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Rehearsals are underway, but there's a poor standard of songs this year.

Index of songs: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070hv ... 2013-songs

The UK are the dark horses and one of the outside bets to win. It's top 5 in the OGAE polls.

The hot favourite is Denmark.

Cascada, who's representing Germany, had a massive UK #1 in 2008 with "Evacuate the Dance Floor".

Ireland don't have Jedward.

This is a brilliant a capella version of "Lautar" from last year and Moldova's entry, "O Mie". I think it's very good. The Molodvan entry is also very good.

I'm saving myself for the semis next week.

I'd half-expected Andi to do this by now.

I'd have thought you would have done that yourself.

tubeguru wrote:I'd have thought you would have done that yourself.

I've only just seen it, it's gone up on the BBC website about 5 hours ago. Andi should have done that before 6pm at the latest.

Somehow I can't see Andi rushing home from work to eagerly scan the BBC website on the offchance they've put up a sweepstake poster

To be honest eurovision is not about best song its always been how good is ur political status in europe so no i wont be doing a sweepstake on this!

There was a post on the BBC Eurovision website which explains it's not as political as some people make out. Yes, Cyprus gives 12 points to Greece, but then how on earth did Germany win a few years ago?

hopeful traveller wrote: how on earth did Germany win a few years ago?

Good pop song sung by a pretty girl - occasionally the music will trump politics, c.f. Lena in 2010 and Lordi in 2006.

Occasionally, but certainly not always, or even often.

I agree with Hopeful Traveller that this year seems to be a very poor standard.
The odds on Denmark are very short but I'm not convinced that they will win, the Scandi block vote should give them a healthy score but maybe not enough.
I think it could be the closest voting for many years, with no real stand out songs.
My personal favourites are Malta and The Netherlands, but I don't expect either of these songs to finish top 10.
UK no hopers yet again, I think we will finish bottom 5, the song is simply not strong enough.

Humperdinck's song was 10x better and did awfully.

I've got time to squeeze a semi in before I go to work later.

And that isn't a euphemism.

I prefer "Believe in Me", actually.