(Blogged live, while watching the draw on eurovision.tv)

The countries in bold are tonight's qualifiers, in the slots they've just drawn in the conference hall in Moscow. Rather charmingly, the numbers are on bits of paper inside Matrushka dolls. Thankfully only one doll.

Alexander Rybak from Norway pulled out the draw he needed - 20th slot. Of the slots still available tonight, only 21st could have been better.

It's now a very slow start to the final. For those who think the French song is also dreary, they'll have nodded off until Sweden wakes them up at song four.

Ukraine drew the prime slot that was left, at 21. Saturday's final certainly builds up to towards the end now!

01 Lithuania
02 Israel
03 France
04 Sweden
05 Croatia
06 Portugal
07 Iceland
08 Greece
09 Armenia
10 Russia
11 Azerbaijan
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
13 Moldova
14 Malta
15 Estonia
16 Denmark
17 Germany
18 Turkey
19 Albania
20 Norway
21 Ukraine
22 Romania
23 United Kingdom
24 Finland
25 Spain

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2009

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Excellent news for Jade Ewen and the UK, as two dancey numbers which haven't a hope of winning have just been drawn before her and after her in Saturday's final. This is the best we could have hoped for. There's now no likely winner near the UK at the end of the show. Dare we hope? Dare we?

The media masses in Moscow have apparently gone into a UK-based frenzy following this draw. Andrew Lloyd Webber clearly convinced Mr Putin to allow weak songs to be drawn around us to make us look even better. Spasiba!

The line-up for Saturday's Eurovision final now looks like this. Tonight's ten qualifiers are in bold. The Big 4 and hosts Russia were already drawn into place. The other ten places will be taken by Thursday's qualifiers.

01
02 Israel
03 France
04 Sweden
05
06 Portugal
07 Iceland
08
09 Armenia
10 Russia
11
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
13
14 Malta
15
16
17 Germany
18 Turkey
19
20
21
22 Romania
23 United Kingdom
24 Finland
25 Spain

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2009

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Thank goodness for that. The UK's Eurovision song is a ballad, called 'My Time'. I'm thinking Martine McCutcheon singing, "this is my moment". The contestants are rehearsing it now in the BBC studio, in preparation for tomorrow's final. There's a key change and no sign of any fire/higher/desire rhyme, as Diane Warren isn't familiar with Eurovision custom.

Good. It should be a straight fight between Mark and Jade, even with Jade coming third or fourth last week. Hopefully, a ballad will expose the twins as being not very good, but with the public voting them into the top two last week, I remain concerned.

In other Eurovision news, the Russians revealed the logo today. That's it on the left. I think it's pretty. They also revealed that there will be no slogan this year, blowing the chance to reference the heart in the repeating logo by having 'From Russia with love'. I guess it's been done...

The draw also took place today to decide who is in which semi-final, and when the Big 4 and the hosts vote. This is not the running order, which will be drawn in March. This year, we get to vote in the first semi-final, which presents a challenge to the BBC. They'll have to make sure people know there's something happening as early as Tuesday night, so that enough people watch and vote. For the first time, three of the Big 4 will vote in the same semi-final. Last year, they were split 2+2, with hosts Serbia joining one of the pairs. This year, hosts Russia vote with France and no other Big 4 country.

Don't ask me how Greece and Cyprus have ended up in the same semi-final. I thought the whole point of the seeded draw was to keep apart countries who are statistically more likely to vote for each other. Obviously it can't do it all the time, with only two shows, but I would have thought that Greece and Cyprus were the first ones put into separate pots. UK viewers will be unable to vote for Ireland, like last year.

Tuesday's semi-final:

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Sweden
Israel
Belgium
Andorra
Czech Republic
Montenegro
Iceland
Georgia
Bulgaria
Portugal
Switzerland
FYR Macedonia
Finland
Belarus
Armenia
Turkey
Romania
Malta

Also voting:
Germany
Spain
UK

Thursday's semi-final:

Slovenia
Denmark
Azerbaijan
The Netherlands
Latvia
Hungary
Serbia
Norway
Ukraine
Greece
Lithuania
Poland
Croatia
Estonia
Moldova
Cyprus
Ireland
Slovakia
Albania

Also voting:
Russia
France

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2009, YourCountryNeedsYou

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Today at 16:15 CET (15:15 GMT) sees the draws take place for the running orders of the Eurovision semi-finals and final. We already know which countries are in which semi-final, from the draw which took place on 28 February. Today's draw will put the nineteen songs in each semi-final in running order.

So far, without the songs being in any order, I can already see nine 'certainties' to qualify from semi-final one, which only leaves one place in the final up for grabs! In semi-final two, I can only pencil in six for the final, so it will be interesting to see what the draw does to each country's perceived chances.

ESC Today says the draw for the final will also take place, so the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Serbia will find out which of the 25 slots they will occupy in the final. I guess they will also allocate each slot to 'qualifier from semi-final 1' or 'qualifier from semi-final 2' and then allocate the slot numbers at the end of each semi-final in May. We shall see.

The draw is being shown live on Eurovision.tv (but some of us will be at work).

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2008

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The draws for the two Eurovision shows took place today at the Heads of Delegation meeting, even though the UK is the only country not to have chosen her song yet.

We've drawn nineteenth position, coming immediately after the Ukrainian drag queen and immediately before the nonsense entry from Romania. They're both potential winners, so we need something that will stand out in between those two, reinforcing my belief that we need to pick Cyndi's ballad on Saturday. (I'm still really torn though, as I want Scooch to win as well.)

The good news is that every time the UK has started in nineteenth, we have finished second! (Admittedly this was just the once, with Sonia in 1993.)

The position of death in the final has gone to Spain and their boyband, NASH.

Here are the starting positions of the record-breaking forty-two countries:

QUALIFIER - Thursday 10 May 2007

1. Bulgaria
2. Israel
3. Cyprus
4. Belarus
5. Iceland
6. Georgia
7. Montenegro
8. Switzerland
9. Moldova
10. Netherlands
11. Albania
12. Denmark
13. Croatia
14. Poland
15. Serbia
16. Czech Republic
17. Portugal
18. FYR Macedonia
19. Norway
20. Malta
21. Andorra
22. Hungary
23. Estonia
24. Belgium
25. Slovenia
26. Turkey
27. Austria
28. Latvia

FINAL - Saturday 12 May 2007

1. Bosnia & Herzegovina
2. Spain
3. (qualifier)
4. Ireland
5. Finland
6. (qualifier)
7. (qualifier)
8. (qualifier)
9. Lithuania
10. Greece
11. (qualifier)
12. Sweden
13. France
14. (qualifier)
15. Russia
16. Germany
17. (qualifier)
18. Ukraine
19. United Kingdom
20. Romania
21. (qualifier)
22. (qualifier)
23. Armenia
24. (qualifier)

Labels: draw, Eurovision 2007

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