Here’s a shorter version. I voted for:
Bulgaria (rub song, but loved the energy of the performance. Neil Peart solo in Eurovision = yay!)
Belgium (I larffed non stop)
Poland
FYR Macedonia

There were better songs than the above 4 but I assumed, wrongly, that they were all a cinch to go through.

I voted for:

Bulgaria (rub song, but loved the energy of the performance. Neil Peart in Eurovision = works for me)
Belgium (I larffed non stop)
Poland
FYR Macedonia

There were other songs I liked more, but assumed (wrongly as it turned out) that they were a cinch to go through.

The one good thing about this debacle is that most of the turgid hard rock failed to qualify too (so that’s the end of the Lordi effect then heh).

Overall quality of songs = much higher than most commentators had led me to believe. There were about 12 songs that were “any good at all”, I thought. And most of the 14 authomatic qualifiers sound pretty good too. I also liked the variety of music in the semi-final. Even if most of the rock songs were terrible, I was in a strange way happy that Eurovision was embracing rock more.

Luckily Ukraine = automatic qualifiers. They’re my tip this year.

I wonder if we can move to blind voting, where the countries are not named (though this throws in language and “national dress” issues).

Apparently there is already talk of some Western European countries pulling out next year…