Order Amongst Chaos? Rehearsal Musings

Almost halfway through the fortnight event and time for a few thoughts just before Blue and the other Big Five entrants do their first turn in rehearsal. First of all a big thank you to the on site bloggers. Nul Points is too busy holding down a 9-5 to be in Dusseldorf this year.

The most interesting story to emerge is that around the voting order. One consequence of having forty-plus countries voting has been runaway victories that have made the later part of the voting process largely irrelevant as the winner is so far ahead that it can't be caught. The European Broadcasting Union, having already shortened the voting process by having the announcers only voice the 8, 10 and 12 votes, have seemingly come up with another bright idea. The order of voting is now being decided after the jury votes to make the excitement last longer. Nul Points is happy to hear any improvement, but you can't fight the arithmetic. If Malta have won by a 200 vote margin (unlikely we know, but stick with the thought), after 43 countries have voted it is still going to have won by 200 points, whatever order they are announced.

So we are going to get a scenario where all the winning countries twelves are stored up until the end of the voting order, to keep things exciting, or liberally sprinkled through the order to keep them tantalizingly ahead for as long as possible?. Either way sounds like a field day for leaks like the 2005 Semi result and opportunities for making a killing on live betting.

On a happier note, we have been enjoying the rehearsal reports and are agog at the big five tomorrow even more than Judge Dread was in the 70s. Some early impressions: in Semi 1, Russia exceeded our expectations wildly, Georgia did the same in the opposite direction, still unconvinced about Hungary. Azerbaijan too really (BTW isn't it funny that so many of the online bloggers spend ages telling you what they had for breakfast but the only insight they can offer on songs is that "it will qualify because it's Greece". No shit Sherlock. In Semi 2 the only real suprise has been Estonia underwhelming, Israel's "meh" rehearsal less surpising. Our fave Romania continues to have a Marmite effect.

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