J.O you have quoted a few upsets you have had at 1.5 1.6 1,3 etc - thats not buying money for me. Only much lower than these odds is what I term buying money

But why is Romania singing about a black slave with a big c0ck...who shaggged Susan George iirc?

*helped Norway out of the competition*

Greece and Cyprus

Chocolate girl was one of my favourite songs Milan it would have smashed Eurovision

I thought I was joking about it being about Mandingo but maybe not.

Someone else's opinion:

And Now We Know...(Day 1)
So as the sun sets over Paris [Only place I could think of where the sun might be setting right now]. But the day has come to an end and having looked at at least 100 photos of Eurovision Taxis as well as hours of rehearsal videos, we now know a lot more about Eurovision 2012. But in a nutshell what have we learned?

    Based on everyone's blog posts we now know it is not very easy to get to Baku, especially if you travel through Istanbul.
    Montenegro is as bad on stage as we first thought, however no one knew quite what to expect all the same.
    Iceland and Romania are the big winners from today, they are now much more favoured to win in the betting odds and reports from Baku about them are impressive.
    Greece has a very typical Eurovision entry. She is not able to sing it well enough live.
    Latvia continues to divide people between lovers who think it is a marginal qualifier and haters who think it is still a very bad song still and she is a good vocalist.
    Albania was as impressive as ever but I think it might be something that the ney sayers have to see live to believe. I really like this though.
    According to my friend the ESCInsider Switzerland far better looking in real life. As a hetrosexual I have no opinion but as they say - know your target market. Their diction as also improved.
    Iris from Belgium has a great pair of lungs. She really came up to the mark in rehearsals today.
    Finally Finland have dropped the dancer which is a great move on their part in my opinion.

Up until now I have avoided making predictions but I think at this stage that Iceland and Romania are the definite qualifiers and Albania is a very likely qualifier. My guess is that there will be one qualifier from either Switzerland, Belgium or Finland and since the rehearsal I am inclined towards Belgium, but that's very difficult to call. I think that Greece is the only other possible contender but if the vocals don't improve it could go the way of Turkey last year

Yes its a good thing you have confidence in your judgement, and I dont think Ive seen a call I drastically disagreed with. If youve never fallen into a trap its a pretty big clue that youre good at avoiding them.
I always remember Kenzie getting turned over in CBB think he was 1.07 at the close some on here were suicidal. So if youve ever sat with your head in your hands after a result dont go staeming in.

Lou on BBC2?

this series of shows about the 70s, followed by a 70s music show has been pretty good actually.

I have a Malta green in 6 figures now so its the one I'm most interested in tomorrow

7/10 above average on my scoring system

We agree on one

Romania has everything going for it except it’s: drawn 6th; probably just after an ad break; and with several other strong upbeat numbers drawn later. Shouldn’t be enough to stop it qualifying though.

Yes Henry its not historically a great draw. I would have to link my spreadsheet to properly explain how I have done my assessment but there is method in my madness and it quite clearly has Romania as the safest qualifier combining allies draw and my assessment of the song and jury potential. Greece for example the main voting ally rival is drawn earlier and is weaker jury wise for me. Iceland I have as potentially best jury but its drawn 2 and I'm uncertain as to televote potential.

Once you do this for every song and project a worst case points tally it becomes much clearer

People just to my experience bother with the level of research I have done on this, hence my confidence about the price. However its not a science and my preconceptions about the song are in there.

Tomorrows schedule.

Tue 15 May
08:00 Serbia First rehearsal & press conference .
08:45 F.Y.R. Macedonia First rehearsal & press conference .
09:30 The Netherlands First rehearsal & press conference .
10:15 Malta First rehearsal & press conference .
11:55 Belarus First rehearsal & press conference .
12:40 Portugal First rehearsal & press conference .
13:40 Ukraine First rehearsal & press conference .
14:25 Bulgaria First rehearsal & press conference .


CET, so add an hour I think.

All 3 of the AKOE crew keen on both Moldova & Cyprus. I'm starting to worry now

I thought it was you Bex who just mentioned BGT on this thread. I can’t find the post now.

I should say that 75% (approx) was the figure on the right (red) side of the table – best offer for layers, which was me for most of Friday and Saturday. I didn’t take what was on offer on the left (blue) side of the table as there was a relatively large spread usually and there were also plenty of layers.

Yeah, I started off saying I went in big for the semis too (and then started bragging about the final).

Malaki getting about only 1% less than Sam was a shock hey? There but for the grace of God...

Its not somrthing I'm going to chase however as there will only be a few very select events each year I would have the confidence, and there would be the liquidity , to allow me to do it