
16th: Hind - "Your Heart Belongs To Me" 40
17th: Sandra Oxenryd - "Through My Window" 37 points
18th: Neiokõsõ - "Tii" 33 points
19th: Marta Roure - "Jugarem A Estimar-nos" 28 points

20th: Morena - "Vodka" 28 points (from 8 voters)
21st: Thomas Thordarson - "Shame On You" 8 points

Just as we had always thought then - Anna Bergandahl was robbed on 27th May 2010!

By the time I next looked....

Eurovision had happened!

The build up is sometimes more than the equal parts of the night itself, and the dramas and tantrums of the preceding few days left me drained (and clearly very susceptible to alcohol!)

The first semi final on Tuesday kind of went to form in my eyes, the only shock non-qualifier being Kuunkuiskajat for Finland who put in an amazingly upbeat performance that knocks the socks off their NF winning one. I was sorry to see them go. There was a bit of bleating about Malta not making it, but there couldn't really be any argument about those who did go through (although the boo's in the auditorium for Russia's qualification were loud, in my mind they were not warranted. So there.)

Semi-final 2 was a different beast altogether. There were at least 12 songs that deserved a place in the final, so the mathematics was always going to win out in the end. And it did. Goodbye and thank you to Lithuania, Croatia, and, the one that had the crowd gasping, and a small blonde Swedish girl crying, was the goodbye to Anna Bergendahl - absolute favourite amongst the Digital Spy forum members, and dead cert for the final in most peoples views. Saturday would be the first final in 33 years where Sweden had not participated, it was that unthinkable. But the truth was that Anna had ranked 9th in the televote and only 11th with the jury, and Cyprus's 10th/9th split won the last coveted place.

Coem the night itself, Oslo did us proud. I really enjoyed the staging, the postcards and mostly the interval act. Organising the flash mob dance was inspired (except the UK did itself no favours whatsoever, with poor organisation and precious little to show for it). The spectacle of the dance and the clips of the countries that had made an effort with it were amazing. Spoilt slightly by the over zealous security guards in the hall - but given that there had been a pitch invasion during the Spanish entry (why?) it was hardly surprising!

Not only were the UK shown up during the interval for a lack of planning, organisation and attitude, this spilled over to the UK entry who came a deserved last. Nothing against Josh Dubovie, he was a nice kid with a nice voice - but ... you can't polish a turd, and bottom of the table was deserved.

And in the same vein, a win for Germany was also deserved. I never thought I'd see the day (since the advent of semi finals and the "big four") that one of the automatically qualified countries would win out, and it made me feel just a bit proud that the music is still important...

Thanks Lena, you did a marvellous job - and thanks must also go to Ovi and Paula from Romania, as I ended the night £150 better off :)

Internet Hiccups and 39 Songs

At the time of writing I have no idea when I will be able to post this, I’ve been without internet for nearly a week! Well, ok, it’s 4 days – but in the great scheme of things, and as someone who doesn’t participate in the outside world so much, this is HUGE.

Work commitments have prevailed over the last few weeks, and I now find myself able to update the blogging world (as if you needed it) on Eurovision happenings

The internet community is now happy recipients of all 39 songs that will be appearing in some form or other in Oslo during the last week of May – the final song was belatedly released on Friday. This pains me greatly as I AM YET TO HEAR IT! Shame on you, Ukraine.

The actual cut off date for entries to be submitted to the EBU was Monday 22 March, but there’s been a bit of a hoo-haa in Kiev of late.

It all began when the president of their national television station NTU chose his chum Vasyl Lazarovich to represent the country and he was duly wheeled out to perform a number of “songs” for the nation to chose. Ukrainians were less than impressed and chose the dire “I Love You” as the best of the worst. It has to be remembered that Ukraine have been extremely consistent of late by bashing out foot-stomping marvels such as Ani Lorak’s “Shady Lady” in 2008, Verka Sedouchka’s frankly bonkers “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” in 2007 and last years “Anti-Crisis Girl”... so a dodgy ballad was never truly going to hit the mark.

What followed was nothing short of incredible, with the President of the Ukraine (c’mon, don’t expect names – I’m internetless!!) being petitioned to get involved and inevitably, the resignation of the NTU boss following. A hastily put together second National Final followed with 20 questionable songs thrown into the ether (including Vasyl, with a re-vamped working of his original winner – he came 7th) and the winner was a quirky little madam called “Aloysha” with .... ermm... I can’t remember! Whispers were soon starting that this song was originally released 2 years ago, which goes against EBU rules which state that the song should not have been published before 1 October of the preceding year. NTU move to the second song, which is also a number of years old and further arguments ensued. It was finally agreed that Aloysha would chose the song that she would sing in Olso. She has chosen a number called “Sweet People” and it KILLS me that I haven’t heard it yet. Sod the fact that my Facebook is incredibly out of date, my emails will have stacked up to epic proportions and all my online pets are dying .... I want my Eurovision!!!


Melodifestivalen hits the spot yet again

I talked below about the Swedish Melodifestivalen and how it is an incredible spectacle of how Eurovision can be hyped up in a country into something wonderful ... and this year was no exception. It doesn’t matter to me that the viewing figures from SVT show a slight drop in the ratings- National Finals are ALL about Melodifestivalen for me. Six semi finals, all held in stadiums with 20,000+ people present, magnificent production and a wealth of talent mean that this is a not to miss spectacular.

To me, Melodifestivalen is about Schlager music. For the uninitiated, Swedish schlager (as opposed to German, Austrian or other central european versions) is basically a pop song, of 3 minutes duration, with a key change and a killer ending. Schlager was meant to have originated in Scandinavia and fits the template of a Eurovision entry spot on. Schlager has been out of fashion this year though, and this years offerings were more of an eclectic mix, 50/50 interspersed with some good old hip shakers.

Favourite for me was Eric Saade’s “Manboy” – a song with lyrics so ridiculous but an endearing melody and an incredible stage performance, he sailed through to the final from Heat 2 and to me, he ticked all the boxes.



Next that I wouldn’t have minded seeing represent Sweden was “Kom” by girl band Timoteij – actually, calling them a girl band is a bit harsh, they bounced on stage with instruments, and there were no real set dance pieces. The song is in Swedish and I couldn’t tell you (without the internet) what they were singing about, but it’s a toe-tapper and I thought they put on a great performance.




At this point of preparing my post - after finally getting internet access after 8 days - I've suddenly become unable to post videos! For the remainder of this post, I will put linkies ... sorry, hope to rectify this soonest.

Following a Eurovision-esque round of voting from international and regional juries and the all important televote, the winner was quiet and unassuming Anna Bergendahl with This Is My Life. She stands sweetly on a huge stage dressed in a prom dress and converse trainers and the song reaches the inevitable crescendo, with wind machines and raised glow sticks. It’s a beautiful song and I have high hopes that it will do really well in May.



Sorting out the wheat from the chaff

Now that all entries have been chosen, it’s time to sort out the Alexander Rybak’s from the Jan Tiegen’s...

It’s clearly the year of the ballad .... and the accordion – a strange mix!

Highlights of the year this year include the following :

Germany – Lena Mayer-Landrut with “Satellite”

Get around the strange “mockney” accent that she’s awarded herself and you have a great song, contemporary and with an attitude I adore. This has jumped to favourite in the betting, and I believe this will give Germany their best result since Max in 2004 (this is all from memory remember people?!)



Turkey – MaNga – We Could Be The Same

The production on Turkish entries is usually superb and this one doesn’t disappoint. It seems to me that Turkey usually alternate a pop song with a rock song, and I thank the Lord that this year is rock year. This is extremely slick, and the live footage I’ve seen proves that they’ve nailed the English lyrics and should put on a great show.



Azerbaijan – Safura – Drip Drop

I don’t usually warm to ballads that quickly, but this has a great RnB feel to it, and the studio version is fantastic. Word on the streets is that her live performance is a little patchy, but she has a couple of months to work on that. I've linked her performance from the Ukrainian NF, it seems like the only non-mimed one out there. Also, how come Azeri girls are so flippin gorgeous? I found myself with a little girl-crush on Aysel last year, and Safura is pleasant looking too!

Super Saturdays! (and Sundays)

We are well and truly slap bang in the middle of Super Saturday season, where countries participating in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2010 set about chosing their entries.

My first post detailed Albania's effort, first out of the bag on Boxing Day, Netherlands then revealed the song, if not the singer , and Switzerland handed us the bizarrely named "Il pleut de l'or" by Michael von der Heide on January 9th



Finland chose their entry on January 30th and have gone for a sort of traditional number, which is ...errr.... different to say the least



We then embarked on the first round of Super Saturdays last weekend on February 6th. The night was a Scandinavian Songfest, with the Norwegian final, Danish Final, Icelandic final and the first semi final of the massive Melodifestivalen in Sweden, which rivals any actual ESC in terms of popularity and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the Swedish broadcaster SVT refuses to release any content of any of the songs that go though, as they feel that this will give an unfair advantage to the songs in the earlier rounds over those appearing later. We had fun chasing clips around YouTube, only for them to be removed in around 10 mins!

I managed to get the Norwegian live streaming working for their national final, and although the picture was only 4 cms tall, I thoroughly enjoyed the show - had a feeling that the regional juries and the televote would go to My Heart Is Yours by Didrik Solli-Tangen. It's a show stopper of anthemic proportions, almost a mash-up of the rugby song "World In Union" and "You raise me up"




A quick search for appropriate links, and I was off to Copenhagen in time to see the nailbiting finale between Byan Rice with his song, Breathing - which we thought had it in the bag, and Chanee and N'Evergreen with "In a Moment like this" and almost fell off me chair when Chanee and N'Evergreen triumphed. It's a little twee, but a nice enough tune. One thing that's worth a mention is the Danes love of the wind machine - I was concerned poor Chanee would end up representing the UK as it seemed she'd be blown across the channel anytime soon.. check out the video



It was a more staid (and cheaper) affair in Iceland next. No surprises that the mighty Hera Bjork are representing them this year. She came so close in Denmark last year, losing out to a much lesser song in my opinion. She dusted herself off, sang backing vocals for Iceland's Johanna in the contest itself, and turned her back on Denmark to finally get the backing of the public and the ticket to Oslo with Iceland. "Je Ne Sais Quoi" is a big dancy number, with an even bigger key change - but Hera can handle it. She was a bit shouty on the night of the finals, if you get a chance to listen to the studio version, do - she's on top form and weeks of promo appearance should iron out any niggles in her live performance.



And then it was Sunday....

Cyprus have pulled a blinder this year, in my opinion. A lovely simple song sung by a good old Welsh boy! Jon Lilygreen is not a traditional pick for Cyprus, a nation which has been overlooked in recent years, but I love the song, and it's my favourite of the chosen few so far. What do you think?




And then we arrived at the farce that was the Netherlands picking the singer of their god-awful contribution, which I've linked to in my first blog. It was written by the man behind the Smurfs and it has all the trademarks of a big chunk of Edam and everything that is wrong about Eurovision in the modern times. Five singers gave their own spin on the song, and four judges and the audience each had one point to award to their favourite. The result was... a tie. In the event of a tie Father Abraham himself was to pick the singer that he wanted. But he decided he couldn't do that, for the longest time! He decided that he was going to flip a coin - imagine how the acts felt, all their hard work and chance to play to an audience of millions decided on the flip of a coin. At the very last moment, Father Abraham said "ooh, Seinicke" and with that, a 17 year old female with more than a passing resemblance to a 40+ year old Jayne McDonald won her place on Europe's biggest stage. It's awful - and if you want to see it for yourself, you can YouTube it ... it makes me ill and I don't want it on my laptop! :p


So that was last weekend, and with the EBU deadline for submission of songs landing on 22nd March, there are more Super Saturdays, Sundays and Fridays to come in the next month, shame I can't watch them all, but will be very interested in the following (and include the UK in this if they ever finally officially release a date *sighs*)

March
06 - Romania (final)
06 - Moldova (final)
06 - Croatia (final)
06 - Portugal (final)
07 - Belgium (presentation of the song)
07 - Russia (final)
07 - Ukraine (song presentation
10 - Belarus (deadline for announcing participant)
12 - Germany (final)
12 - Estonia (final)
12 - Greece (final)
13 - Sweden (final)
14 - Bosnia & Herzegovina (song presentation)

After these dates, we have a long two months build up to the start of the contest, with first rehearsals taking place on May 16th

Hopefully I will be able to blog all the entries, some I'll love, some I'll loathe ... but that's Eurovision!

Favourite Eurovision Contests of the Noughties

I was asked recently, with the advent of a new decade, to rate the competitions that have taken place this century. This is a tough one! Most of the contests are memorable for me because of the songs, and therefore have been rated as such, but some gain points for venue, or lose them (I’m looking at you Denmark and Moscow!)

1. 2006 – Damn that was a great contest, only marred (in my eyes) by the twin travesties of my dear Anzej Dezan faltering in the semis, and the she-devil that is Fearne Cotton giving out the UK scores. I loved the set in 2006, and the performances – including the shock that was Lordi and all the controversy surrounding Silvia Knight, it was great to watch the clips of her shouting at the crowds on youtube. By far my favourite of the decade, also this was the year that I got broadband, and was able to join in in the pre-contest build up! Here's a link to my favourite song, the wonderful Slovenian entry, Mr Nobody by Anzej Dezan

2. 2004 – Istanbul put on a great show, and I felt the songs this year were really strong (except for the lamentable James Fox of course!) Lisa Andreas blew my mind for Cyprus, and Ruslana was a breath of fresh air, also enjoyed the French, German and Macedonian entries, and we got our first Eurovision view of Sakis! Yeah ... maybe not all good then... Here;s the lovely Lisa Andreas bringing the house down, difficult to believe she was just 16 years old at the time

3. 2005 – Loved Masha and Pasha as presenters, although Pasha’s enunciation of the English language took a bit of getting used to! Fab, fab songs this year – but again, performance won out in the end with Helena Paparizou. Stand out songs for me were Israel’s Shiri Maimon, Chiara’s best effort, Angel, Greenjolly for the host country (yes, I am alone with that one I know!) the sparkly Norwegians and the truly bonkers Moldovan entry with their Grandmother playing a starring role! A contest that I do watch again and again. Too obvious for me to link Chiara or Shiri Maimon, so here's Greenjolly for the host nation

4. 2001 – Not so much for the songs, but the sheer size of the arena (which didn’t work well in my opinion) the over-excitedness of the Danes, the dreadful rhyming couplets of the presenters, the ensuing hoo-haa regarding Terry Wogan’s comments and the BBC having to apologise on his behalf. Watching the show I thought that it was a sure thing that Denmark were going to do the double, I felt that their song was head and shoulders about anything else. The fact that Estonia just pipped them was a complete shock, I thought their performance was a shambles! It has to be a link to Denmarks Rollo & King, I'm still really cross that they came second :)

5. 2002 – I expected more of Estonia, but enjoyed the fairytale postcards anyway. I was cross at Latvia winning, when would voters stop thinking that de-robing was reason to win? I loved the French entry, Sandrine Francois put on an amazing performance, and deserved higher than 5^th place. I also thought that Ira Losco deserved to drop a couple of places for wearing a crocheted outfit, but then I’ve never been a fashionista! Jessica Garlick thoroughly deserved 3^rd place though, and it was a proud night to be from the UK! The link has to be the effortless performance of Sandrine Francois from France, just beautiful...

6. 2007 – By the time of the 2007 contest, I was a completely obsessed fan, trawling the internet daily for gossip and watching literally hours of youtube clips, puts a whole new slant on it. On various forums we had massive debates regarding the Marmite entry of the year, Verka Seduchka’s “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” and it wasn’t til 2 days before the semi’s that I finally got it, and slapped a whole bunch of cash on it to win. Bit of a surprise when Molitva triumphed, but a worthy winner I think, devoid of over the top performances or clothes shedding (which was a relief when you come to think about it) Loved Georgia’s maiden entry with Visionary Dream, and the lovely Roger Cicero, who deserved to get a lot higher than 19^th place! There followed on forums plenty of controversy regarding alleged “block voting” which ran and ran ….God, and how bad were Dervish for Ireland?! My choice in the end has to be the follically challenged Roger Cicero from Germany, just love this song - so different and yet completely ignored by all but the back up juries who announced after the contest that a big bag of points would have come his way if the telecoms systems had failed :(

7. 2008 – My son, the fondly nicknamed Little Anzej, finally realized that Eurovision was for life, and became as interested as any (then 6 year old) boy could. I championed poor Isis Gee for Poland (never been one to back a winner!) and the Divine Sebastien Tellier and was absolutely livid that Dima Bilan won with his over the top use of a world champion ice skater and world famous violinist! Andy Abrahams never stood a chance for the UK, and it was a bit sad to watch his dad dancing and obvious oblivion regarding what modern Eurovision is all about. Serbia put on a great show though, with one of the best sets of the decade. I'll link Isis Gee, who came second last from Andy Abrahams due to getting 12pts from Ireland - sure, she's pretty scary looking, but I still liked the song!

(Video refuses to upload - check it out on youtube...)

8. 2009 – It still seems like yesterday to me, I couldn’t bear the vastness of the stadium, the stage that dwarfed even the mighty Petr from Belarus, and the postcards before the entrants were just mad! It was right that Fairytale won though – its simplicity and catchiness meant that there was never going to be anyone else within a shout of it. Pleased for the re-surgeance of the UK, although I have a horrible feeling it was a one-off (like 2002). I hope that Oslo don’t think that they have to do bigger to get better in 2010. Favourite song of the year? I think it has to be the Lovebugs from Switzerland who were unjustly knocked out of the semis, it’s the only one I still play regularly! Here they are in all their out-of-tuneness ... it's all about the song, people!

9. 2003 – Made you go *thud* for all sorts of reasons, and it became clear to me (probably 3 years too late) that the contest was becoming about the performance, the build up and the hype, more than the song. It continued that way until 2007!I still think that tATu’s Ne ver’, ne boysia was in no way worthy as a song of being the favourite, but favourite it was. The hype surrounding the lipstick lesbians included the chance of them doing a complete no-show, so it was a relief to see them actually on stage, although their live performance was anything but a relief! Then there was the UK getting nul points – and quite rightly so, it was an abomination of a performance! Shocking thing is, I don’t have a favourite from this year, hence it being last. I have to pick one though, and will go with Spain's Beth, singing "Dime"

Eurovision season has begun!

The turkey has been eaten, the presents unwrapped, children are beginning to come down from the 24 hour sugar high ..... it can only mean that Eurovision season is about to begin!

For the uninitiated, Eurovision may appear to be a Saturday night event in mid-May, looked on with scorn and possibly some incredulity - be prepared to be enlightened .... National Finals start around this time of year, and we already have our first entry (by that I mean confirmed singer and song, more of that later) Nice one Albania!





Albania have a history of sending little pop princesses with a smattering of angst to the contest, this entry will have some tweaking before May 29th 2010 and with an addition of a stage show with acrobats and strange gimp men (a la 2009) this should be improved upon

The Netherlands are teasing us somewhat, with Pierre Kartner writing an infectious bit of pap and laying it open to 6 singers to create their own version which will be then open to the public vote to choose their representatives

Warning! Click on this link at your peril! It's as catching as H1N1 (and as difficult to shift)




So that's 2 potential entries out of the 38 expected.

Last year there were 40 entrants to begin with, which dropped to 39 when Georgia (having initially refused to participate following Russia's invasion of South Osettia) were disqualified when President Putin took offence to their cheeky little disco number "We don't wanna put in..."

We have lost a couple of countries who have cited the poor economic climate (Czech republic, Andorra) and have gained back Austria - but all that is open to change at a moments notice

Anyway, hopefully you are as up to date as possible with the latest Eurovision news. There are a couple of other rumours and cited singers - but nothing confirmed as yet.

Don't forget - even if you are an old hand at this Eurovision malarky, never tell people that you are a fan - you will see them change their stance and look at you a little sideways. A tip is to mention that you are a "fan of new euorpean music" and therefore lay yourself open to interesting muso type chats!