OK, so it was the first rehearsal, but the presenters were dire, especially the girl who is a supermodel. I can't be bothered to google for her name, but when it comes to presenting, she makes a very good model.

The introduction was...erm...a little strange. I won't spoil it for everyone, but suffice to say I get the impression it was born out of a wild evening's experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs. Bizarre stuff.

As for the songs, well I already knew what they were like. The odd island of decent music in a sea of mediocrity. I'm certainly not ready to do any predictions yet, however I was impressed with Bosnia, Armenia, and Portugal, and would expect them to be sailing into the final. To save Mike a post, yes I do know that Armenia, due to diaspora ,would still qualify if it consisted of me belching on stage but it was very good.

I hope to catch a rehearsal on screen before the main event, but this may not be possible, as I do want to be a tourist as well as Eurovision anorak.

Time to go off partying again. The Israeli delegation is about to throw one, and they are normally good for ligging and music. So much for my ideas of a night in to catch up on sleep.

Thank you Anthony for starting a new thread; any time you want to belch on stage I'll sponsor you.

As for Mike, let's have some constructive thoughts please, since you haven't even bothered to go there this year!

Is the gorgeous Julie there? If so, tell her to add her thoughts to Anthony's brilliant posts please!

JK2006 wrote:
Thank you Anthony for starting a new thread; any time you want to belch on stage I'll sponsor you.

As for Mike, let's have some constructive thoughts please, since you haven't even bothered to go there this year!

Is the gorgeous Julie there? If so, tell her to add her thoughts to Anthony's brilliant posts please!

No Julie isn't there as she couldn't be bothered to go either but I'll pass your message on JK

No JK, the Gorgeous Julie is home this year, and probably retired from ESC attendance for good

It's a week too long and too much like bloody hared work now JK, I prefer to be home on a comfy sofa where my slaves can bring me wine )))

XX

After what seems like a lifetime of build up here in Moscow, it will soon be time for the first televised event. If anyone is struck by the mediocrity of most of the songs, just wait until we get to the second semi on Thursday, as that is much worse. I would recommend that everyone at least watches the introduction tonight, which is an insight into a very unusual mind.

Procrastination is my middle name, so while everyone else turned up armed with tickets, I just got round to buying mine this morning from the box office, and a woman with not one word of English. I am a somewhat of a disaster prone buffoon at times, so it is nothing short of a miracle that I walked away with what I wanted.

Time to stick my neck out with the predictions. I believe the ten qualifiers will be Belarus, Armenia, Switzerland, Turkey, Israel, Iceland, Romania, Portugal, Malta and Bosnia. I don't believe that at all really and am just guessing on most of them, and expect this to be my most disastrous effort to date.

I hope everyone enjoys the show, and I shall endeavour to make some comments about it probably tomorrow.

Not bad predicting at all Anthony. After watching it I got only one wrong. Swap Romania for Belarus.

I expect Sweden was the juries choice.

What was Geraldine McQueen doing singing for Malta ?

I've just realized the 10 qualifiers...all but 9 qualified last year.Just add Malta.

And the 8 who didn't make the final all failed to make the final last year too.

Poor Belarus. With Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland Ukraine and Russia all voting in the other semi. No wonder they never got through.

The presenters were awful, so awful in fact i thought they were Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood. Best song in that lot was Iceland by a mile with Malta coming a close second. Andorra i feel were robbed, I could imagine that song on any driving compilation cd. Waldo and People are about 15 years too late and sound like second rate 2 Unlimited. They rely on pyrotechnics to cover the lack of any life in their frontman who is probably as old as our Cliff.Be a hit all over Europe tho probably not in the UK of course. The between song graphics were truly awful and the whole thing seemed cold and clinical. There wasnt even much life in the Green Room although this was made up for with the mad Maltese Don Estelle lookalike and his matesin the front row who went suitably bananas everytime the camera was on them. After the "Vodka" debacle last year and Chiara good performance they have every right to be happy. I think if Malta won though they would find it impossible to stage next years contest. It would surely bankrupt the country.

I really liked the Iceland song.

AH

Results here (good old Wikipedia)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_2009#Semi-final_1

A message for Anthony or anyone else who is there. Is it possible that the degree of miming can be seen at the event? It is very hard to see how much is actually live in the true idea of music on the television.

Trivia Producer.... wrote:
A message for Anthony or anyone else who is there. Is it possible that the degree of miming can be seen at the event? It is very hard to see how much is actually live in the true idea of music on the television.
All singing has to be live. There can be no vocal backing tracks, or even synthesized vocals. All the music is on backing tracks though, so if you see anyone with an instrument, that is being mimed.

I was pipped in the sweep by that pesky Glen and one other who both got nine! Not sure what possessed me to leave out Sweden from my list.

I notice there is a lot of support for Iceland now, both here and in the real world. The song came across very well in the hall too.

There is only one person on earth who could get lost walking from an arena to a contiguous press centre, so after about 40 minutes of walking in circles, I finally gave up on meeting my friends and headed straight for a coach to the after party. The entertainment made the opening to the Semi final look sane. People dressed in white, gold and feathers doing what appeared to be Nazi salutes, disco dancing nuns, and everything after that became so odd that I have to admit defeat; beyond my powers of description, I'm afraid.

There is never much time to come up for air at Eurovision (Julie is right about it being hard work at times) and it is soon time for the first rehearsal of the second semi final. Never mind the songs, I cannot wait to see how this show opens.

A slightly more normal opening to the second semi final, I'm afraid, if you count people dressed as bears as normal. The whole show was dogged with a series of technical problems. The worst and most comical was in the setting up of the Slovenian song. They do much of it in silhouette, and the stage hands set them up in the wrong order, despite them being numbered. This was followed by material peeling off from one of them. It took the best part of 10 minutes. They have 32 seconds on the night.

I am feeling quite ill after the excesses of the after party (FREE BOOZE + NO FREE FOOD= POORLY) and the last thing you want to sit through is this second semi final which has to be the worst Eurovision event in living memory. Mercifully, I did manage to nod off several times. It does get a little better later on if you can sit through the first half, but not a great deal.

Norway and Greece will be the top two by a mile, but I shall post in my full predictions tomorrow. My intention is to be in bed within the next hour and not to resurface until mid morning.

Funnily enough I'm beginning to think Jade stands a chance and wouldn't be surprised to see her go Top 5 in Eurovision on Saturday.

JK, even I am beginning to think I may have been wrong all along about Jade's chances, although I think perhaps I am being brainwashed by all the UK fans out here. Things do seem to be going ALW's way. A great draw in the final, and now the songs drawn near the UK couldn't have been better suited to our needs if the whole thing had been fixed.

I have been laid up for the last twenty hours with a nasty bug, and not as I first thought, the results of drinking too much. Just to compound my misery, I have now twisted my back getting out of the shower, so forgive me if this post is rubbish.

With that public outburst of self-pity out of the way, let's move on to tonight's Semi-Final. They are a pretty hopeless set of songs on the whole, so much so that I haven't wasted my money on a ticket and will be watching in the press centre; the other reason for this being my state of health. There are not many toilets in the arena.

As for predictions, it is a tricky one. Norway, Azerbaijan, Greece, Ukraine and maybe Denmark are certs, and as an Irish journalist said, you may as well use bingo balls to pick the rest. I'll go with Slovenia, Lithuania, Moldova, Albania and Estonia, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong with all those five. If I am, I'll simply blame my illness.

Enjoy the show!

Pretty good Anthony; if you're as good on the final as you've been on the semis you win the award!

Anthony wrote:
I have been laid up for the last twenty hours with a nasty bug, and not as I first thought, the results of drinking too much. Just to compound my misery, I have now twisted my back getting out of the shower, so forgive me if this post is rubbish.

King of Squits then!!!

I'll rant about Albania to you in an email!!!

Yes, 9/10 is far better than I expected. I am still in the press centre watching the winners' press conference and it is the most tedious long-winded mental torture imaginable.

Did anyone enjoy the show? It was all I could do to stay awake. Lithuania and Moldova both qualified with very mediocre songs, but deserved to as they were among the few who could actually sing in tune.

They do the draw for the final as part of this conference. Norway has just drawn position 20, so I think it that has confirmed their victory.

The unstoppable landslide that is Eurovision continues, and once this nonsense has finished it will be off to the after party, where I will be drinking nothing but water. Bear in mind that I am three hours ahead. Oh lordy! Then tomorrow afternoon they're off again with the first dress rehearsal of the final.

I'll be back tomorrow. Give me strength!