Phil Jackson's Eurovision Blog

Happy Eurovision Day! I can’t remember that last time I felt genuinely excited about a Grand Final. Today I do! A couple of years ago, when ESC2017 was in Ukraine, I had no Euro-mojo whatsoever. This was partly to do with stuff going on at work, but also due to the fact that I just […]

The automatic qualifiers are the usual countries of the “Big Five”, and host country Israel. I’d say that it’s not a particularly strong year all round for these six songs. As you’ll read below, the most interesting aspect from these six countries is perhaps Bilal for France – but that’s nothing to do with his […]

There was no messing about last night. Less than five minutes into the broadcast the first act was on stage. 18 songs this time around. I know I’ve joked about the lesser-spotted backing singers, but I would question why this happens. There were loads of performances where they were absent from the stage (Albania, Ireland, […]

Blimey. Another fab show, so far. Here’s my NoD… Switzerland Denmark Croatia Sweden Malta Norway Azerbaijan Albania The Netherlands Russia Totes no idea! 😀 xx

After a marvelous first semi-final, let’s see if the songs on offer tonight are Abba-dabba-do’s, or Abba-dabba-don’ts… 01  Armenia Srbuk – Walking Out This wouldn’t have been my first choice to open this semi-final. The staging looks a bit dull, even with the pyrotechnics. It’s not often that a song opening a semi-final doesn’t make […]

Wow. What a great first semi-final. I loved it. Brilliant telly! The whole production was slick, well-paced and the staging was A-MA-ZING! I have been watching from the comfort of home since 2017, and this is the first time that I wanted to be in the arena. As it was, my front room was my […]

Well, what a great show it’s been so far – with amazing staging, and the package overall (so far), really impressive. Ok, more of that on Wednesday. My ten qualifiers on the napkin of death are now: Cyprus Slovenia Czech Republic Hungary Poland Georgia Australia Iceland Estonia Greece Kiss of death, much? We will see… […]

Tonight sees the first of the two semi-finals. Fans in the UK will be watching on BBC4 at 8pm. I will do what I did last year which was to watch the live feed via the esc.tv YouTube channel on my telly. I can live without the dire commentary from Scott Mills. I’d rather just […]

שלוםJ or to put it another way Hello 🙂 Hi there Eurofans. I’m back on my Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) blog once again. As with the last couple of years I have not travelled to the host country and host city of the Contest. I will enjoy it watching from home, like most of you. […]

Happy Eurovision day, eurofans, and greetings from a sort of sunny Southport. In just a few hours it’ll be the culmination of the ESC2018 campaign. Who is going to win this year? Cyprus? Israel? Perhaps Ireland will challenge as it’s now one are the hot faves. I’d be happy with any of them, as well […]