(As a one-off wildcard act).

The English speaking bloc might prove worse than the serbo-croatian (&friends) bloc...

On another Eurovision note, this lady also started following me last night.




2.07 It's Paul Calf!

Sung by a girl with Cystic Fibrosis, too.

I watch this pretty much every year but I don't know why. I think it's rubbish.

I missed it this year, but the best way to enjoy Eurovision is at a party with everyone crowded round, being rude about the acts, drinking, and privately hoping that they will win the sweepstake.

Not really. It's just extreme drinking and shouting in a different environment.

New voting system
The EBU announced on 18 February 2016 that a new voting system would be implemented at the contest for the first time since 1975. The new system, inspired by the voting system of Melodifestivalen, involves each country now awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. After viewers have cast their votes, the results of each professional jury will be presented, with countries receiving 1-8 and 10 points being displayed on-screen instead of 1-7, which had been the case since 2006, and the national spokesperson only announcing the country receiving 12 points. After the results of the professional juries are presented, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score from each song. The results of countries finishing between 11th and 26th in the public vote will be automatically added to the scoreboard, with only the results of the top ten countries being announced by the hosts. The new voting system will also be used to determine the qualifiers from each semi-final, but as before the qualifiers will be announced in a random order.[23][24]

As the new voting system gives equal weight to both jury and televoting results, a national televoting/jury result cannot be used as backup result for the jury/televoting. Therefore, if a country cannot deliver a valid televoting/jury result, a substitute result is calculated by the jury/televoting result of a pre-selected group of countries approved by the contest's Reference Group. The Director General of Radiotelevisione della Repubblica di San Marino (SMRTV), Carlo Romeo, stated on 23 February that the use of a substitute televoting result discriminated against microstates like San Marino, which only used a professional jury due to their use of the Italian phone system and would therefore have its voting representation diminished under the new system, and criticised the EBU for not contacting its members before making the decision.

Who knows? In fairness their song last year was one of the better ones. They had clearly taken it seriously too with the guy that was representing them being quite a big star over there.

I for one, welcome our antipodean friends.

At least we know if we leave the EU we can still take part in Eurovision.

That would suggest that Austrakia should not be allowed, then.

I don't think a World Cup of song would work. Europe is quirky and ace... America would ruin it entirely,

or... Maybe not

That would suggest that Austrakia should not be allowed, then.

I don't think a World Cup of song would work. Europe is quirky and ace... America would ruin it entirely,

No. Not western.

*plays first four notes of Firefly theme*

*turns to focus on MalI*