Lots of movement in the odds today, especially late afternoon / early evening. I believe the acts are now in Lisbon and I can only assume that several are practising and getting reviewed by someone somewhere and it is having quite an impact on expectations.
Whilst Israel's awful track remains favourite, the odds have slipped from under 3 to nearer 3.5 which is more than they've moved for the last few weeks.
The Czech Republic guy is clearly going down well as his odds have substantially narrowed and are now matching Bulgaria's again, indeed there is quite a gap opening. Bulgaria seemed to go down well at some other parties recently but people's real favourite now seems to be Jessica from Australia who has moved from around 6th to 2nd on occasion and is now certainly neck and neck with the Czech Republic and currently sending Bulgaria down. Before she was battling with Sweden and Belgium but they've sunk, presumably through either no performances or poor ones so far.
Belgium had been one of the main contenders a while ago but not now. One of my tips to win, Estonia, with the operatic performance, are dropping like a stone at the moment so I can only guess that things have not gone well. There was some nonsense about the country not being able to afford the big dress for the performance but I find that pretty ridiculous an excuse. She's still 5th, though, and there is a huge gap between her and the next acts in contention.
Greece I would have expected to do better but they're out there at 50-1 and those are not the odds of a potential winner. Odd. I had expected the good performer and a sound song to be well up there at this stage.
Saara Aalto brought Finland back into the running after some splendid performances in Europe but is now dropping back again. So either her principal also-ran competitors Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Norway have done a much better job since or she has made some mistakes. We'll see soon enough. Normally I'd would trust her to put on a brilliant live act so she cannot be written off yet.
Norway continue to bumble along near the Top 10 with their previous all time greatest winner Alexander Rybek's cheeky how to write a song song. That's about all that's going to happen though. He has performed well and still only managed the lower orders so I don't see that improving much either.
Little Lithuania are in the tough Group 1 and will really struggle to qualify but I do hope they do. The song does stand a chance and will appeal to many as will the girl's personality and simple attraction when viewed against what will undoubtedly be some crazy staging and expensive lighting, arrangements etc. for others. To get to the final, she needs to beat most of Belarus, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Ireland, Armenia or Austria. Someone else reckons she will as her odds, whilst still not exactly encouraging at around 150-1, are better than all but Austria, Belarus and Cyprus. She might just squeeze past Belarus and get in which could make things interesting. If she'd been in Group 2 then she'd walk in as even acts like Hungary and Latvia, currently around 500-1 are predicted to get through.
Group 2 is really bad and Russia will probably be there as even Yulya on a bad day may be better than Iceland on a good one, never mind Georgia, Montenegro, Poland and Slovenia which have no hope whatsoever from what I've heard so far. I shouldn't write off Hungary, by the way. If they do get through they'll be the sole representative of good hard rock and that's bound to pick up some votes for them. A total contrast to everyone else indeed and quite an efficient performance too. If the lead singer gets carried away his voice loses any key and that'll be no good but if he holds it together the song, if you can call it a song, will appeal to quite a tranche of public voters.
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