Your reviewers: Chrissie Hammond,  Evan Paris,  and  Ivan Methuselah.

E   Now then... our old faithful, Sweden.
I   Kicking off rather operatically.
E   Ooh. And a trusty big beat.
C   Isn't that Ulrika Jonson?
I   She's certainly very Swedish.
E   Singing in English.
C   A very operatic chorus.
I   Rather like that funked up Pearl Fisher thing they used on the rallying. She's... rather valkyric.
E   Is she a castrato?
I   I think she's singing a little low for a castrato.
E   Well that's Hooked on Classics-tastic.

Croatia, 0pts
Igor Cukrov feat. Andrea - Lijepa Tena

E   A guitar intro for that Mediterranean flavour.
I   And an annoying waiter who means to seduce us...
C   And use us...
I   And steal our wallets.
E   In foreign.
I   Sounds like a Greek version of last year's song.
C   Here's a woman making some high-pitched warbles.
E   Only thing going for it is the diminished third.
C   "Tena"? As in lady?
E   Do you think any of the acts will refer to todays activities in Moscow?
C   Nah.

Portugal, 6pts
Flor-de-Lis - Todas as ruas do amor

I   Ah. Portugal.
C   Bless.
I   Reminds me, visually at least, of Spain '77. And I liked that a lot.
E   But that had a porn star in silver boots playing the banjo.
I   And a chorus.
C   This has a nice verse.
I   But no chorus yet.
C   Here's your chorus.
I   Bit flat.
E   Still, pleasingly folksy, in an '80s way.
C   In foreign.
I   Ok. That's ok.
E   Heh.
C   Bless.
E   Don't you just want to take them home and smoke all their pot?
I   They don't have pot. They have bibles.

Iceland, 0pts
Yohanna - Is It True?

I   Ok. Iceland.
E   One of our favourites.
C   English.
I   This is oddly familiar.
E   Very early '90s verse turns into the chorus from that song by Evanescence.
I   Not the novelty act I was hoping for.
C   No. Rather ordinary.
E   But done well enough. And a haunted key change, bumping it up a bit.
C   Builds rather well...
I   Very good build.
E   Yeah. It ended rather well.

Greece, 5pts
Sakis Rouvas - This Is Our Night

I   Ho ho. Greece!
C   Dancers.
E   Heh.
I   Heh. Very poncy.
E   I feel like I'm in a gay club.
I   I think you are, essentially.
E   Heh.
C   In English.
E   This is the gayest entry yet.
I   Choose your words well.
C   Heh.
E   A fairly ordinary club anthem.
I   There's the treadmill again, from the opening act.
E   This reminds me of London Boys.
I   Of course it does.
E   This is a good end. Bond stabs, a drop out and a key change.
I   Ooh, nice set activity.
C   Bang!

Armenia, 12pts
Inga and Anush - Jan Jan

I   Ooh!
C   When shall we three meet again?
E   Next year, I think.
I   Nice.
C   Oh.
I   I like it.
E   It's got a good beat, certainly.
I   Extras from a Paradjanov film sing a funky, slinky modern sort of number.
C   In English.
E   It has that ethnic sort of twist that Turkey really love.
I   Don't mention Turkey in the Armenian entry, Ev.
C   In foreign now.
I   This is great.
E   Heh. Now it's in major!
I   Heh.
C   Hay!
E   Key change.

Russia, 0pts
Anastasiya Prikhodko - Mamo

E   A fairly Mediterranean chorus.
C   Upbeat, certainly.
E   still quite Greek.
I   She has a distinctively hoary voice.
C   Sorry?
I   Hoary. Like hoar. Frosty.
C   Oh. I'm not going to mention the gimmick on the big screen in which she ages throughout the song.
E   This is in foreign. It's perfectly acceptable stuff.
I   Kicking off now... Rather histrionic of a sudden. Not sure about the message it seems to be sending about old age being something to cry about.
E   That's cos you're old.

Azerbaijan, 1pt
AySel and Arash - Always

E   Another club-Med number.
C   A male/female duet in English.
I   She's game for it.
E   Heh.
I   This is the most "Hai Hai Hai" of the night so far. But it's a bit tacky.
C   She's got a gold leg. Poor dear.
E   He's really playing that fake guitar thing.
C   She really ought not to stand over that fan. It show her fake leg up.

Bosnia & Herzegovina, 0pts
Regina - Bistra voda

E   A group of men in Regency dress sing a Scorpions-style march which will certainly build into an anthem.
I   Via an ethnic interlude.
C   It's very very like I expect Yugoslavia sounded in 1991.
I   Hence the war.
C   They strike an epic revolutionary pose beneath a red flag.
E   Was it red, or pink?
I   I'd like to think it was pink given todays antics.
E   Rather daft.

INTERVAL
I   Ah. A Russian cop. Come to stick it into some queer's ass, I expect. Ironically. Singing Kalinka.
E   Now do Dchinghis Khan and I'll give you a tenner.

Moldova, 2pts
Nelly Ciobanu - Hora din Moldova

E   Ethnic warbling.
C   And Ethnic dress.
E   Oh yes. Lovely.
I   This old chestnut again.
E   Quite nicely done.
I   There's something cheeky about that rhythm.
C   And those purple boots.
I   I feel I've heard this song about 1,792 times.
E   She sings in foreign.
C   Hey hey!
I   Ooh.. A nice shouty bit.
E   They seem to be parodying Irish dancing.
C   Good.
I   Hoi hei!

Malta, 0pts
Chiara - What If We

I   Ah, look who it is!
C   Malta is not Malta without a big woman singing a crap song in English.
E   It's very Celine Dion.
I   Capturing the zeitgeist of 1995.
C   This is poor.
E   Yeah. Makes the piano playing bloke in the hat look good.
I   Heh.
E   What an awful middle-8! And a key change too! Losers!
C   Hah!
I   She loves me.
E   Mr Norton just made a jokie-woo.

Estonia, 0pts
Urban Symphony - Rändajad

E   Quite a Finnish start, naturally enough.
I   She has a fiddle in her mitt.
E   She sings in foreign.
C   A string quartet.
E   With two cellos.
C   She's very cute.
I   Song's a bit flat though.
E   Rather Bat For Lashes.
I   About as engaging.
C   Has she used that fiddle yet?
E   Didn't see it if she did.
I   Never really got going.

Denmark, 0pts
Niels Brinck - Believe Again

C   This one is written by Ronan Keating.
I   Oh dear.
E   Heh! Graham's right. It is Stars in Their Eyes.
I   Denmark can be so embarrassing.
C   Yes.
E   So Denmark have gay icon Ronan Keating writing theirs and we have...
C   Andrew Lloyd Webber.
E   Not sure we're playing this right.
I   Is Ronan Keating really a gay icon?
E   Must be, surely.
C   Stephen Gately has him on his wall, I bet.
I   Do you?
E   This song is in English.
I   And it is very dull.

Germany, 4pts
Alex Swings Oscar Sings! - Miss Kiss Kiss Bang

I   Ho ho! Germany!
E   These chaps are homosexuals apparently.
I   Satanic lot. Hah!
E   A cabaret number.
I   A very Germanic cabaret number. They look good little Nazi girls.
E   In English.
C   We're not seeing very much of that exotic burlesque dancer in the background.
I   Unfortunate, cos she's stripping.
E   Here she is.
I   Andrew Sachs still loves her.
E   With a hedehideho!
I   Thirties Germany, eh... you can't beat it.
C   Well not without engaging in total war on two fronts.

Turkey, 3pts
Hadise - Düm Tek Tek

I   Ok. Nice start.
E   Very very Turkey.
C   Three singers in not a lot of clothes.
I   That male backing vocalist seems high in the mix.
E   This is very Turkey.
I   That make backing vocalist also looks a lot like the drug-adict informant in The Wire.
C   In English.
I   Dum Tek Tek. That's not English.
C   I want to dance! Ooh. So does he.

Albania, 0pts
Kejsi Tola - Carry Me in Your Dreams

E   Yet more ethnic beats.
I   And Leigh Bowery in a spangly turquoise full body-stocking.
E   Our barely-legal singer is in a pink tu-tu.
C   She looks like Barbie.
I   He looks like he's just walked in from a Star Wars green-screen shoot.
E   It's in English. The song is a fairly ordinary Eurobeat anthem with Turkish twists.
C   Human stairs...
I   Dressed as the Joker from Batman.

Norway, 0pts
Alexander Rybak - Fairytale

I   An irritating fiddler. I want to smack him already. Didn't take me three days, Graham.
E   In English.
I   Very... I was going to say very annoying. But now two backing singer ave entered and are going da-da-da in counterpoint in a really cute way. Still, other than that this is annoying. Mainly because of him. I like the backing vocalists though.
C   It's like a really annoying man doing a really annoying version of Puppet on a String without any of the good bits.

Ukraine, 10pts
Svetlana Loboda - Be My Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl)

I   Roman burlesque night in the Ukraine tonight.
E   Oh wow. This is good! This is genuinely good.
C   Heh. Nice dance moves too.
I   And very gay Roman burlesque dancers.
C   "You are sexy bum"?
I   Hah!
E   Hah!
C   The female drummer is being dragged on by some of the buff Romans.
E   It's sung in English, for what it matters.
I   That was great.

Romania, 0pts
Elena - The Balkan Girls

I   The Balkan Girls.
E   Heh.
I   Fairly ordinary in comparison to the previous act.
C   Usual Eurovision sort of thing.
I   Upbeat and ok.
E   The odd ethnic break.
C   In English.
I   Very ordinary.

United Kingdom, 0pts
Jade Ewen - It's My Time

I   A bit of Liverpool amongst the inevitable London landmarks that constitute the postcard woman's wig.
E   It's by Andrew Lloyd Webber, this, apparently.
C   Really? He's come down in the world then, hasn't he?
I   Couldn't happen to a better person.
E   Sounds like a '90s Olympic anthem to me.
I   And there's old smudge-face himself.
C   I don't think it is her time.
I   Nobody likes a big-head.
C   Times like this you sort of miss the orchestra.
E   Key change there. Not a dreadful song by any means. But very '90s... very Olympic anthem... All I'm getting is Robin Banks advertising Coke.
C   She's basically a Whitney Houston tribute act.
I   Oh, shut up, Graham.

Finland, 0pts
Waldo's People - Lose Control

I   Now then. Finland!
C   Come on, Finland!
E   Hah.
I   Oh my.
C   A rapper.
E   In English.
C   Another club anthem.
I   With lots of fire on stage.
E   A '90s club anthem.
C   Bless.
I   It's got a good beat but it's no Lapponia.

Spain, 0pts
Soraya Arnelas - La noche es para mí

I   Israel.
E   Bilingual.
I   Good beat.
C   Reminds me of Salomé shaking her thing in her porcelain outfit in 1969.
E   Fine, but we've had better tonight.
I   She's disappeared. Oh. No. There she is.

And at this point the International Space Station got involved and things became very silly indeed. Graham Norton did ok, though he kept going on about the UK entry far too much and infuriated Ivan by interviewing Andrew Lloyd Webber at the end of the interval act. Ivan tried desperately at that point to find an audio track without Norton, only to find one that was solely him with the auditorium sound removed. But despite these incidents he put on a decent commentary. So good for him.

Ok. Good evening, Moscow. We really loved the show. Now here are the votings from the AView jury: