Eurovision Betting Odds: Ishtar, Belgium

Eurovision betting odds? Again? Well, OK, if you insist…

That’s right, now that it’s April it means that the Eurovision Song Contest happens next month. Can you believe it? Can you contain the excitement? We certainly can’t because we’ve heard all the songs taking part in Eurovision this year and we’ve come to the conclusion that this is going to be the best Eurovision ever. April fool! We were joking! In actual fact most of the Eurovision songs this year are shit.

Here are the Eurovision betting odds for Belgium, with help from Paddy Power…

Belgium - (pop. 10,309,725; a country in western Europe): Ishtar, O Julissi Na Jalini

A few years ago Eurovision lifted the rule ordering countries to sing in their own national language. The repercussions were twofold - firstly countries no longer had to give their songs meaningless names like Blonky Blonky Pap Pap to appeal to everyone, and secondly Belgium could enter O Julissa Na Jalina into Eurovision; a song performed in an entirely imaginary language. It’s a clever move, really, because it neatly sidesteps the increasing tensions between Dutch-speaking Belgians and their Walloon counterparts, but it’s a pain in the arse for us, because “O julissi na ti buku, O julissi na katinu, Dvoranu mojani bidna, Marusi naja otcha tu” doesn’t translate into anything very hilarious at all. So we’ll overlook the lyrics to O Julissi Na Jalini and instead concentrate on the song, which is very pretty and clever and ornate and Radio 4 and slightly folky in a ‘would probably get an Oscar nomination if it were in a leftfield animated film’ sort of way. But, really, that’s beside the point, because the imaginary language thing is so pointless that Ishtar may as well have just farted along to the music instead. Current Eurovision betting odds - 66/1

Tomorrow: Bosnia! But if that’s too long to wait - or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with - head right over to the Paddy Power Eurovision betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.