EDU predictions (Semi Finals)

The editors have made their lists, checked them twice and then argued for 2 hours over a bottle of verdicchio.

Here are our tips for the qualifiers from the two Semi Finals (in order of anticipated public votes)!

SEMI 1
Albania Juliana Pasha - "It's All About You"
Slovakia Kristina - "Horehronie"
Russia Peter Nalitch Band - "Lost and Forgotten"
Serbia Milan Stanković - "Ovo je Balkan"
Finland Kuunkuiskaajat - "Työlki ellää"
Iceland Hera Björk - "Je ne sais quoi"
Estonia Malcolm Lincoln - "Siren"
Moldova SunStroke Project and Olia Tira - "Run Away"
Belgium Tom Dice - "Me and My Guitar"

Bosnia Vukašin Brajić - "Thunder and Lightning" (Wildcard)


SEMI 2
Lithuania InCulto - "East European Funk"
Romania Paula Seling and Ovi - "Playing with Fire"
Azerbaijan Safura Alizadeh - "Drip Drop"
Bulgaria Miro - "Angel si ti"
Turkey maNga - "We Could Be The Same"
Armenia Eva Rivas - "Apricot Stone"
Denmark Chanée and N'evergreen - "In a Moment Like This"
Croatia Feminnem - "Lako je sve"
Cyprus Jon Lilygreen and The Islanders - "Life Looks Better in Spring"

Sweden Anna Bergendahl - "This Is My Life" (Wildcard)

There's a 50/50 chance of these odds being accurate, though there's only a 10 percent chance of that

Betting is to be approached tenatively in all matters - the house always wins. But this is doubly true in Eurovision, where national fervour clouds punting and produces daft odds year after year. 2010 seems to be no exception, with UK bookies William Hill's cuurent list of odds showing Germany marginally ahead of Azerbaijan and Israel:

11/4 Germany
7/2 Azerbaijan
8/1 Israel
12/1 Denmark
14/1 Norway, Armenia and Croatia
25/1 Greece
28/1 Sweden
33/1 Belgium, Ireland and Turkey
40/1 Slovakia
66/1 Albania, Belarus, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Ukraine and Romania
80/1 Iceland
100/1 Bosnia & Herzogovina,Moldova, Russia, Malta, Serbia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Georgia
150/1 Finland, Latvia and Estonia
200/1 Portugal, Switzerland, Bulgaria and the Netherlands
250/1 FYR Macedonia, Poland and Slovenia

Most of EDU's favourites are 33/1 or wider. Which means we are either about to become incredibly rich, or we'll lose AUD on the Euro yet again!

Sweet!

Ukraine has been fined by the EBU for their mucking around since the deadline for entries passed. The EBU fined NTU over the entry submission delay and also imposed an additional fine for every next day after the deadline with no entry submission.

As the old saying goes, bureaucratic fines are the mother of invention.

NTU has revealed the official entry to ESC 2010 for Ukraine will be: "Sweet People" to be sung by Aloysha.

Stay tuned in case someone figures out it was released two years ago and/or is plagarised.

You've Got Homework...

Following a hasty (actually, just 'read' hasty for anything relating to Ukraine, OK?) investigation into Aloysha's winning song 'To Be Free' the Ukrainian broadcaster has realised it was done before.

Rather than disqualify the cheat, and give second place a go (love you Masha, right) OR even re-instate poor ole Vasyl Lazarovych, the Ukrainians have asked to write a new song for Alyosha.

The EBU has granted Ukraine an extension to COB on Friday (26 March) to submit the song.

Now that's a recipe for great music.
What could possibly go wrong now?

Same ole f%&#in Story

Hey, you know how your Eurovision entry has to be brand new? Like, it cannot have been performed by someone else or infringe their copyright?? Yeah, you do?

Interesting... coz it doesn't look like the new board controlling Ukrainian television knows about that (quite important) rule.
As we saw yesterday, having fired the pro-Ukrainian TV board, the new pro-Russian board declared Vasyl Lazarovych to be an invalid selection and forced him to enter a new National Final with 19 other unfortunates. As luck would have it, the singer who went on last - Alyosha (real name Olena Kucher) - won the Final with her song 'To Be Free.'
The lyrics were written in 1977 and the music supposedly written by Alyosha herself - except that it sounds pretty much exactly like 'Knock Me Out' by Linda Perry and Grace Slick.

Yep - past the date for all entries to be final, the Ukrainian delegation cancels Vasyl's entry, holds a new Final and select a song that must be disqualified. Are the ESC going to allow Ukraine a third shot at this? Or will second place Masha Subko with 'Ya tebya lyublyu' be sent?

Tune in for the next thrilling installment - same bat-sh*t crazy time, same bat-sh*t crazy country.

Butterflies and Elvis

Belarus has gone back to its playbook from 2005 and done the old swapping-the-song-at-the-last-minute trick.
After five semi-finals, the public selected the group 3+2 to perform 'Far Away' at Oslo. But the day before the Meeting of the Delegates, Belarus announced that 3+2 had a new song - written by an influential Russian music producer - called 'Butterflies.'

Like Lazarovich with a Double By-Pass

EDU is calling shenanigans on Ukraine's Eurovision process for 2010.
Last December the Ukrainian selectors announced that Vasyl Lazarovich would compete for Ukraine and then sought songs for him - nothing too controversial there, same thing is happening in Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Belgium & Turkey. In a broadcast final on March 6th, 'I Love You' was selected from five songs as Vasyl's entry.

But a funny thing happened on the way to those finals... Ukraine had national elections, the pro-Russian candidate won and the entire board of the TV network were replaced. And so, Vasyl was informed that his selection had been retrospectively deemed to be illegitimate.

On March 10, a new National Final was announced and 19 candidates quickly collected.
Vasyl announced he would compete in the new Finals on March 20th: "I am not afraid of a national selection; I know that I have support in Ukraine in the face of fans of my talent. Yes, I am not happy with the re-selection, as I was elected by a legitimate vote. But, in order to dispel such doubts, I accept the rules of the new leadership of the channel.”