So, with the excitement at fever pitch, I recorded the grand Opening of the Envelopes Ceremony for the first Semi Final, to confirm the ten songs going through to the final. And could I upload it to WordPress? Could I buffalo. Actually, that’s not fair; I could upload it – but it played audio only, not the visual. Not the effect I was trying to achieve. WordPress help chat were very helpful and full of suggestions; but in the end they didn’t understand why it wasn’t working either. Sigh. I have managed to upload it to Facebook though, so you can enjoy the true “as live” experience there.

As for here, we return to the written word to reveal the ten songs that you have chosen in your thousands, I mean hundreds, I mean 25 of us, drawn by my own fair hand at random from a bowl of envelopes, all the while being scrutinised by the official overseer of the EBU, that’s the European Bear Union, Snowdrop.

This is the order in which the ten songs were chosen:

So just to confirm, that means:

And:

As official overseer of the ceremony, Snowdrop insisted that the votes awarded to the songs that failed to make the grade should be made public. His wish is my command:

In 17th position with 8 points from 3 voters – BELARUS
In 16th position with 27 points from 5 voters (including one douze points) – SLOVENIA
In 15th position with 37 points from 12 voters – AUSTRALIA
In 14th position with 46 points from 10 voters (including one douze points) – UKRAINE
In 13th position with 50 points from 10 voters (including one douze points) – ROMANIA
In 12th position with 55 points from 14 voters – NORTH MACEDONIA
And just missing out…
In 11th position with 58 points from 10 voters (including one douze points) – CYPRUS

I can reveal that the country in 10th position received 62 points (with no douze points) so it was quite a close finish.

All that remains is for me to thank you for voting in this semi final and there’ll be a vote for the second semi final next week, Snowdrop permitting!