Non-qualifyers, semi 1

Overall, I am more than pleased with the outcome of the first semi, but the world is not a totally perfect place, and I feel sorry for a few of the non-qualifyers. A few of them would have deserved a spot in the final as well. And some of them did clearly not.

Montenegro, Moldova and San Marino should not feel too surprised to see themselves relegated. They all performed well and made the most of their three minutes on stage, but a blind could see that these songs would not reach out to a large enough audience to proceed to the final.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, could be asking themselves why nobody is voting for them anymore. Hind sang well, was very charming and did everything right, but probably the whole package was a bit too polished and inoffensive to grab any attention. Andorra suffered the same fate - good but not good enough. Maybe Gisela would have done better with a real dress instead of wrapping herself in metal. Also Belgium tried to hard to be sweet and appealing, and probably ended up annoying more people than they pleased.

Slovenia was a bit of a surprise not to see in the final as well. It seemed very welcome in the mix, Rebeka sang well and even the silly stage act seem to come across quite well on the screen. Less is more, Europe said and decided not to vote for it.

And as for Estonia and Ireland... There are no words to describe how happy I am to have neither of them pass on. Shame on you both, get a grip and contribute decent songs instead of messing around like this. We are willing to forget and forgive, as long as you promise never to do wrong like this again.