Slovakia 2010: Fifty-nine other songs were rejected by the public before this was chosen

Another busy Saturday evening in the land of Concours de la Chanson with three other nations making their mind up Eurovision-wise and pointing their respective fingers at the ditty to fly the flag in Oslo.

Slovakia made very heavy weather of its selection process, with 60 songs being separated into six quarter-finals featuring 10 songs apiece. That arduous endeavour was brought to an end last night as Kristina ran away with the vote for her song Horehronie. Although touted as the most obvious winner out of all the Slovak finalists and with some predicting great things for this come May, Boom Bang a Blog can't say it's bowled over.

It all sounds far too restrained and although the overall look and feel of this will resonate with Eastern Europe, it's a bit of a struggle to be convinced households in Western and Northern Europe getting hot and bothered over so much anthemic hum-drummerty.

Mind you, there isn't a lot being picked for 2010 so far which would prick any casual viewer's ears up, so who knows, Kristina could cock a snub at BBaB and finish in the top five on May 29. But we doubt it.

There's some smashing hair action at about 00:11

This is the freshly announced entry for Belarus for Eurovision 2010. Although the country arranged a fairly indepth national final process toward the end of last year, that all went a bit a-over-t and an internal selection was made instead.

The group 3+2 will sing Far Away. Of course, that all depends on where you're reading this blogpost. If you're sat in Liverpool or Chipping Norton then Oslo is far away. If you're actually in the Norwegian capital right now then 3+2 won't be singing very far away at all in three months time.

Boom Bang a Blog has had a listen to this offering, given it careful consideration and decided it has a bit of a struggle to get out of the qualifying stages. We can kind-of see which bit of the ballpark it's aiming for, in that it's rocky/harmonising pop that's intended to get the crowd entranced-as-one, but as with all non-Spanish entries selected thus far, we' knocked at the door of Far Away to ask if That Certain Something was home, but it'd packed its bags and ran far away a long time ago.

Or is BBaB being harsh? Do let me know. You usually do...

Curses! This pair beat Boom Bang a Blog to the front of Your Country Needs Queue. Grr.

The BBC confirmed today that Your Country Needs You will broadcast live from Television Centre from 8.30pm to 10pm on Friday, March 12. Six acts will show off their singing talents (please, pur-lease don't let it include John 'Pink Fluffy Things are SO Eurovision' Barrowman) for a panel of expert judges, before they have the onerous task of whittling that group down into three acts who will then sing the song written and produced by Stock and Waterman. The UK public (and this is the point where it's gone wrong in the past) will then vote for the version they prefer - and that choice will go on to Oslo.

Incidentally, Pete Waterman is interviewed about his Eurovision challenge in this week's Radio Times - an unusual move for the listings magazine, whose features tend to focus on the shows airing in that particular week. The gist of it is that Pete seems to be doing this to rub Simon Cowell up the wrong way as it turns out the Idolmeister has always harboured a desire to be responsible for a Eurovision winner. Most interestingly, Cowell wanted Steps to enter in 1997 with 5, 6, 7, 8 as he was convinced it would win.

Based on that sort of gut feeling, let's hope Simon stays focused on 'other projects' for quite a bit longer.

It's a bit murky - but you get the general idea

Already described in some quarters as a cross between Art Garfunkel and Leo Sayer, youngster Daniel Diges thrashed local (and internet fan forum) favourite Coral in Spain's national final last night.

A show full of Latino vim, with presenters who talked incredibly quickly and passionately and judges who announced their preferences at such a similar rate that the scoreboard couldn't keep up with them, only one judge disagreed with her peers (not to mention the televoting public) by not putting Daniel and the brilliantly simplistic Algo Pequeñito at the top of her list.

The song harks back to those old school days of Eurovision when entries about fairgrounds, carousels and childhood delights were par for the course. But don't be put off by that. Without a drum machine in sight, the tune goes round and around and around, getting more powerful with each revolve - think Hallelujah and Love Shine a Light in terms of impact. More importantly, Daniel's voice is more than up to the task in hand.

It's by no means contemporary, it's certainly not everyone's cup of sangria - but Algo Pequeñito has that indefinable *something* which practically everything else selected so far doesn't. It also means Spain could finally be back in the running for the Eurovision trophy for the first time in more years than anyone cares to mention.

It's good to see that somewhere among the 313 songs posted on the internet for public perusal all those weeks ago was a genuine contender, or else the Spanish selection process would have started to become incredibly laborious with little reward at its conclusion.

How could Boom Bang a Blog have let this little gem slip through its mitts at the weekend? There's just enough time before Glee starts to introduce you to the entry for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for 2010. We didn't think it possible, but this production seems to have been cobbled together for a fraction of the budget of the Maltese final. And the winner was none other than Gjoko Taneski with the song Jas Ja Imam Silat.

I've listened to this twice now and it's still not registering. In fact, everytime I try to recall it, the song from Slovenia keeps popping into my head instead. This can only mean one thing judging by my track record - FYR Macedonia is going to qualify. Slovenia isn't.

Right, time for Glee...

Close your eyes and you could be at an Iron Maiden gig

The Slovene final came to an end moments ago and once again my dexterity in picking a song I think will sweep to victory once its citizens are unleashed on their SMS texts proved rather rubbish.

I thought Birgita Suler would win with something poppy and - more importantly - appealing to my Western European lugholes just as much as they were the ones in the crowd in Ljubjana- called Para Me. But she came about eighth of the 14 songs taking part.

But I did think the winner would be up there in the final shout as well. After Narodnozabavni Rock (I typed that from memory, I didn't cut and paste it from another site, honest) received the applause of the evening, I did think it would do well, but not as well as it did. Performed by Ansambel Roka Åœlindre & Kalamari (again, typed from memory), she's the winsome miss in some form of national dress and he's some sweaty middle-aged bloke in leathers. Oh, they despair so of the differences between them, so much so, that they sat down and wrote a song about it before adding some simple choreography and then entering it into Slovenia's national heats for Eurovision.

Fair play to them, it was very entertainingly put together and it could get the same sort of result the Moldovan entry did in Russia last year, where a song all about a country's domestic culture has enough tongue-in-cheekness to appeal beyond its borders.

Whether this will have televoters in Bromsgrove, Bergen, Sligo or Stockholm feeling the love remains to be seen. But at least we have our first bit of originality in the line-up for Oslo 2010.

Well, we liked this one, for what it's worth...

It had a little bit of everything. A lad singing from what looked like the disastrous aftermath of some car TWOCing while channeling Michael Jackson, a woman looking and sounding like a stalwart of the PTA who can't believe how mildly mischievous she's being and a young lad doing his best to impersonate all three members of McFly in one sitting. But what the Maltese final tragically lacked was something which sounds like it's going to win the Eurovision Song Contest in May.

It has been a fair few weeks now since Pete Waterman was announced as the man who will steer the UK towards Oslo's Telenor Arena in May when he takes charge of the British entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. Since that announcement, all has remained suspiciously quiet. The format of 2010's Your Country Needs You is now known, as this interview released by the BBC Press Office today clarifies and also reveals that Pete whas been working with the 'Stock' of Stock, Aitken and Waterman (his first name's Mike) on the song.

But what about the acts that are vying to sing the eventual Waterman/Stock opus? Boom Bang a Blog has been digging about the interweb to discover what names come up to the surface - and if we're in for an aurally painful repeat of The Twins from Sheffield from last year's competition.

This electropop duo look like they can be struck from our inquiries straight away. The Ultrasonics' facebook fan page declared it was in talks with the BBC in a not-very cryptic message that they were in the running for Your Country Needs You. Gossip and debate on various Eurovision fan forums (where many people say they are 'in the know' but 'can't say anything more than that'), suggested that the pair were called back three times for a place in the final six. However, it has been suggested that a less-than-powerful live vocal fronting the group has already put paid to their progress and we won't now be seeing The Ultrasonics in Your Country Needs You. Their studio stuff sounds really good, which is a bit of a shame - but if they don't have the live voices to match, maybe that's for the best.

And so to our next suspect...