Saturday saw Norway, the home team, select its entry for Eurovision 2010. Boom Bang a Blog is indebted to reader Phil Tipton, from Chester, who kindly (and swiftly) sent us this report on his visit to this year's host city in its first real warm-up for Contest duty.

The things we do for Eurovision, eh?

I wondered whether it was all worth it when I stood freezing to death on Platform One of Chester Station at 7am waiting for the train to London. I quietly contemplated how much money this 34-hour trip to Oslo was going to cost, but I decided it was all too distressing and turned my mind to happier thoughts (Charlotte Perrelli's famous co-ordinated three point choreographed arm movements in 'Hero' to be precise).

Over the past few years I've become a bit of a Scandi-fan, attending some element of Sweden's Melodifestivalen each year. I finally managed to get a ticket to the final in Stockholm's Globen last year and had a fantastic time watching Malena et al. give it all they had in the pursuit of schlager greatness.

I sort of assumed that I would go again this year, but the rush for tickets passed me by and I found myself strangely unconcerned that I hadn't managed to secure a ticket to either the final or, indeed, my preferred Gothenburg semi-final. To cut a long story short, I decided to have a change this year and see what Norway's Melodi Grand Prix had to offer.

Ewan Spence continues to look at the discography and music of Eurovision entrants before and after they've appeared on the world's biggest television show.

There was a point when we Eurovision watchers didn't know that Alexander Rybak's 'Fairytale' wasn't going to win the Song Contest for Norway. I think it was just before he sung the track on the Norwegian National Semi-Final. The smart money was straight on his name at the Bookies the next morning. A few months later and the world realised what we had been telling them since that first performance.

The world's oldest 17-year-old sings a song by Father Abraham for the Netherlands

With all this rumbunctious brou-ha-ha over buying tickets and meeting up with other Euro chums to get through these past 24 hours, Boom Bang a Blog has foolishly neglected the other two songs which were selected for Eurovision this weekend.

You will have heard Ik Ben Verliefd (Sha-la-lie) in its demo version before Crimbo. Written by Pierre Kartner, the man who sang with/composed for The Smurfs in the late 1970s as Father Abraham, the Netherlands' Nationaal Songfestival 2010 took place yesterday evening. Five different acts put their own spin on Kartner's schlager-friendly tune - although nobody came up with a wildly different version from what was already on the demo. A four-strong panel (which included Johnny Logan), then had to choose which version they liked best. Two went for 17-year-old (yes, 17, really. Swear down) Sieneke with her pipe-organ carousel-friendly styling, while the girl band Loekze's take on it - which had shades of Amazulu and was, to be frank, dreadful - also got two votes. It was deadlock, and the public vote only had the same weighting of one of the professional jurors. Therefore, the people of the Netherlands voting in their thousands for the interpretation by a young man called Vincent meant diddly squat.

It was all down to Father Smurf himself to break the deadlock and choose who he wanted to go to Oslo with his song.

He couldn't handle the pressure.

Down girls, they're spoken for...

A gaggle of us gathered in Liverpool yesterday afternoon for another of our regular meet-ups to discuss Life, the Universe and Eurovision. Thanks to some pre-publicity we had some newcomers (hello Jeff and Scott) and the conversation soon turned to talking about which songs we liked best from those chosen at this weekend's national finals. I can only apologise for the quality of the photo, I had the camera on the wrong setting and it looks like everyone has just returned from eight months in Lanzarote to have a nice chat in a sauna.

Anyway, the upshot of the day was that whatever song somebody loathed with a passion, someone else rather liked. We've always been good at agreeing. There was beer and giggles too.

There'll be other meet-ups before the big night in May. We'll keep you posted on dates if you care to join in.

The view outside my window at about 8.20 this morning

It wasn't a pretty sight in our spare room at two minutes to eight this morning. There I was in my dressing gown nervously clicking the 'book now' link on the webpage of the Norwegian agency looking after the tickets for this year's Eurovision Song Contest final.

I was advised by fellow fans in the pub yesterday to take the first tickets you're offered as there's no guarantee you'll be offered any others in the 10-minute-ish window they're available. It took a fair few clicks and a lot of patience to get to the booking page, but by jove, I made it. A few credit card details later, and our four-strong expedition to Oslo will all be sat in the same block (which has a fantastic view of the stage!), but not quite all together.

So, that's flights, accommodation and tickets to the actual shebang sorted.

For the first time in seven years, I have a Contest to go to.

Forget the glitz and glamour of the Euro 2012 qualifying rounds draw this morning. At the same time In Oslo, the draw for who is singing in which semi-final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest was made by a very bored-looking policeman and a presenter who kept being interrupted by ESC bossman, Svante Stockselius.

This time around, each country was allocated a place in one of two semi-finals, but also which half of that qualifier they'll be performing in, so the delegation can organise which date to arrive in Oslo for rehearsals. Here's who's singing where, in the order they came out of the bowls about 10 minutes ago:

SEMI-FINAL ONE (Tuesday, May 25)
FIRST HALF: Serbia, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia.
SECOND HALF: Greece, Iceland, Malta, Portugal, FYR Macedonia, Belarus, Belgium, Poland, Albania.

SEMI-FINAL TWO (Thursday, May 27)
FIRST HALF: Switzerland, Lithuania, Sweden, Ukraine, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Israel, Armenia.
SECOND HALF: Georgia, Turkey, Ireland, Slovenia, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Romania.

Good news for ireland in that they perform late on and the UK has been confirmed in voting in the second qualifier.

Right, I'm off to the fans meet-up in Liverpool I blogged about a few weeks ago. Hope to see some of you there - and I'll report back on what happens.

Chanée & N'evergreen. A Bardo for the 21st Century

Tonight's national finals have drawn to a close. In the end, I watched Norway choose its song as there's not much point watching Melodifestivalen until the night of the final, which is still five weeks away. Well, I don't wish to sound boastful, but Didrik Solli Tangen did win in Norway (as predicted) and Hera Bjork brought home the bacon in Iceland, which was another Boom Bang a Blog tip from this morning (see the post below to hear the songs).

The only one not called in spot-on fashion was Denmark. The web favourite Bryan Rice finished in second place, letting the poptastic antics of Chanée and Tomas N'evergreen fly the red-and-white flag in Olso with the song In a Moment Like This. Boom Bang a Blog has to confess to developing a real affection for this from just the first listen, it certainly has the *something* that Hera's Je Ne Sais Quoi is unlikely to ever have. I still think ole Did' will score the highest out of everything chosen tonight, though. What do you think?

Good morning Boom Bang a Bloggers. I've had my porridge with blueberries in and sweated buckets whilst attempting lunges and torso twists on the Wii Fit so here I am, relaxed and refreshed with news of the treats coming your way this evening - and how to see them over the web.

Yes, this very night, Iceland, Denmark and 2010 hosts Norway will choose the songs which will go forth to the Eurovision stage in late May under each nation's respective flag. Not only that, but the biggest national final of them all - Melodifestivalen - has the first of its five weekly qualifying rounds in Sweden tonight. In around six weeks, we should know the full line-up for Eurovision 2010. But before all that, here are Boom Bang a Blog's predictions.

"Welcome one, welcome all. To paraphrase a football song, Eurovision's coming home." So began Terry Wogan's commentary for the first British Eurovision in 16 years. It doesn't make sense of course. Eurovision's home is Lugano in Switzerland, where it all began in 1956 - or Geneva, the headquarters of the European Broadcasting Union - or even Dublin, the city which had hosted six of the 43 Eurovisions prior to this point. But not really anywhere in the UK. However, there was no denying that the events which took place inside Birmingham's National Indoor Arena on May 9, 1998, constituted the most anticipated Contest of recent years. Two of the 25 entrants were making headlines across the Continent in the weeks leading up to the event - and one of them would go on to win the competition.

It also marked the end of the United Kingdom's run as one of the most successful countries taking part in the competition. After 1998, there were very few glimmers of hope to be found as Blighty sank further and further down the scoreboard. But we won't worry about that here. Come with us now on a trip to the Midlands, where the British Broadcasting Corporation decided to be as non-jingoistic as possible and employ an Irishman and a Swede to host its last Eurovision to date, the winning singer won a unique glass bowl by Susan Nixon, the postcard films were a work of quiet genius and everybody laughed at a middle-aged Dutch lady.

The songs taking part in many of the national finals of the 39 competing countries in Oslo are now becoming known. One of the more interesting choices is this one from Romania.

Luminita Anghel finished third in the 2005 Contest and is joined here by Tony Thomas and Adrian Piper for a song called Save Their Lives (In Memoriam Michael Jackson).

Would it be cruel to suggest that this is a cynical way of earning votes from the many, many Jacko fans dotted across the continent if this gets picked for Norway - or is it genuinely written from the heart?