And finally, part 4 went online at lunchtime today, with some stats from the final, some thoughts on Azerbaijan and the UK viewing figures, revealed yesterday. The bare bones of part 4 were written on my laptop, in my car, while I was underneath the English Channel. A curious fact that I thought worth pointing out, as it probably won't happen again.

Please do leave any comments on here if you get chance to read this, or any of my other three reports (links below). I've managed one more report for attitude than I did last year, which makes me a little more satisfied with the whole trip.

Part 1 - Eurovision controversy after technical failures
Part 2 - It's Jedward's big night!
Part 3 - Jedward, Blue and the Romanian Brit face Eurovision final
Part 4 - Eurovision goes to Azerbaijan

Labels: attitude, Azerbaijan, Blue, Eurovision 2011, Jedward, results

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My third piece for attitude was written on Friday afternoon, after I saw the first rehearsal for the Eurovision final. It didn't actually go online until during the final itself (and the voting at that), for reasons beyond my control. It is here. Please do let me know if you read it, as the attitude website doesn't get many comments, so I'm not getting much feedback. I'd appreciate it, whether the feedback is positive or negative or in between.

Labels: attitude, Blue, Eurovision 2011, Jedward

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Before I came out to Düsseldorf, I was jokingly saying to anyone who asked that I had narrowed down the possible winners to nine countries. It was just a figure plucked out of the air, nothing scientific. I hadn't actually counted. On a positive note, none of the songs I thought could win were amongst the eighteen who have been sent home from the two semi-finals. The rubbish has been cleared out very well this year.

So, yesterday, I did actually count the contenders amongst the 25 finalists, and it would seem I have now narrowed down the possible winners... to eleven! Oh dear.

Really, this year is very difficult to predict those countries at the top, unless the bookies have been right all along and it really is France. I won't complain if we're in Paris next year. In fact, I would love it, but we'll probably never hear the song again after tonight's reprise and it won't be a pan-European hit single.

And there's the rub. According to several people (but I haven't seen it in print - shoddy journalism, I know), the EBU's instructions to the juries say that they should be thinking about the potential to produce a hit song from the contest. I am confident that Ireland's Jedward are going to do well in televotes all over the place, but if this is what the juries have to do, I think it will swing enough jury votes in their favour as well. They also have to look out for presentation and choreography; more points in Jedward's favour. So, I think Ireland are going to win. And who would have thought that, even two months ago? Louis Walsh is here to see it, bless him, as he was on Thursday. He's been the manager of Irish Eurovision winners before, with Linda Martin and Johnny Logan, so if he does it again as Jedward's manager, there really must be something magical about the man.

So, my rough guess for the top of the leaderboard is something like this, but really, you may as well throw the country names up in the air and see how they land. I have no idea.

1. Ireland
2. Germany
3. France
4. Azerbaijan
5. Ukraine
6. Finland
7. Austria
8. Russia
9. Iceland
10. Bosnia-Herzegovina
11. Denmark
12. UK

Unfortunately, the presentation of Blue's song, with their unsuitable suits and the green lighting, makes me think we might not be top ten, but we won't be bottom either. It's 14 years since a UK win, it's the 14th today and Blue sing in position 14. Make of that what you will.

There's one major new innovation this year, which should add some drama to the voting. The order in which countries give their votes has only been determined TODAY by the EBU. It has been published, with Moldova, Belgium and Latvia ending the voting. (The UK votes 13th. Shame it's not 14th, eh?) They have manipulated the vote announcements in order to maximise tension, which is a great idea. It's based on an algorithm worked out by an academic. (No time now for proper research on this!) It takes into account the jury votes, which the EBU already knows, as they voted on last night's rehearsal, mixed in with predictions of the televote, based on each country's televoting history. The order would seem to imply that Russia or the UK will be up there near the end, which is intriguing and obviously runs contrary to my predictions. We shall see.

I'll be watching on the screens in the media sports hall, along with lots of friends. You may think it's strange to come all this way and not go into the arena, but it's too expensive. We have touted around for tickets, and there are some going, but they're up in the gods and it's just not worth it. I saw the show in the arena yesterday in the first rehearsal, so that's good enough for me. I won't see the interval act live though, and we were cleared out of the hall yesterday so that we couldn't see some other surprise that's planned, so I don't know what it is and I look forward to it.

What I was planning to do, as I did very enjoyably in Kyiv and Beograd, was to watch the final outside, or in a bar in the city centre. There are many options available in the Altstadt and City Zentrum, but it's too far away. In 2005, we could easily run back from Independence Square in Kyiv, and I made it to Helena Paparizou's winner's conference before she did, but here, with the distance involved to the city centre and the parking jobsworths here at the arena, who would make me park a zillion miles away on my return, it's physically impossible, which is a real shame. In addition, the closing party seems so limited in size that no one has even mentioned us getting tickets, never mind being given one. So, as we were excluded from the opening party as well, my tenth Eurovision will be the first where I've missed the opening and closing parties. I'll be celebrating with a soft drink in the car as I drive back to the campsite at 2am. Don't feel sorry for me; it really is great to be here and I realise how privileged we are. It's been a lot of fun, but very tiring and very stressful at times.

Enjoy the show, and I wish Jedward and Blue the very best of luck.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, predictions

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The lovely people at ESC Insight have foolishly allowed me onto their panel to discuss the songs in tonight's Eurovision final. So, if you want to hear moi, Keith Mills from All Kinds Of Everything and John Kennedy O'Connor, who wrote 'that Eurovision history book', click here. You can either listen to the podcast online or download it as an mp3 and listen to it at your leisure.

It's 54 minutes long, so you'll probably have more fun listening to it tomorrow, when you can laugh your socks off at how ridiculously wrong our predictions were.

Labels: ESC Insight, Eurovision 2011, podcast

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My second report on the attitude website went up two days ago (Thursday) as a preview of semi-final two and Jedward. It's here.

Please feel free to leave comments, either here or on the attitude website.

Labels: attitude, Eurovision 2011, Jedward

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Blue turned up the UK and Irish fans' party last night, which was very good of them. I trouped in immediately after them, as the fifth member, and pretended the cheering was for me. Lee drank a pint of Guinness in about 15 seconds (above), while Duncan said what I was thinking and wondered how that might affect Lee's voice for Saturday. (We so depend on Lee's high notes in 'I Can', it's frightening.)

On the way in, Duncan very graciously apologised to me for the drunken conversation we'd had the night before. He said he'd been very drunk indeed.

Which was very nice of him, especially as we hadn't met the night before. We hadn't even been in the same venue. (I did tell him.)

Still, you can never have too much apologising from celebrities, I feel. And at least if proves that Mr James is a very polite young man, with a conscience. We like.

Labels: Blue, Eurovision 2011, UK

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What we didn't know, while we were happily watching the first Eurovision semi-final on Tuesday, was that there was 'pandemonium' in the commentators' area, because the feed from the arena back to the national broadcasters failed in many places. A sound desk failed in some way. This affected many countries, including Germany themselves, Ireland and Finland. These countries had no commentary for several songs. Many countries' commentators resorted to using their mobiles to phone in their commentary. My friend Juha said that watching German TV was like going back to the 1950s, with the phoned-in commentary. Scott Mills was less affected, because he was doing the BBC three commentary from London, which turned out to be a good move after all. Israel never have a commentator, so no one will have noticed anything untoward there.

I've heard that some commentators have gone back to their own countries for tonight's semi-final, to commentate from studios at home. They don't trust that it won't happen again.

Vorsprung Durch Technik.

As they've probably stopped saying now in Germany.

I covered it in my first article for attitude yesterday, which is available here.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, semi-finals

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Labels: Eurovision 2011, semi-finals, Sweden

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Serbia - good.
Lithuania - shocked faces in here, but I did say she was good!
Greece - of course, as predicted.
Azerbaijan - predictable.
Georgia - yes! Shocked faces in here again.
Switzerland - credit where it's due, excellent!
Hungary - The Gays voted
Finland - of course

So now I'm thinking it's Russia and Turkey

9. Russia

So Iceland must have missed out, as the last one must be Turkey or Armenia...

10. Iceland! I screamed!

So, we've lost Turkey, Armenia and Albania, who all usually qualify! Wow! It looks like the 50% jury votes are really working, and it's not just the usual suspects getting through, but the good songs. Well done to Switzerland and Lithuania.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, results, semi-finals

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In German, we call it...."drumline". In English, we call it... a bit boring. Put the kettle on.
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That's me, right now. Note healthy apple. We keep being given them by people whose sole job is to give out apples.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, semi-finals

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What IS this song? I keep hearing it on the radio in the car.

Labels: Eurovision 2011

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Here they are, the UK's hopefuls. What the one in the red is hopeful about is anyone's guess...

Labels: Blue, Chig, Eurovision 2011, United Kingdom

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Phew! All nineteen songs successfully blogged, as they happened . Feel free to add your own abusive comments in the appropriate places below. I might have changed my mind about a couple of my qualifiers now. Hmmm. Thinking hat on...

Labels: Eurovision 2011

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In many eyes (and ears), Greece's worst entry for years. (Didn't I say that about Russia and Turkey as well?) Loukas is probably the best looking man in tonight's contest as well. The mix of rap and epic Greek wailing is peculiar, but I quite like the weirdness.

Qualifying? Yes, it's Greece, but it won't be as high as they usually are.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Greece

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From the box marked 'Strongly Fancied', here's Sweden's entry, labelled as Azeri. A Swedish song, with Swedish choreography and Swedish backing singers. It's nice, but when did nice ever win?

Qualifying? A dead cert.

Labels: Azerbaijan, Eurovision 2011

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I've just been spooked by google ads. They're offering me properties in Portugal already, just because I wrote the word 'Portugal' below.

Now, Lithuania. Every year, there's a song that passes me by. I don't play it and I miss both rehearsals. This is that song, this year.

Actually, it's quite beautiful, in an old-fashioned, epic kinda way. I just announced to the table that this is actually quite good. "It's like worms crawling inside my skin," says Nina. Oh well.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Lithuania

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I don't really know where to start. They're great fun in conferences, but how is a comedy song in Portuguese going to attract votes?

Qualifying? No, but it IS catchy, so...

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Portugal

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Big with the gays. Sadly, it doesn't look like it sounds in a club. May scrape through with the pink vote, but it really isn't presented very well.

Qualifying? Yes, just about.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Hungary

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Don't those pink rooms look amazing? Much whooping on our table as a doll that the guy opposite me made for Stella Mwangi has just appeared on the telly!
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I thought this was another potential winner of the whole shebang, in an Olsen Brothers way, but now I'm not sure it's lively enough. If the story of this song is being relayed by commentators across Europe though, it'll do well. I was almost in tears when I heard this the other day. (The guy who was supposed to perform it died earlier this year, just before the Icelandic final. He was about 36 and died of a heart attack. His widow rewrote the lyric and his friends are performing it. She's here in Düsseldorf. It must be very hard for her.

Qualifying? Yes.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Iceland

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She is, as Wogan would have said, a handsome woman. Why Gerry Sadowitz is DJ-ing for her is anybody's guess. I can vouch that she has a belter of a voice, as I've seen her do two shows in the last few days. The magic act just distracts from a half decent party song though. Shame they changed the title from 'Break A Leg'. It would have confused a lot of people.

Qualifying? Depends on The Gays. But probably not.

Labels: Croatia, Eurovision 2011

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Welcome back, San Marino. Couldn't really keep away once Italy returned, could you? Senit has, by all accounts from her party two nights ago, a brilliant voice. This song is dull and only jury points could possibly save it. A shame.

Qualifying? No.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, San Marino

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We're halfway through already and Malta are three minutes from their exit. How this won in Malta is anybody's guess. Clunky, clunky, clunky. On the plus side, he's been having a great time at the parties.

Qualifying? Ha, ha. Don't make me laugh. Possibly last place.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Malta

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Cute and brilliant. My winner of the whole damn thing if it can't be Eric Saade. I really think this could do it. The stage looks absolutely amazing and I love Axel's shirt. (He's not really called Oskar.) He's lovely too, and very funny. His album was my birthday present at the party on Friday. I couldn't have been happier.

Qualifying? Yes, possibly winning tonight.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Finland

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And now for something completely different. I didn't love this before coming out here. I do now. It's kick-ass different and I love the Gothic backdrop. She has a proper rock voice, but there's some evidence of shakiness. I don't have this in my ten. Maybe I should.

Qualifying? Well, I said no, but now I'm thinking yes. Let's have another borderline.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Georgia

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This is so sweet, and she can sing, and the boys are cute. But it's Switzerland. Will anyone remember they're in it by the end? Vote now! Lines are open. Needless to say, there is an absence of Swiss fans storming the media centre. The Russians have sat down.

Qualifying? Borderline, but no. Ooh, it does seem big in the hall though. Seeds of doubt now...

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Switzerland

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So he's not Alex Sparrow, as billed here all week. Back to his 'real' name. Lots of Russians are 'Russian around' the media hall here. No other country bothered to do that. The start of this song is a waste of thirty seconds. It has nothing to do with the rest of it. Is this not Russia's dullest entry in years?

Qualifying? Yes, but doesn't really deserve to.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Russia

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Loving the way the stage looks for this. Such wonderful colours. It's such a jolly, loose, catchy song. I hope people vote for this.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Serbia

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In which we saw Stefan Raab at the opening party, getting the acts to sing a song which you may hear later. What did you see in the UK? Coxy?
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Turkey's weakest song in years and yet still better than many of the others. The hook is repeated often enough though to see this through.

Qualifying? Yes, it's Turkey (even without the UK's usual 10 or 12 points).

Labels: Eurovision 2011, Turkey

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Father Christmas in a boxing glove? The world's gone mad. These dancers (3/4 of them) are the guys who did Opa for Greece, which was very good, and now they've been reduced to this. It's rubbish, but it's catchy rubbish. Crucially though, if they're boxers, why aren't they shirtless? Who ever heard of boxers in t-shirts? Zero marks for concept.

Qualifying? Yes, it's Armenia, and it's catchy. Boom, boom, chaka, chaka.

Labels: Armenia, Eurovision 2011

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Maybe I should have put this in my ten instead? It certainly looks dramatic and she can belt 'em out. That's not sweat on her neck - it's glitter. "It's just shouting," says Nina, next to me.

Qualifying? Borderline.

Labels: Albania, Eurovision 2011

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I didn't think she could sing when she won the Norwegian final. Now she sounds really ropey again. Too husky and flat. Regretting putting this in my ten predictions instead.

Qualifying? Borderline.
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A month ago, we had a preview party in Manchester. These were my predictions then, and nine of them are the same now. So, take out Portugal (sadly) and add in Norway (against my better judgment and those are my ten predictions.

Labels: Eurovision 2011, predictions

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Sound problems? She's sounding ropey from the off and there seemed to be a dip in volume. This is a terrible opening to a not brilliant semi-final anyway. Millions will be turning off now. Come back on Thursday; it's better!

Remember, UK viewers, we vote tonight. We can't vote for Jedward or the English bloke who's singing for Romania. That's Thursday.

Qualifying? No.
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Okay, it's one minute to nine here in Düsseldorf. I've decided to blog this live, once the songs start. Here goes.

21.03 The hall LOOKS fuller than it is. They've done well seating people where they're needed. The whole top layer is empty though.

21.04 I've laughed at the hosts already. This is a first. Something genuinely funny happened.

21.06 Start voting! But how can we? We need songs! Here they are!
I'm loving the Villa colours in the arena. Nice lighting.
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Guten Tag! It's day seven of the road trip and all is well here in the dorf of Düssel. I can't believe I've been away from home for six days already on my drive to take in my friend's stag weekend in Brussels and Eurovision here in Düsseldorf.

I started off last Thursday, with a great night out in central London. After a fantastic meal at Mildred's restaurant in Soho, my friend Deb and I went to the Douze Points night at the Retro bar off The Strand. Despite not being able to hear any of the night's tracks, due to the pitiful sound system in the pub, we somehow managed to vote on all the songs in the second Eurovision semi-final and declare the Brit guy singing for Romania as the winner, just one point (I think) of Sweden's Eric Saade in second. There were another eight songs voted through to the Retro bar's version of the Eurovision final, but we were having too much of a laugh (and a few beers) for me to remember who they were. There was a real buzz in the air on Thursday night, with warm weather, people drinking outside the pubs and some people walking around with their Union flags and other regalia, in advance of the royal wedding the next morning. We saw the screens in Trafalgar Square from a distance, but my suggestion that we go down The Mall and poke sleeping tourists with sticks wasn't taken up by my friends.

Friday, royal wedding day, and I experienced the whole thing via the brilliance of Radio 5 Live, as I drove from Walthamstow to Calais. It was slightly surreal. And even my staunch Republican heart was moved to almost man tears a few times during the build-up, just because of the feeling that there was a big, national event going on. I arrived at Eurotunnel Folkestone with a couple of hours to spare before my booked crossing. At this point (and here begins a sorry tale which had unfortunate repercussions later on), I tried to buy a car cradle and car charger for my new Motorola Defy phone, which I had only picked up on the way down to London on Thursday and had only been able to charge up for the first time on Friday morning, just before I left for the coast. (I had dropped my previous phone and cracked the screen a few days before, hence the urgent need for a new mobile before coming away, partly to use the phone's satnav in getting to Brussels and Düsseldorf. I had made sure that I picked a phone which said 'car cradle included' on the T-Mobile website, but the useless tossers at T-Mobile didn't send one. The Eurotunnel terminal didn't have one for Motorola phones, despite there being several likely shops there, "because Dixons has closed", as one assistant explained, pointing to the closed unit opposite. Here's a business tip that might catch on: start stocking things that people want to buy. Just a thought.)

Anyhow, after watching people standing around the Eurotunnel terminal, watching the royal couple on the TV screens, as Wills and Kate were in the royal landau, it was time to drive into the big sardine tin and be shipped under the English Channel.

And that will have to do for now, as Denmark's bunch of hunks are about to rehearse, so I'm going to take the long walk into the arena. I will catch up soon. Bis bald!

Labels: Eurovision 2011, road trip

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