The second most important night of annual TV: the Eurovision semi-finals.

I was thinking it was a shame the UK didn’t have to qualify, because there was no doubt in my mind that we would have been chucked out for that embarrassing monstrosity of a song we’ve entered for Saturday’s final, but then I was pretty sure Lithuania faced a similar fate with their childish, playground-like We Are The Winners. ‘Ironically, this only works if they actually get through and then win,’ I said, sure that they never would.

But now they’re half way there.

They’re on immediately before us, which is a good thing for the UK, as it means our song can only sound better by comparison, but then we’re followed by Greece, which should trounce us once again.

As usual, I went around to watch it at Mark’s, where we’ll be having Saturday night’s party, and we marked them up all so we could text in our scores. Ukraine, Bulgaria and Slovenia were our top three, but for the second year in a row Slovenia pooped out. There must be something about the way they do songs in that country that just doesn’t gel with the rest of Europe.

Finland had the joke entry of the year - like Wig Wam of last year - with the performers in thick rubber masks and space-like costumes, looking like they’d just survived a nasty fall into some boiling radioactive pool. The song was heavy and loud and the stage filled with pryotechnics, but somehow it worked. We marked them among our highest and, fortunately, they got through, to deliver something a bit different in the final. I hope they do well.

Iceland did predictably poorly, unfortunately. I’d never liked the song before, but Silvia Night did very well singing it live, and gamely ignored all the booing from the crowd, infuriated that she’d criticised the organisation of the whole thing. Seeing as it over-ran by 20 minutes, though, she probably wasn’t entirely unjustified. If that’s any indication of how things are likely to run on Saturday, we could be in for a long night.

If it did prove one thing, it was that you need to be drawn in the second half of the contest to be in with any realistic chance of qualification or winning. Those who came up in the first 13 were very much under-represented in the final analysis, and so with us ranged in the second column for the final, I guess our chances are better than they deserve to be.

It’ll be an interesting night.

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