Let’s begin with our new weekly review of the highlights from the past 7 days!

On Monday, the Icelandic songs were revealed. Immediately – or maybe even before, who knows – this launched the first phase of an international bitchfight between Yohanna and Birgitta fans. Or at least we assume it will have done, knowing ESC fans. Will either of them win the Icelandic final though? The taste of local televoters does not exactly tend to coincide with the taste of the fans, as was recently proven once again in Steinkjer, Norway – but more about that later.

On Tuesday, German broadcaster NDR revealed the host for the German national final, “Unser Song Für Malmö”: It’s none other than Anke Engelke! Anke co-hosted the ESC 2011 in Düsseldorf… well, technically one can say she “co-hosted”, but of the three hosts it was her who got at least 95% of the attention, conquering fans’ hearts all over Europe. The perfect addition to the new German format.

On Wednesday, Croatia – even though they don’t have a singer yet – announced that their song will be called Mižerja (“Misery” or “Sadness”). We have to hold ourselves back from making the obvious puns here; suffice to say that the song title is certainly not meant as a funny metaphor for their recent ESC success, or lack of.

On Thursday, the Semi-Final Allocation Draw was held in Malmö, Sweden. The Big 5 and the host Sweden are directly qualified for the final. The other 33 participants were allocated to the respective halves of the two semi-finals, with the last half of the 2nd semi-final having one slot more than the others (9). The question as to whether certain countries would manage to get into the 2nd half was the most intriguing part of the event, but the excitement was – as expected – nowhere near the former draws for the running order. Instead, it is the far less interesting draw programme that has survived the treatment of the Swedish amputation experts – and one of the most exciting days in the Eurovision year for fans is, you guess it, dead. Lost and forgotten. Regardless, though, if you want to know who landed in which half before their eventual draw position is determined by the producers behind closed doors, we have it all sorted on our participants page.

Along with the official happenings in Malmö, the theme including the logo and the slogan for the ESC in Malmö were revealed: “We Are One”.

The other notable event on that day was the first elimination round of UMK in Finland, sending Ilari Hämäläinen home, and fan favourites Mikael and Diandra to the final. No big surprises, in other words!

Saturday, however, left many fans around Europe sitting with gaping mouths and eyes staring in disbelief in the direction of Steinkjer, Norway. Whoever the “Grand Prix General” featured in the show actually was or whatever he did, it wasn’t something that went down well with most (or at least the most vocal of) international fans, as once again the televoting result seemed to read like the fans’ list upside down. The three qualifiers to the final in Oslo Spektrum were Vidar Busk (3rd), Datarock (2nd) and yesterday’s winners Gromth & Emil Solli-Tangen. Some of our chatters, readers, followers and friends seem to like at least one of the qualifiers, it must be said – but the overall result of our own voting in the chat differed wildly from the official result, with the following being our favourites.

Norway Semi-final 1, top 3 of the ChatVote:

1. Mimi Blix / Doc MC – Catch Me
2. Carina Dahl – Sleepwalking
3. Tom Hugo – Det er du

That was a rather long week with only a few events, but all of us are now awaiting the hot phase of the NF season. Will more surprises await? We’ll see!