It's now 17.25, with four and a half hours to go until tonight's qualifier starts. We don't know where all the others are today, but Keith, Andrew and I are here together in the Eurovision bouncy castle, so here are our predictions as of now. Let's see what's changed...

Andrew
Belarus
Netherlands
Iceland
Norway
Hungary
Switzerland
Ireland
Poland
Moldova NEW!
Slovenia NEW!

So, Andrew has dropped Croatia and Romania since Friday.

Keith
Norway
Iceland
Poland
Croatia
Hungary
Israel
Belarus
Switzerland
Netherlands NEW!
Moldova NEW!

So, Keith has also dropped Romania, along with Finland.

Chig (feeling under pressure after correctly predicting 8 out of 10 on the day last year, on this very blog, when most other people claimed 6 or 7 correct). Roughly in order of certainty, I'll go with the following:

Hungary
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Switzerland NEW!
Moldova NEW!
Croatia
Monaco
Slovenia NEW!
Belarus

It pains me to drop Austria and Romania, but I fear Austria is on too early and Romania, fantastic close to the stage, as we were for yesterday afternoon's first, public dress rehearsal, doesn't really come across on the telly. Controversially, I have also dropped Iceland, which I only included last week because the others told me it was good. I hadn't seen it then, but after watching yesterday's dress rehearsal it doesn't really stand out at all. A competent pop song, but not much of a TV experience.

I'm pleased to say that Slovenia now looks and sounds stunning as an overall presentation (and Omar is as sexy close up as I thought beforehand, when I put him in Gaytimes as Top Totty, so that's a relief).

Much as I like Vanilla Ninja, I don't like this song, because of its 'why don't you kill me?' lyric. However, their fame in Estonia, Germany and Austria, plus the (literally) smoke and mirrors presentation and the full, rocking sound, should get them through.

Moldova is the biggest change. I always liked it and thought it was wonderfully mad, but thought it might bomb. However, Zdob si Zdub (it means East & West, don't ya know) are very popular here and in their surrounding countries. This has already been, to use a well-worn cliche, BIG IN THE HALL in rehearsals, and should sneak in.

It will be horribly underserved if the Bulgarian drivel of Lorrain in the rain gets through, but I'm wondering if, with neighbourly voting and a constituency of people who like plodding songs, it might surprise us. If Bulgaria get through and Iceland don't that would be a hugh double shock for the bookies, but I can see both events being very possible. If Selma doesn't make it, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst The Gays (but not me).


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