PeteFromLeeds

Uruguay outside the top 20 10 year-old me decided that they were my favourite country ahead of the 2010 World Cup having never heard of them before - a good year to pick to support them! But they haven't quite lived up to that since, especially with not making it out of the groups last time round.

Yeah Egypt always seem to be more highly ranked than their World Cup performances would suggest! Let's see if they can make it good this time round.

I was thinking similar about Italy - I'm clearly out of the loop of what catches on, but as much as I liked their songs from the last two years I thought both of them had single-digit points written all over them when I first heard them - and then they both ended up inside the Top 5! I have no explanation for it although the suggestion above around it being the Italian language is a fair shout.

On another note - the UK's score ended up being very much an aside with the fears being at the top of the leaderboard but it is a real shame it didn't catch on across Europe. I think it shows just how hard it is to predict whether a song will do well - taking Austria as an example, I thought they ticked every possible box for being a smash and yet it only got 6 points. I suppose that's shown by how no countries consistently qualify unless they have other political situations or they're Sweden - and even Sweden finished surprisingly low this year for a song I thought could have contended for the win on first listen.

Israel's televote total has decreased each year for the past couple of years (323 -> 297 -> 220), hopefully it will continue to?

More points in the public vote than Israel as well - certainly didn't see that coming!

And breathe!

Just need one of the five remaining countries to get 200+ now...

😬

My top 10 on first listen (excluding UK) - things usually change quite significantly in the following days though! Ukraine Czechia Australia Austria Italy Cyprus Norway Belgium Malta France

The UK song is absolutely what we needed, and the staging was fantastic. Whether it catches on across Europe is completely down to chance, but even if it does do badly hopefully we can see this as the avenue to go down rather than the jury-fodder we've had in recent years.

Ah I can see why Australia are tipped to do well! Interesting to hear that was co-written by Jonas Myrin - I know him best for his controbutions to Christian worship songs.

Ooh I like Ukraine's song! New favourite so far.

Belgium is my favourite of the opening five! The lyrics for Albania aren't really helping, I'm still not sure what the song is about! Is the idea that his mum is dead?

Well they look like an interesting array of characters! Interested to hear the songs.