If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like being in the middle of the Eurovision media scrum, here is Finland’s Käärijä.

If you want an idea of the songs that might be in contention and a good draw in your party sweepstake, here is an exit poll of people leaving the rehearsal for the final, asking people who they think will win. The top ten was:

1. Finland

2. Sweden

3. Belgium

4. Norway

5. Austria

6. Australia

7. France

8. UK

9. Israel

10. Spain

Frances Ryan’s column is worth your time: Eurovision represents everything that is nonsensically termed ‘woke’ – that’s what makes it so special

GB News has taken the boldly patriotic move of *checks notes* rallying against the UK’s entry, Mae Muller, on the grounds she is a “foul mouthed Britain-hating fanatic”. Muller’s crimes apparently include previously supporting Jeremy Corbyn and criticising the government for failing to provide free school meals.

It is amazing how quickly the people so concerned about “snowflakes” can wet themselves because a woman singing a song holds differing opinions to them. For the professionally miserable, Eurovision represents everything that is now nonsensically termed “woke”: diverse, unifying, tolerant. In an era future historians will surely be terming the Bin Fire, I can’t help but think we could do with more of that, not less.

Read more here: Frances Ryan – Eurovision represents everything that is nonsensically termed ‘woke’. That’s what makes it so special

One of the things I love about Eurovision is the way it combines the magic of glitter and sequins with the kind of statistical obsession you would usually associate with one-day cricket. “No country has ever won after appearing fourth in the second semi-final with a song written in D minor^*” and that sort of thing. Our data team have had a look at the winners over the years and come up with these conclusions among others:

• Pop is virtually the only pathway to the confetti-strewn podium. Our analysis shows that just five non-pop songs have placed within the top three since 2000.

• Songs in minor keys are on the up and have taken a prominent place since 2000, with two-thirds of the entries securing a top-three spot now sung in a minor scale.

• According to the data, if you want to win the competition in the modern era, you are more likely to do so as a solo artist.

There’s more of that kind of thing – and some rather nifty charts – here:

[^*Please don’t factcheck this. I made it up]

In the UK it is traditional to raise a glass to the late great Terry Wogan at the start of song nine, after his many years associated with the show over here.

I’ll also be raising a glass to someone else tonight – a dear friend of mine and former colleague Paul Condon, who we sadly lost in 2019. He was a huge Eurovision fan, and also part of the Doctor Who family as well.

Graeme Burk, who runs the Reality Bomb podcast that I sometimes contribute to, once paid tribute to Paul saying he was “the most delightful gossip, the funniest raconteur, a thoughtful and incisive critic and writer, an incredible DJ, a wonderful best friend to Jim and a devoted son. I can’t think of him without a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Talking to him always brightened my life.”

Paul was an absolute legend, and they even named a character in Doctor Who after him after we lost him.

All of his friends and family still miss him very much, especially at Eurovision time. He would have been absolutely made up that Liverpool was hosting, and it is such a shame he didn’t get to see this day. Rest well, Paul.

🙌

Not all of the best sights tonight will be on the stage. Here are some great pictures of fans arriving for the show.

Once a year our music editor Ben Beaumont-Thomas gets to cast his ear over the new crop of Eurovision entries and pick a few for you to look out for. Not unsurprisingly he has Loreen’s Tattoo down as his pick of the bunch, writing:

With a fringe so powerful it made Claudia Winkleman’s look meek and retiring, Loreen won the Eurovision song contest in 2012 with Euphoria, which has a good claim to be the competition’s greatest song of all time. Tectonic plates have collided with greater dynamic subtlety but Loreen’s beseeching vocal was electric, even moving and her crab dance became the stuff of legend.

Now she is back to try to become the first woman to win twice, and the bookies think she has it sewn up already. The fringe is a little more feathered – didn’t her stylists know the story of Samson? – and Tattoo is maybe 10% less formidable than Euphoria, but still: Loreen’s voice remains sensational, going from breathy mids to adrenaline-pumping highs and she has the superhuman stage presence of a Gaga or Beyoncé. A true pop star and a noticeable cut above the rest.

You can also read what Ben made of Croatia’s Let 3 – “your mid-contest Chocolate Orange has been laced with psilocybin” and who he thinks has “the hard stare and bowl cut of a Berlin sex club bouncer”.

The scandal though is that Georgia were robbed of a place in the final. Robbed, I tell you. A dramatic gothic ballad type affair with lots of creepy hands in the background on the screen reaching out for Iru, the song Echo would have been a great addition to tonight’s show. Don’t blame me, I voted for it.

This tweet summed it up really.

And poor Iru. She was part of a group that won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2011, and the 22-year-old obviously found it all a bit too much on Thursday night after the results had been read out.

Here’s my dog Willow, feeling it.

Malta’s The Busker didn’t make it through to the final either, in one of those entries that maybe was just too wacky for its own good. The performance of Dance (Our Own Party) started with cardboard cut-outs of previous entries from Malta, involved 8-bit interstitial graphics, the trio jumping into a car, and then trying to pull off a costume transformation into glittering versions of what they had been wearing at the top of the song.

Organisers obviously thought they would do well, as they were one of the acts invited during the semi-final to teach us their dance. But the public firmly showed them the door. They will indeed be dancing at their own party tonight 😕.

A few things of note that didn’t make it through the semi-finals. Azerbaijan’s TuralTuranX won’t be there tonight, having had something of a public make-down during the week. They had caused a stir with their look at the opening ceremony.

Unfortunately on Tuesday night it looked as if they’d sent Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings into the arena for the contest by mistake.

“Are the semi-finals a new thing?” someone asked me this week, and I answered “They are a new-ish thing, but one that I suspect has been going on for much longer than I would guess,” in the same way that I think albums released in 1993 are 20 years old, unless I think harder about it. And I wasn’t wrong because next year it will be 20 years since the first semi-final, in 2004.

I must confess I didn’t used to watch the semi-finals, arguing to myself that it was better to watch everything as one big long surprise on the night. However, times change, and I’m now glued to every second of it all.

One reason that people have paid more attention in the UK this year to the semi-finals than before may be that there is a higher profile of general coverage with Liverpool hosting, and that the BBC put them on BBC One, when it usually had them tucked away on BBC Three or BBC Four over the years.

I very much enjoyed this segment at the end of Scott Bryan’s comprehensive guide to tonight’s shenanigans:

The joy of Eurovision is its unpredictability. With so many votes, so many entries (and so much alcohol), you never know how it’s going to end. When Kalush Orchestra won last year, beating Sam Ryder, Graham Norton finished his commentary with the line “Probably some relieved people back at the BBC – it looked a bit dodgy there for a minute. We’re going to have to host?” Fast forward a year, and here we are.

Read more here: Crank it up to douze! It’s your ultimate guide to Eurovision 2023

Eurovision bingo 2023!

OK, to get yourself settled in, why not have a go at my Eurovision quiz before I start giving away too many of the answers in my preamble …

Eurovision 2023 – how the voting works this year

Eurovision 2023 – tonight’s running order

Welcome and opening summary …