1st Dress Rehearsal - Semi Final 2 (Part 4)

And we have a recap now. My apologies but I needed to use the bathroom facilities - some of the songs in the last section were painful in more ways than one! Also, I need to see how many qualifiers I mentioned, I would say probably all of them. Will count later.

We come back from the recap and it's the time for Australia to shine - sausage eating, Fosters beer drinking Aussies. Apparently Australia keeps on begging to be in the show but since they are not in Europe they can't take part. Simple solution, attach Australia to a number of helicopters and fly it over. Dump it over Western Europe and then you will see that Australia basically is one of the few countries left to take part from that region.

A quick dance about Australia ensure, complete with topless surfer dude. It is quite amusing but I can see it getting quite old very quickly - Swedish Smörgåsbor it is not!

We then have Jessica Mauboy introduced on stage - singing a song which is better than many of those competing tonight. Good job Australia does not take part!

Onto the second recap of the night with the exit of the artist this time like we had for Semi 1.

With 5 minutes left to vote after the second recap, Nikolaj and Pilou inform about the #JoinUs dance competition that was created. The best 26 were invited to go on stage in Copenhagen and we see them perform with videos of others being shown on the background wall.

OK, so they have a sense of humour in Denmark it seems. Some of the acts are really good while others are ... not so much. It would be one of those acts on "*County* has Talent". Watch out for the old granny though - they tell you to watch out for the old ones!

Phone lines are nearly closed as Nikolaj and Pilou remind us, counting us down from 5 (so how people should have voted in the last bit we do not know).

Lise is in the Green Room in order to talk to the contestants gathered there. Speaking first to Lithuania and then Greece, Lise moves towards Tijana from Macedonia! We got that name on the show in the end. Unfortunately stand-in Tijana never said "darling" so she can't be the real thing. Finland is the last team to be talked to and we finish by being asked if we would like to see Softengine again on Saturday.

Eurovision record book again - and this time Longest Note - to which puzzled faces perk up since "Didn't we have that already?" Maybe they did change it for the live show. And after asking it seems in fact it is not in the live show of Tuesday.

Lise still in the Green Room and we are now talking to "Kasey" from Ireland who does not seem to talk much so swiftly on to "Cleo" from Poland. Conchita is Lise's match on the Eurovision Matchmaking app. "Conchita" seems to have lost the beard and gained a few pounds. OK, I'm bored of this now. NEXT!

And as if they were listening to me we finally stop that messy section and now go to the preview of the Big 5 and Denmark.

Preview over, we go to talk to Jon Ola Sand as is the tradition. Lise interrogates Jon Ola about the votes being in on time since apparently they have not been for three out of four years. Well, pot, kettle and black comes to mind when we talk about Copenhagen and things being on time... and that is enough of that!

Announcement time and the qualifiers are:
Ireland
FYR Macedonia
Greece
Austria
Romania
Norway
Lithuania
Malta
Poland

And finally...

FINLAND!

Mei is OUT! OMG! Gays across Europe are devastated! How did that strut fail to ensure a qualification?! Oh wait, it's a run through that's why.

As we saw from the rehearsal of semi 1, the recap is in appearance rather than announcement. Even the recap of the qualifiers manages to mess up Romania. It seems that there are signs from above that this is not going to be a good year for them. Oh well, I'm sure it will do fine on the night ... *cough*

And once more, nothing left to say but "Good Night Europe!"

And we are off, enjoying yet another semi-final of our beloved Contest. Before you know it we will have our following 10 qualifiers and Saturday night will be knocking on our doors. Only few more sleeps left!