Harve

Yeah, I do think that most of their televote is a quite an organic far right wing vote though, which exists in every country. Organic in the sense that they're not bought SIM cards but could still of course be for reasons entirely unrelated to the song. I don't think that part necessarily needs to be formally coerced by Israel and is just a consequence of their wider propaganda, although if there is an element of that for any single country's votes then I'd be interested in the investigation. I don't think there is a clean solution other than at a geopolitical level with a consensus established that Israel is a genocidal state and for the appropriate sanctions to follow on from that. But obviously that's bigger than this contest and we are nowhere near that. I do wonder what would happen if the contest was hosted in a country that formally recognises Palestine, which notably Sweden does.

I mean is this not the issue. Anyway enough about that fiasco from me. - Really surprised that Estonia did so well with the public - and ok with the jury - when San Marino/Iceland did terribly. I really thought they'd appeal similarly and was gutted for the latter in particular! - I see Italy as having a massively variable entry quality (I guess they do like to go for lots of different genres which is nice, but some are very much not appealing to me) but this does matter as they seem to do well every year. - Luxembourg jury flop oops, I thought it was an underdog for a really good jury score. - Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Portugal seem to have the strongest diaspora effect but I don't think their scores can be attributed entirely to that, nor can diasporas be relied on (= Switzerland has a huge Portuguese population especially in the French-speaking part but gave Portugal nothing).

In terms of the Israel near-miss and destroying the contest forever: We were calcing live as you can work out how many votes are left to be dished out from the 2204 total point televote pool. So it got very scary when: - Estonia got a huge televote score but failed to overtake Israel. This then made it harder for everybody else to overtake. - Sweden's televote lowkey flopped but still took enough points out the pool to make it difficult for other nations to get a good enough score. 367 points up for grabs for the top 5 jury songs at that point - an Austria vs. Israel split screen felt locked in at that point. - Then Italy got an OK televote score, leaving just 228 points for the top 3 nations. If they were split broadly evenly between Austria, France and Switzerland then that's a disaster. Nothing against the entries, but for this purpose it was a relief that France only got 50 and Switzerland got 0, leaving Austria with more than enough to win. If we were to assume that Israel has a huge televote locked in then this is how an Israel win happens - there would be a bunched-up scoreboard, particularly with the jury vote, with the right side of the scoreboard still getting a respectable score. The bottom half got 466 jury points vs. 256 last year. But there's no guarantee that Israel would flop in the jury vote in the future and there's no point gaming these scenarios every year. Moral considerations for Eurovision - and more fundamentally in geopolitics - have been proven to be irrelevant but purely in the interests of self-preservation for the contest it's best for Israel to be gone. Finally, Azerbaijan's jury votes look suss - it's not necessarily the 12 to Israel, it's also that all the other entries considered favourites (Austria, Sweden, France) were completely snubbed which nobody else did.

Not my ranking but my predictions Jury 1. Austria 2. Netherlands 3. Sweden 4. France 5. Switzerland 6. Finland 7. Albania 8. Luxembourg 9. Greece 10. Latvia 11. Poland 12. Norway 13. Italy 14. Ukraine 15. Lithuania 16. Portugal 17. Israel 18. Denmark 19. Malta 20. Armenia 21. UK 22. Spain 23. Estonia 24. Iceland 25. San Marino 26. Germany Public 1. Sweden 2. Austria 3. Finland 4. Israel 5. Albania 6. San Marino 7. Iceland 8. France 9. Netherlands 10. Switzerland 11. Latvia 12. Germany 13. Estonia 14. Denmark 15. Ukraine 16. Armenia 17. Greece 18. Lithuania 19. Luxembourg 20. Poland 21. Portugal 22. Malta 23. Norway 24. Spain 25. Italy 26. UK Who knows what that could make it overall.

We have arrived a little late due to travelling by airship as aeroplanes are BANNED here due to Skall's efforts in fighting climate change.

Most certain of NQ'ing to least certain: Georgia Serbia Montenegro Czechia Lithuania Malta Latvia Ireland Armenia Denmark Greece Luxembourg Australia Israel Finland Austria I feel like only the top 3-4 are very safe though!

Won't give money to ESC while a certain country is competing but I would have voted for Latvia as I gather they're in danger.

What a way to close!

The former yugoslav entries have all been so disappointing this year.

The studio version is superior to the live performance unfortunately.

Pls be at least half capable of singing ur banger Germany

I mean beyond the obvious fact that Israel should not be here it's also the most uninteresting ballad, which is saying something when there's Georgia and Montengro.

I found the tweeness annoying hearing it in isolation but I think I Get It now with the France Gall tribute.

Omg I was in Gruyères where Sissal was just last week

France rly were haunted by Fulenn's 2022 injustice and vowed never to send anything remotely like that ever again.

f*** Georgian Dream

You got another one.

She's only 22 which surprises me a bit. The opposite of Marina Satti who was 37 when she performed last year!

Surely the jury alone takes the UK above Spain and maybe Germany too.

TIL Emmental is Swiss.

Don't rly like how you can send tracks without even needing to sing the chorus's hook now.

Latvia pls qualify.

Ireland's entry is lowkey horrendous.

Out from most certain to least certain: Azerbaijan Croatia Portugal Poland Ukraine Belgium Cyprus Norway Slovenia Albania Iceland Estonia Netherlands San Marino Sweden

Feels like there are too many songs trying to 🌟blow you away🌟 Like is there room in the final for all of Poland, Belgium and Cyprus? I feel like the simpler songs like San Marino will get through much more easily than any of them.