IT'S not long now before we'll know who is going to represent the UK in Moscow with Lord Andy and Diane Warren's composition My Time.

And just to make sure the British public are in no doubt as to who is the best candidate for Moscow, Mark, Jade and (shudder) The Twins will each give a rendition of the song in tomorrow evening's grand final of Your Country Needs You.

Finger crossed it's the right choice (we're predicting Mark and Jade to do ballad-y versions, with The Twins' rendition getting a Girls Aloud-style makeover).

But is all this effort going to get the UK out of the Euro doldrums?

This 'performance' - plus a shaky version of The Everly Brothers' All I Have to Do is Dream - were enough to put this pair through to next week's Your Country Needs You final.

It's time to start worrying. There is a very real possibility that this shaky twosome will wind up as our entry in Moscow - and there's no guarantee they can last 10 minutes without bursting into tears about "their dream" or handle it out on stage in front of 20,000 people.

This could be Jemini Mark II, even with the added ammo of a song penned by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren (the song is going to be called 'My Time' by the way. It took the Andy and Di just two hours to write once they hit the right formula and we'll be hearing it at Saturdays final).

ANOTHER country making an early selection for Moscow is the country with that lovely piece of embroidery down the side of its flag; Belarus.

And that's not the only lovely thing about this country. Their representative in Russia, Petr Elfimov, also has very lovely hair, as this clip is testimony to:

Doesn't it swing and sway quite beautifully? Mr Elfimov is performing his nation's entry for 2009 in that very clip. The song, which he co-wrote, is called Eyes That Never Lie. Clearly, this was inspired by his hairdresser looking him straight in the face and telling him that the cut he asked for is very contemporary and will go down a storm with the young record-buying public.

All we have to hope for now is that the Belarussian entrant doesn't suffer from stage fright on the big night. Otherwise, he'd be absolutely Petr-ified. Boom boom.

Charlotte's off. One of the two acts least likely to fall back on their inner mettle on a Eurovision stage was sent toddling home by Lord Andy on Saturday night's Your Country Needs You, just one week after he saved her from elimination because she had so much to learn from her 'journey'. Pretty short trip, then.

Now, is it just us, or are we getting worrying signs that The Twins are the Lord's preferred act for Moscow?

Please. No. That would be just terrible.

THE European Broadcasting Union has announced the official list of nations which will participate in this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

With pennies pinchier than ever, the weeks and months leading up to the announcement saw two 21st Century Eurovision ever-presents (Latvia and Lithuania) more or less declare they were too broke to take part, whereas San Marino (one of only two countries to vote for Andy Abraham in Belgrade) is definitely staying away. Georgia had also announced its boycott of a Russian-staged Contest following real-world events in 2008.

With that in mind; shall we see who's on the list?

This is Jade, performing last on Your Country Needs You this evening. The BBC has a long history of giving the act they want to go through to the Contest the last slot in the national final running order, but as this was the first show of four, let's not be too analytical.

Jade is safely though to next week. Damien, whom Boom Bang a Blog thought was a good, albeit static, singer, was sent home first, with Lord Andrew choosing 17-year-old nerves-of-balsa Charlotte to be saved when the pair of them wound up at the bottom of the public vote.

WHAT do you think? The right man for the job? Someone who knows enough about what has worked well in the past to come up with an equally viewer-friendly variation on a theme for the 21st Century?

But enough about Matt Smith Being chosen as the eleventh Doctor Who. It's Andrew Lloyd Webber and Your Country Needs You that Boom Bang a Blog is here to chatter about.

These are the six acts through to the live knockout stages to find the UK entry for Moscow.

One of them will take a Lloyd Webber-penned tune to the yowge Olimpiskiy stadium in the Russian capital in late May and hopefully scoop some silverware for Royaume Uni while they're at it.

Did you see the show? What did you think? Well, the Boom Bang a Blog verdict on our six hopefuls is just this way...

HAPPY New Year Boom Bang a Bloggers - and what better way to usher in 2009 than with a shiny new entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest?

That is exactly what the top execs at Turkish telly thought, hence their decision to unleash their already-selected performer Hadise, with the ditty Dum Tek Tek, on the audience of its televised New Year party at just after midnight Turkish time.

Here's the singer and the song: