I Am A Swede

And just like predicted.... the televotes went in favour of the Ukraine. Not at all surprising, but still slightly disappointing. There's no doubt in my mind that they got a lot of sympathy votes they wouldn't have received under normal circumstances.

I recognize Scott Baio, Kevin Sorbo and Ricky Schroder, but who's the fourth one?

One song that really has grown on me is the Netherlands. A powerful ballad without the vocal gymnastics that other countries indulge in, and I love that it's performed in Dutch.

After everything she has gone through this is really not something she needed.

Gigliola Cinquetti!! She looks fantastic for a 74-year old, and ""Non ho l'età" is still an amazing song. The line-up this year was actually pretty decent. Most of the songs were actually quite good. But I still rank Switzerland, Poland and Azerbaijan at the bottom, and would gladly have replaced any of them with Ireland.

I really hope that everyone can look past what's happening in the Ukraine right now (as horrible as it is), and not let that influence how they vote. But I think it's an obvious risk that Ukraine will get lots and lots of sympathy votes and storm to victory.

I'm so disappointed that Ireland failed to qualify with their little pop gem () and that Poland and Azerbaijan did qualify. I hate those kinds of pretentious screeching ballads. You can also add Australia to that list.

I'm sure seeing it live makes a big difference. And of course there's no right or wrong, just different opinions. The second semi-final was indeed stronger overall, but there were some bad songs too: Poland, North Macedonia, Azerbaijan and Montenegro did not impress me and San Marino obviously really liked Måneskin's performance last year because they clearly tried to copy it as much as they could. My clear favourites were our own Cornelia (🇸🇪 ) and Ireland (🇮🇪).

The story of BeLief on B&B. It was full of twists and turns and had repercussions that lasted for years. The most delicious part of it all for me back then, as a Brooke-fan, was how Stephanie became the architect of her own downfall through one bad decision after another. And the confrontation at the office when Brooke finally slapped Stephanie back remains my favourite scene ever from this show.

^^ No, I'm pretty sure it's 50/50 between juryvoting and televoting in the semi-finals as well as in the big final.

Not surprisingly the Ukrainian entry got the loudest and longest applause last night. Qualified for the final: Armenia, Greece, Iceland, Lithuania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland () and Ukraine. Eliminated: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Latvia and Slovenia. How the Swiss entry managed to qualify for the final is a mystery to me. It was one of the worst entries last night, together with the entry from Albania,