We say this every week, but: hasn’t it been an eventful few days in Eurovision world? Here’s esc-chat.com’s handy round-up of the things you might have missed – and many of the things you surely didn’t!

Monday, and the week began with the release of a brief clip of the Croatian entry “Mižerja” on a domestic news programme, accompanied by the information that the group performing it would go by the name of Super Klapa. We can’t decide if this sounds more like one of the X-Men or a type of washing powder.

There isn’t enough tabloid gossip when it comes to Eurovision… well, there is, but there isn’t enough funny tabloid gossip. So we were delighted when Monday also brought the news that Danny Saucedo had started dating Molly Sandén, prompting Molly’s former boyfriend Eric Saade to tweet “[Danny’s] the regular number 2! As usual!”. Ooh, burn! We approve.

There was a return to more conventional news on Tuesday as it was announced that the line-up of Spanish entries had been completed, with “Atrévete” comfortably winning the internet vote to become El Sueño De Morfeo’s third potential song for Malmö. Meanwhile, Montenegrin TV announced the title of its entry: hip-hop duo Who See will be joined on-stage by singer Nina Žižić (try saying that after a few shots of rakija) to perform the song “Igranka”.

On Wednesday, Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet revealed the blueprints for the ESC 2013 stage. In a radical development, the layout will involve a main stage, a catwalk and a podium. Who knew?

The same morning, over in Hannover, there was an enjoyable press conference ahead of Thursday night’s German final. Highlights included Swedish-born Betty Dittrich hoping she’d win so that she could have lunch at her parents’ place during ESC week, Hamburg girl Mia Diekow opining that songs in German have the same chance of victory as songs in Bavarian (it’s a different language, you know!) – and the announcement that the Priester would not be rehearsing on account of it being Ash Wednesday, a day on which they had other, more important duties to perform…

And so Thursday duly rolled around. This year’s German final had a more complex voting structure than ever before – see our in-depth preview for all the details – and, in the wake of Cascada’s victory, there was media and public criticism of the way the “radio” and jury votes had been conducted and announced. All of which appeared to miss the point that Cascada won the televote – surely the most relevant element of any voting system, just as it is at ESC itself.

Further “scandal” continued to emerge throughout the rest of the week. By Sunday, tabloid newspaper Bild was touting the exclusive story that Cascada’s “Glorious” was a copy of Loreen’s “Euphoria” – as if that comparison of two songs in similar styles and with similar titles hadn’t occurred to anyone before. But they brought out the scientific evidence and everything! Self-proclaimed professional ESC expert Jan Feddersen also chipped in with the searing insight that, if proved guilty of plagiarism, Cascada would be unable to participate in ESC. (Thanks, Jan. Than.)

At one point, it was even claimed that Cascada singer Natalie had copied her breathing techniques from Loreen! All very mucky stuff, really, and it makes us long for the more innocent days of Knorkator, Guildo Horn and headlines of “Should this man be allowed to sing for Germany?”. Still, at least it’s given bored YouTube users something to do with their time:

Friday saw a rather less controversial national final in neighbouring Austria, which duly crowned Natalia Kelly and “Shine” as the nation’s representative for ESC 2013. This marks the third time in recent years that an entry with that title has gone forward to the European stage. In terms of looks, Natalia is closer to Sofia Nizharadze than the Toppers, and she’ll be hoping her result is more Georgian than Dutch too. In a nice feature, the show also allowed each of the finalists to take on a Eurovision classic – with decidedly pleasant results in some cases:

It was another busy Saturday, needless to say, although Latvia was the only country to actually select an entry for ESC 2013 – you can read our report here. Meanwhile, as part of the typically interminable Sanremo festival, it was announced that Italy will be represented by Marco Mengoni. Unlike Nina Zilli last year, Mengoni also won the latest edition of the traditional event; as with Nina Zilli last year, however, we can assume it will be a while before the actual song is confirmed (and even then, RAI and the singer might change their minds a few more times).

Meanwhile, the Swedish public continued on its quest to alienate hardcore schlagerbunnies around the continent by cruelly voting for songs it actually likes. The cheek! This week’s lucky winners of a direct ticket to the Friends Arena were State of Drama and the all-star old boys of Ravaillacz, while recent MF runners-up Martin Rolinski (previously of BWO) and Caroline af Ugglas had to content themselves with a place in the Andra Chansen round.

In Hungary, the line-up of semi-finalists was completed: Lilla Polyák, Laura Cserpes and Gigi Radics were voted through to the next round by the expert jury, with United, Fatima Mohamed and Peti Puskás joining them as a result of the public vote.

And finally, the absolute highlight of the week – maybe even the whole year – came in Estonia. Sure, it was a happy night for Teele & Tuuli & Ula, Grete Paia, Elina Born and Kõrsikud, all of whom qualified for the grand final of Eesti Laul to be held on March 2nd. But it was the boys from Winny Puhh who rightly attracted the most attention thanks to their understated performance of the catchy “Meiecundimees üks Korsakov läks eile Lätti” – and not only that, but they also made it through to the final. Now, see, this kind of thing isn’t meant to qualify. It couldn’t go all the way to ESC, could it…?

That three-minute burst of wonderful noise brings us to the end of our round-up of this week’s happenings. Stay tuned, as always, for all the latest news in a week that will see Greece and Ireland select their entries for ESC 2013 (and probably a few more bitchy tweets from Eric Saade). Our Calendar is here, and you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and, of course, in the #esc chatroom on this very site!