Did you hear the one about the Dane, the Thai, the Welshman and the Islanders?

You can always rely on Eurosong to create some strange combos - and this year has two already.

In the red and white corner from Denmark comes 40-something Tomas N'evergreen and Gen-Y Dane/Thai babe Chanée (real name: Christina Wongskul) with 'In a Moment Like This.'

But not to be out done, in the divided corner, hailing from Wales, but representing Cyprus comes Jon Lilygreen accompanied by Cypriot act The Islanders, singing 'Life Looks Better In Spring.'

Bridesmaid, finally Bride!

Björk finally gets to sing for Iceland! No, not that one. Helga Björk - who has performed back up two years in a row for Iceland (behind Euroband in '08 and Yohanna in '09) - has won the Icelandic Nationals and will now get her moment in the spotlight. She will be singing in French and English (perhaps an appeal for bail out funds as much as it is for votes). The song is 'Je ne sais quoi' (I Don't Know What).

Georgia is sending the lovely Sopho Nizharadze - but no song has been selected as yet.

Defending champions Norway have elected to disregard EDU's advice of sending Röyksopp (or Anneli Drecker) and are sending some uber-cute Kooks reject named Didrik Solli-Tangen! Didrik will sing 'My Heart Is Yours' (clearly disregarding the fact that our heart is Anneli's).

Wake Me Up When January Ends

As the finals start to come thick and fast, the following nations have announced their singers, but not their songs:

Belgium

Tom Dice

Bulgaria
Miro


Turkey
maNga



Ukraine
Vasyl Lazarovich

Now, as always, Albania had their national finals before anyone cared and have selected the zaftik Juliana Pasha who is singing 'Nuk mundem pa ty' (I Can’t Be Without You).
Bosnia and Herzegovina is sending Vukašin Brajić with 'Munja i grom' (Thunder and Lightning).




Girl folk-duo Kuunkuiskaajat will represent Finland - performing 'Työlki ellää' (One can work for a living, too)





The Dutch announced their song 'Ik ben verliefd, Shalalie' (I'm in love, Shalalie) and then sought their singer. Sieneke was announced as Netherlands' representative on Feb 6th.




In what looks like the first gag song of the year (we so hope this isn't serious, mum!) Switzerland is sending the unique looking Michael von der Heide who is performing 'Il pleut de l'or' (basically = Golden shower!!)

So what did we miss?

In the six months since Moscow, there has been plenty of movement at the station - with five countries pulling out and one nation returning. BTW - Austria and Monaco still look like sitting ESC out for the time being.

Right Back Where We Started From (Returning Nation)
Georgia - They really do want to put in an entry!

The Pain of Withdrawal (Departing Nations)
July
Czech Republic - Fresh from a nul point for the Super Gypsies, ČT announced their withdrawal citing a mutual lack of interest between the Czech public and fans of the contest.
October
Hungary - MTV pulls out of 2010, citing financial limitations.
November
Montenegro - RTCG pulls out of 2010, citing financial limitations.
December
Andorra - Submitted an entry and then started looking for loose change under the sofa cushions. In December 2009 RTVA announced their withdrawal due to a lack of funding.
Lithuania - LRT pulls out of 2010, citing financial limitations. They are currently looking under the cushions of their sofas and if they find €90,000 they'll be back in.

Skaat. Skaat. Skaat.

The long interregnum comes to an end, as Albania conducts its semi-finals in order to pick a 7 minute long song in need of a pruning. But, what's this? Out of the blocks, without warning comes Israel - announcing their 2010 singer on Christmas Day.

Meet Harel Skaat who has been confirmed as the singer for Oslo by the Israeli public broadcaster IBA. He will sing four songs at a mini-Kdam later on with the public selecting his song for Norway.
But seriously, with six months to go - who cares. Wake me up in February.

Georgia on my Screen / Czech, please?

After a tumultuous year, domestically and Eurovisually, Georgia has confirmed it will be back at Eurovision 2010 in Oslo. After their brief war with Russia, Georgia pulled out of Eurovision, only to re-enter with a disco-dig at Vladimir Putin which saw them disqualified. In the meantime, they managed to win the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

CT, the Czech broadcaster, has pulled stumps on the failed experiment that is Czech music at ESC. The show was never all that popular in the Czech Republic, even though it has been a huge hit in Slovakia. None of the Czech acts made it past semi finals and only one of them got to double points in their semi finals (and that had more to do with the small pieces of tin foil covering the girls, rather than the thousands of missed notes).

Gypsy.cz's song 'Aven Romale' (Moscow, 09) scored the first nul pointe in ESC since Switzerland in 2004.

Moscow 09 in Review: The Voting

There has been no talk of bloc voting this year. Given the size of Norway's victory and the consistency of it's voting-earning from all nations (everyone gave him points and apart from Turkey, Portugal and sections of Eastern Europe just about everyone had him in their top three) it is fair enough to say that everyone agrees the right person won.

Some of the old biases were in evidence - Cyprus giving 12 points to Greece, Andorra giving 12 to Spain - but generally we saw a return to votes being earned by good performances and publicity efforts. The UK scored its best result in seven years after Jade Ewen completed a 13 nation tour appearing on talk shows and variety shows across Europe - oh, and singing very, very well on the night.

After a closer contest (perhaps Oslo in 2010) we may be able to verify if the return of juries has finally slayed the Neighbourhood Watch scheme which has undermined several contests. One concern we have is that the juries make their scores after watching the dress rehearsal on the Friday night! This does seem very wrong - if a performer misses a note or has a sore throat on Friday, but nails it on Saturday at the Final, they will get marked down on 50% of their score for a sin committed off-camera.

Is it asking too much for the juries to watch the Final and make up their minds during the 15 minute interval? Like the rest of us.