Liveblogging the first half hour, before I’m too drunk to continue.
Romania okay, will get votes but not a winner. Britain so-so, not that bad but not real Eurovision. Albania cute female lead singer in a cloak with bare midriff and a wind machine… okay.
Germany godawful! Geez — bad outfits, [...]

I’m tempted to liveblog, but I plan to drink, so maybe not.
Quick: in the few hours that remain, who’s your favorite? The bookmakers’ favorites are Russia, Ukraine and Greece. Me? I like those Latvian pirates, and hell, Romania’s always pretty good. Okay, a kind word for Armenia too. Bring it.
Who’ve [...]

A close family member who shall remain nameless looked at the list of finalists and gasped, “Why, there’s not one real European country on it!”
Ah, I thought that would get your attention.

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78 days until Eurovision.
This is the season for choosing national entrants. The deadline is March 13; every candidate will have picked an entrant by March 10. Only a few countries have already made their choice. So, over the next three weeks, millions of people in over 30 countries will be choosing their [...]

The referendum battle continues its course. Le Monde notes the importance of the fact that whilst the ‘no’ vote seems to be consolidating its lead in France (see this FT graph), with only one week to go one fifth of the votes still declare themselves to be ‘undecided’.
Meantime the normally sobre EU Observer, lets it [...]

Yes, I know sometimes it seems as though my job here at AFoE is to lower the high-minded tone with discussion of inanities, but there’s another interesting story about the Eurovision Song Contest today, namely that Lebanon - who were intending to make their first entry into the competition this year - have now withdrawn [...]