And straight away, with the very first song of this year's contest, we strike "only at Eurovision" gold. Forget all of that "Fusion Of Eastern And Western Influences" stuff for a moment - there will be plenty of time for that later - and prepare instead to welcome a brand new musical genre: Cosmopolitan Karawanken Beat. And what's that? Why, it's a bold new blend of Cuban music with Alpine folk, of the oompah variety. Yes! You'll be yodelling as you salsa with this heartwarming tale of cross-cultural love, as performed by a cheerful bunch of beer festival busker types. Check their website for Cosmopolitan Karawanken Beat re-workings of Like A Virgin, Something Stupid and Lady Marmalade, and marvel at the consistency of their trombone player ("well buff" according to strategically placed local sources), loyally parping out the same two notes over and over again.
71 points.

Smooth, sleek Scandi-pop with a gleaming professional sheen, as put together by a predominantly Swedish team with telling connections to the mighty Alcazar. As for the abilities of Laura herself, I couldn't have put it better than this quote from one of her songwriters: "The nuances in her voice are like the colours of the rainbow, sparkling with colourful tones and shades." Blimey! Laura & The Lovers have also quickly endeared themselves to the press corps in Kiev, by handing out free condoms at their first press conference. Apparently there was something of a scrum. Which tells you a lot about the much vaunted "international party atmosphere" of rehearsal week.
80 points.

Historically one of the weakest countries in the contest (can YOU hum any of their songs from the past few years?), Portugal have made a particular effort to choose a strong song this year, ditching the usual public vote and opting instead to rely on a panel of experts. Consequently, and in stark contrast to its predecessors. Amar has a naggingly insistent and memorable chorus, if nothing else. ("Happy pretty way, happy shiny day, happy place to stay, we can hold it together!") Oh, OK, let's be cheap: there is nothing else. Except for an onstage back-flip, apparently. (But if you think that a mere back-flip is going to swing it, then you are sorely mistaken. The stakes are so much higher than that.)
52 points.

Remember that squiffy sounding trumpet player from last year's winning Ukranian entry, who appeared to be playing a different "tune" (if you could call it that) from everybody else? Well, I find myself wondering whether he has jumped over the border to neighbouring Moldova (making its Eurovision debut this year), in order to join up with this bunch of Raggle Taggle Gypsy-oh mentalists. Thrash-folk is the order of the day here, with this barely comprehensible ode to a Rockin' Grandma who can't stop a-bangin' on her big bass drum. (And yes, fear not: the Rockin' Grandma and her big bass drum WILL be appearing on stage. In a rockin' chair, appropriately enough.)

This is also notable for what must be Eurovision's first ever unequivocal drug reference. "Drain a bottle of wine, no need to smoke the leaves, by the end of that show you'll blow yourself to bits." Absolutely. Because why bother wasting time with boring old leaves, when you were all clearly OUT OF YOUR BOXES ON ACID WHEN YOU WROTE THE SONG? Love it. A real highlight.
83 points.

After a rollicking first four songs, the pace slows right down for this gently strummed soft-rocker, performed by a couple of young men who have been playing music together since the age of two. Its closest antecedent is 2000's winning song for the Olsen Brothers, Fly On The Wings Of Love (before it was turned into a helium-voiced Dance Anthem, that is), and the performers in question are even known in their native country as "the young Olsen Brothers".

So, will this come as a welcome gimmick-free respite from all the back-flips and banging grannies and arriba-oompah-ing and general arsing around? Not a bit of it! Because Valters & Kaža have pledged to perform the song in sign language, so that everyone can understand its "universal message". Which would be fine IF THE SONG ACTUALLY MEANT ANYTHING, instead of just being a sequence of random platitudes strung together to no discernible purpose. (There is also a cheap jibe to be made about the hearing-impaired being a natural constituency for Eurovision, but I shall refrain from making it.)
44 points.

Having stayed away from the contest for twenty-four consecutive years, Monaco seem to be labouring under the delusion that there will still be a full orchestra in attendance on the night, just as there was in their glory days. (Five top 5 placings in eight years during the 1970s; not bad for such a tiny principality.) However, with the house orchestra having vanished for good after Birmingham 1998, Lise Darly will have instead to rely on pre-recorded playback for this admittedly stirring ballad, whose arrangement - full of pleasing rococo curls and neo-classical flourishes - will have a notably lessened impact as a result. Which is a shame, as - in musical if not in performance terms - this is the most accomplished ballad of the night.
73 points.

...although this lovely effort from Israel, which may suffer by comparison in the draw, does come close to surpassing it. Indeed, Shiri's impassioned vocal performance clearly outstrips Lise's, with only a certain old-fashioned staidness of approach letting the song down. However, such admirable class and restraint in the ballad stakes will all be forgotten about in two songs' time, as... well, you'll see soon enough. But first, get the amyl out...
72 points.

...as it's Big Fat Gay Disco Anthem Time! Woo! Tops off! Podiums ahoy! Now, time was when stuff like this would be packing out the Top Five - but times have moved on, as the dismal failure of Xandee's One Life in 2004 all too clearly demonstrated, and so I fear that Angelica will be struggling for promotion with this one.

I also suspect that 35-year old Angelica ("a woman who never hides her age") might be a little more sensitive about such matters than her press people would have you believe. Take this quote, for instance. "The most important element of beauty is your inner world. Beauty comes from within. My face is a mirror of my soul. When bad feelings control me, I turn plain, wrinkles appear, the lines on my face become sharper. When I feel this way there’s no make-up in the world that can help me out." Come on, Western Europe! Never mind all that trendy Make Poverty History nonsense! We need airlifts of top-grade cosmetic treatments to Belarus NOW!
67 points.

Lise from Monaco? Shiri from Israel? Over here please. Lovely ballads, both of you - but you may as well pack up and go home now, because here comes The Terminator. Now, with a name like Glennis Grace, you might be expecting some washed-up Dorothy Squires impersonator from what remains of the Northern club circuit. Instead, what you get is a full-on, industrial-strength, Grade A Diva Deluxe, of the Whitney Houston school, with one hell of a set of pipes on her, a precision-tooled "striving through the wind and the rain to MAKE IT ON MY OWN" belter of a song to match, Big Interpretive Arm Movements by the truckload, and a concluding Triumphant Backwards Head Fling to die for. ("Yes! I made it through to the end of the three minutes! My struggle is complete!") She's gonna walk this round, or I'm a Belgian.
58 points. (Because, after all that, I don't actually care for it much.)

Another abiding Eurovision tradition: The Fan Fave That Flops. Happens every year, and mostly to over-ambitious, slightly worthy numbers that score high on "impressive", but low on "lovable". And so it is with Selma, who came second in 1999 with a lot of people's Favourite Eurovision Entry Ever, the admittedly mighty "All Out Of Luck", and who is now being hailed as this year's home-coming queen. However, all the leading positions in all the online fan polls in the world still won't help her on the night, as If I Had Your Love is - whisper it if you dare - actually not all that good. Taking Britney's Toxic as its starting point, this is all intricate Eastern strings, tightly orchestrated swoops and stabs, and impossibly complex stop-start polyrhythms - but for all of this sound and fury, it never quite knows what it wants to be. Just bloody well stay the same for more than five seconds, can't you? What is this, Squarepusher?
60 points.

I received a registered item in the post the other week. Well, not the actual item itself - come on, when does that ever happen? - but one of those dreaded little "while you were out" cards, full of supposedly helpful advice that is actually of no practical use whatsoever. There was, as usual, only one solution: an early morning drive out to the sorting office at the edge of town, through the suburban rush hour traffic, with K muttering and cursing at the wheel.

"This is SO DEPRESSING!", he wailed. "I HATE having to drive through these bleak estates!"

We spend our lives, as you may have gathered, in something of a city centre/country cottage Luxury Bubble, from which we rarely have cause to emerge.

Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves at the depot. Five minutes after that, I was back in the car for the twenty minute drive back, tearing open the registered package.

"Come on then. What is it?"

I couldn't speak for laughing.

"You'll be so - SPLUTTER - glad you - SNORT - made this trip - BWAHAHAHA OMIGOD OMIGOD."

"I shan't be amused, you know. But you might as tell me, since we've COME ALL THIS WAY."

"It's a CD single of the - WHEEZE - Belgian entry for this year's - GASP - Eurovision Song Contest! Shall I put it on? YES! I'm BLOODY WELL PUTTING IT ON!"

"Mike. I dare say that in other circumstances I might be capable of finding this funny. But this is not the time and this is not the... oh Jesus, it's even worse than I thought."

First toilet break of the night, this one. Big overblown soggy ballady thing, which gloops along at a funereal pace. But you'll have to be quick, though - the next one's a little cracker.
24 points.

Long-standing readers will remember the excitement round these parts in the Spring of 2003, when the Estonian girl-band Vanilla Ninja came tantalisingly close to representing their country with the mighty Club "Kung Fu". It therefore gives me great pleasure to report that the song's composer, one Sven Lõhmus, has more or less re-created the magic with his latest bunch of young protegées, the wholly delightful Suntribe. Once again, Let's Get Loud is a riotously rockin', deliriously uptempo, "all girls together" slumber-party of a tune - but with the added gimmick of, wait for it, formation scratching. Yes indeed! Five crazy ladies + five turntables = one crazy-happy party! And you were thinking of escaping to the pub on Thursday night?

You know how with every Eurovision, there's a Good Bit somewhere in the middle, containing many of the strongest contenders? Well, we have just entered the Good Bit.
85 points.

From formation scratching to comedy stadium metal, as the four members of WigWam - the somewhat misleadingly named Teeny, Glam, Sporty and Flash - blend the style of The Darkness with the sound of Bon Jovi/Def Leppard, to eye-popping effect. Which could have been frightful, were it not for the undeniable power of the track itself, and the sheer entertainment value of the band's performance. Avoiding the off-putting smugness which can creep into parodies of this nature (Stefan Raab, I'm looking at you), there's a decidedly endearing quality to the sight of this bunch of slapped-up old bifters, galumphing about in unforgivingly clingy spandex. An absolute dead cert for the finals - and the more I hear it, the more I think it could go all the way on Saturday night.
86 points.

Remember how last year's contest was all about the Big Drumming? Well, the beat is most definitely back, as our crack team of invisible lesbian boom-thwackers is wheeled out once again, for the first of many similar excursions. Combine this with Ye Olde Hi-Energye Disco, Ye Olde Trancey Synthe Stabbes, and Ye Tyme-Honoured Key Chaynge At Ye Ende, throw in Ye Sounde Of Ye Gypsy Pan Pypes for good measure, and you have all the ingredients for success.

Sorry, sorry... HOLD the invisible lesbian drummers, as the Romanians have provided their own troupe of big yellow oil-drum bashing hunks, rather in the style of Stomp. Such spectacle! Whatever next?
75 points.

A Magyar Riverdance, that's what's next, as treat piles upon treat. Having done spectacularly badly at Birmingham 1998, Hungary promptly stropped off in a sulk for the next few years, only to return in 2005 with a serious contender that is certain to qualify. Unfortunately, with the rules of the contest dictating that no more than six performers are allowed on stage, Nox's extensive dance troupe has had to be drastically trimmed down - but reports suggest that the choreography is still quite something. (If the vertical bunny-hops have been axed, then I shall be most vexed.) Anyhow, the song itself claims to "build a bridge between the ancient Hungarian pentatonic scale with the world of contemporary music", and as such, its aspirations are to be applauded. Watch out for gypsy violins, genuinely exciting syncopated clapping and tapping, and those all important Big Drums.
84 points.

Whew, that was exciting. Do we all need the toilet now? Yes, I think we do. Now that the Good Bit is over and done, Finland are here to kill the atmosphere stone dead with this excruciatingly dull and "meaningful" ballad. Look, when has Eurovision ever successfully done "meaningful", at least since Nicole's A Little Peace swept to victory in 1982? Still, if you like your candles to be burning, while "winds of faith" are blowing and tears are "falling down like rain", then this is the one for you. Just save my place on the sofa for when I get back, will you?
20 points.

When the best strapline you can think of for your singer is "grandson of a famous bagpipe player", then you know you're up against it. However, potentially the biggest problem faced by the Macedonians is the stylistic similarity between this song's uptempo blend of Eastern and Western influences, and a whole clutch of others which are already through to the finals. And there's the rub. Every key element of "Make My Day" - the gypsy flutes, the Big Drums, the Big Key Change, the ethnically skirling middle section - is more successfully deployed elsewhere, leaving nothing else to remember but some strange lyrical business involving cuddly toys.
55 points.

Jeezus, enough with the invisible lesbian drummers already! You've made your point! There's the bar! This is only Andorra's second year in the contest, but I'm sensing that the pool of available performers may already be running short, as they've roped in the owner of the local guesthouse to do the honours. From Saturday night after hours singalongs in the Lounge Bar, to a major international stage and an audience of millions, Marian has certainly come a long way - and one wishes her well, of course. However, I just don't see this getting any further.
46 points.

It's been pretty good up until now, hasn't it? Comedy metal, formation scratching, big brassy Bassey-eque belters, rockin' grannies, oompah salsa, and more invisible lesbian drummers than you could shake a stick at. Unfortunately, things take a marked downward turn from this point on, and never really recover until... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. So pour yourself another extra-large glass of whatever gets you through, and brace yourself for... The Boring Bit.

Oh, how the mighty Ninje have fallen! Such delirious good fun two years ago, when Club "Kung-Fu" nearly qualified for Estonia, but just look at them now that they've defected to sensible old Switzerland: all grown-up and mature, and brandishing proper instruments like a Proper Rock Band, and coming over all "heavily influenced by Incubus" in their press releases, and... well, this isn't the Ninje that we knew and loved way back when. As it is, Cool Vibes is a moody mid-paced rocker; not without merit, but far from what the girls are capable of. (Incidentally, the song's two composers were also responsible for the German entry, which you'll be hearing on Saturday.)
53 points.

Actually, this isn't so bad. It's high time we had some full-blooded, hairy-chested Balkan bombast, and this is a fairly respectable example of the genre. It lilts along in 3/4 time, with a chorus that fairly begs you to sway from side to side en masse, and is accompanied by the usual curious selection of indigenous instruments (including, unless my eyes deceive me, a man who looks like he's blowing into a haggis). Nice open-throated choral work towards the end, as well.
65 points.

Not. A. Hope. In. Hell. Look, I don't want to ruin all the surprises here, but guess what they've chosen as the key rhyme for "Lorraine" in the chorus? (Apart from "sweeter the pain" and "again and again", that is. They're a given.)

Answer: "the rain". As in: "I can still remember Lorraine... in the rain." Genius!

Marginally redeemed by some passable smooth-jazz inflections in its arrangement, I dare say this might have gone down well at a Rotary Club dinner-dance in 1978. As for the fast-paced international milieu of Kyiv in 2005... forget it.
33 points.

All these years on, and the Irish television authorities are still terrified of fielding a song which might stand even a ghost of a chance of winning, just in case they get saddled with the expense of hosting the damn thing next year. (For those who might have forgotten, Ireland won the contest four times in five years during the 1990s.) Aren't those credit card bills paid off yet? Couldn't they hire Bono to front a Drop The Debt campaign? Because the grisly alternative is inflicting us with yet another bunch of fresh-faced provincial hopefuls, barely able to believe their luck, mining the same "enthusiastic amateur" seam as our own dear Gemini in 2003.

Oh, just slap me, will you. I'm being far, far too mean. The song itself may be dire, but you can't help loving the two chirpy siblings for their eager, up-for-it, "we're going to have the time of our lives, no matter what happens" attitude. Proper Spirit Of Eurovision, that is. Long may it continue.
47 points.

Speaking of enthusiastic amateurs, our next contestant has a day job as a dental technician - so he's sure to put a gleaming smile on millions of faces tonight! (Sorry - I've been reading more press releases than are strictly good for me.) Penned by the writer of one of my favourite Eurovision entries ever, Nusa Derenda's storming Energy (7th in 2001), this is stylistically very different but almost as dramatic, starting as a typical Balkan Bombast ballad before exploding in a hail of yowling rock guitars about halfway through. Although initially unimpressed, I'm slowly coming round to it. Or maybe it's just that prolonged exposure to all thirty-nine tracks has warped my normal sense of aesthetics out of all recognition. (This usually happens. Hazard of the profession.)
57 points.

From a dental technician, we move next to a teacher in a special needs school for autistic children. Which we applaud, of course. But sadly, our applause doesn't extend to this unexceptional mid-tempo pop-reggae effort, which passes straight through us without leaving any trace of its existence behind. Rather like tofu, in fact. Buck up! Only one more to go!
41 points.

If for no other reason, this deserves to qualify for the final purely so that Wogan can trot out that evergreen line: "Ah, the old melodian!" And qualify it should, as this has more life in it than the previous seven songs put together. Melding the aforesaid melodian with a breakneck gabba-techno tempo, a twanging Shadows-esque guitar break, lashings of gypsy campfire chanting, and a chorus which consists entirely of the word "laj" (pronounced "lye"), this is topped off by a camp-as-tits performance, equally camp pink and white outfits, and a final flourish of strategic costume shedding from Ivan himself. What more could any self-respecting Eurovision fan possibly want?
70 points.

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