Just over a year ago, I wrote a piece about the BBC's attitude towards ESC and the logic behind Bonnie Tyler's participation. It began with the line "It’s frustrating being a British fan of the Eurovision Song Contest" - and I could have started this line-up check...

Ukraine has never missed a final ever since joining Eurovision in 2003. The country has collected over 200 points on four occasions, and is more often seen in the top ten than outside it. Once again, Ukraine hosted a national final in the morning, though they were...

Switzerland is one of the stalwarts of the Eurovision Song Contest, taking part every single time they haven't been excluded due to relegation. Although they won the very first contest with Lys Assia and helped Céline Dion on her way to global stardom by letting her...

The most closely observed of all participating countries, Sweden, hasn't actually been overly successful in the last nine years - apart from a third place in Düsseldorf (Popular) and, of course, their victory with the subsequent top hit Euphoria. Loreen has remained a...

You can tell when Spain are sending something decent to the Eurovision Song Contest because our #esc chatroom invariably sees an influx of new chatters from the Iberian nation, all eager to find out what we think about their entry. Although this year is no "Rosamania"...

Slovenia is my favourite of all the Balkan countries, but they haven't had much success at Eurovision recently, with just two final appearances in 10 years. They only agreed to participate in this year's Eurovision at the very last minute, and were given special...

San Marino are the smallest country by quite some distance taking part in this year's Eurovision. As yet, they haven't been able to qualify for the final in four attempts - two of which were by Valentina Monetta, who is back for another try this year with a song that...

You can't really argue with Russia's record at the Eurovision Song Contest. The top results achieved by the likes of Alsou, t.A.T.u., Dima Bilan, Serebro and (of course) the Babushki were accompanied by some of the most memorable performances in recent contests, and...

First things first: I'm a huuuge fan of Paula Seling & Ovi's entry from 2010, Playing With Fire. Apart from the special situations around Eurovision 1993 and 1996, Romania has never failed to reach the final, and it's only four years since the aforementioned duo...

After sitting Eurovision 2013 out, Portugal is back in action. With a less than brilliant record of three qualifications out of nine attempts, resulting in three mid-table-or-less finishes, Portugal are hoping to change their luck this year. This also marked the...

2014 sees the return of Poland to the Eurovision family after a few years out, and by golly, they haven't half returned with a bang! Donatan and Cleo were internally chosen to fly the Polish flag in Copenhagen with their song My Słowianie (We Are Slavic) which was a...

If there’s one country that managed to experiment with the extremes of the scoreboard in the last five years, it is Norway. They managed to win with 387 points, finish last with 380 points less than their winning score, and rack up a bottom 5 placement and a top 5...

At last! That was the general response last year when Anouk dragged the Netherlands through to their first appearance in the Eurovision grand final since 2004 - and all it took was a credible artist singing a good song. Who knew? Now the Dutch are looking to repeat...

After last year's Balkan debacle where none of the ex-Yugoslav countries made it to the final, several of them withdrew from this year's contest (or, in Bosnia's case, stayed away), leaving just a few remaining - one of which is Montenegro who, as yet, have not...

Ever since Moldova joined the contest, it only missed the final once - when Geta Burlacu made herself comfortable with a teddy bear on a sofa. Indeed, in the last three years Moldova has been consistently knocking on the door of the top 10, so the country is quite...

Malta are one of Eurovision's most enthusiastic countries but as yet this hasn't paid off with a win; the closest they've come to a victory was in both 2002 and 2005, when they came second. However, after Gaia Cauchi's victory at Junior Eurovision in December, will...

Macedonia's record in the Eurovision Song Contest can be broadly divided in three: the "hopeless case" early phase, the "permanent qualifier" middle phase, and the "they really don't want us in the final any more, do they?" recent phase. OK, that's a simplification,...

Now I have the difficult task of writing about Lithuania, the Baltic country that not long ago achieved its third best ever result with Love Is Blind. Despite tending to send songs that don't gain a lot of attention, Lithuania is mostly a surprise qualifier - even...

Latvia had one of the most impressive starts for a country at Eurovision ever, with a third place on its first attempt and a victory on its third. However, the Baltic country has failed to qualify for the final ever since 2009. In the national selection format Dziesma...