the voting has finished and they are being calculated as I type. there has been a couple of late changes in the top 10 with the bookmakers even from 15 hours ago when last checked.
the top ten are now
realistically though, if you are not in the top 4 in the semi, you wont do well in the final. it is rare to win when you did not finish first in your final. it can be done, 'Wild Dancers' and 'Running Scared' finished second in their respective semis and won. 'Believe' won from third in the semi in 2008. generally you need to win your semi.
I would really like to see the jury v televote results. but at the moment. there has been the question of if the first semi had the right amount of neighbour countries. some think neighbour voting it ruining Eurovision. the truth is though that if you dont qualify now, you wont win in the final if the semis are stacked better anyways. is it better to allow neighbours to stack themselves in the final so they have to spread their votes amongst more neighbours. this means that the non-aligned countries that do qualify for the final have a better chance to win.
there were heaps of countries I wanted to see qualify, namely Croatia (13th) and Latvia (17th) but if they couldn't get the votes to get out of the semi, they would not have got enough votes to win and what is the use of going into the final if you don't win? if you are not competing in the final, you can get drunk all night so win-win.
not like much of Eurovision is a win, but anyways
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