Kicking off the night is the upbeat Czech dance number which is a great starter. Norway suffer from being song 7, before Terry's Drink at song 9.
Based on the results the best slots are roughly 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th and anything after 20th.
5th - Switzerland
6th - France
11th - Netherlands
12th - Ukraine
20th - Sweden
21st - Australia
22nd - UK
23rd - Poland
24th - Serbia
25th - Estonia
I think we've got a great slot actually. Everyone is going to reach peak drunk for song 19 with Moldova. I can imagine that some Eurovision Parties are going to go slightly mad at that point.
Sweden have to follow that, which might go either way for them. Then its Australia which isn't as upbeat as some of the others. Then the UK. Theres only 3 acts after us. Poland is a good song and Estonia is an uplifter but not going to win. We SHOULD be firmly in the memory when it comes to voting.
However, I do notice that most of the favourites all have good slots too.
The betting odds are still coming in on Ukraine to win. However they have to win both the jury and the public vote. I think there is room for someone else to sneak in because of that.
As of lunchtime friday these are the favourites in order. It will be interesting to see if this changes before the end of the show on Saturday:
Fav - Ukraine
2nd - United Kingdom
3rd - Sweden
4th - Italy
5th - Spain
6th - Poland
7th - Serbia
8th - Greece
9th - Norway
10th - Netherlands
The bookies are putting the UK with a 40% chance of being top 3. Given how Eurovision voting works, if you have a good song, you tend to score well. Its mediocrity what lands you in the bewildering strangeness where the difference between nul points and the left hand side of the table is purely whether people like you.
I actually think, that this year's politics may work in the UK's favour better than recent years too. Watch out for a potential second place (behind Poland naturally) for the UK from Ukraine and probably Poland.
But damn is there competition from that Swedish entry...