Here we go again, it’s time for another thump of Eurovision 2009 profiles.

We’re so close to the Eurovision Song Contest now that we can give you actual news about the contest instead of filling this space up with meaningless facts and unimportant figures. So here’s today’s Eurovision news – the lighting for the contest has started to be built into the Olympiyski Indoor Arena. Whew, that’s some news. We wonder if tomorrow’s news will be able to top that?

In the meantime, here’s the Eurovision 2009 profile for Igor Cukrov and Andrea Šušnjara from Croatia…

Croatia · Igor Cukrov and Andrea Šušnjara, Lijepa Tena

Croatia have an absurdly inconsistent Eurovision technique that means one year they’ll enter an amateur pornstar, the next a rapping grandfather and the next a bag of dreary old tripe like Lijepa Tena. Performed by a Croatian Fame Academy finalist and a pretty girl whose microphone has been turned down so low that she may as well just be a placard with the word ‘tits’ on it, Lijepa Tena is exactly the sort of tuneless, mid-paced dirge that’ll get completely swallowed up by all the other Eurovision entries. In fact, we’ll go as far as to say that the only hope that Igor Cukrov and Andrea Šušnjara have of even getting past the Eurovision semi-final stage is if Croatia either a) threatens some military strong-arming or b) withholds the right to let anyone go there on holiday next year. It really is a very charming holiday destination, we heard.

Tomorrow – Cyprus!

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It’s the end of another week’s Eurovision betting odds. Give yourself a couple of days off. Wait, read this one first and then give yourself a couple of days off.

If you’ve been following these Eurovision betting odds, chances are you’re starting to pick favourites. Which song do you like best? The pretty little Belgian one? The immense Bosnian one? The one from Azerbaijan? Oh, you do, don’t you? You like the one from Azerbaijan best! What the hell is wrong with you? Are you an idiot? Urgh.

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

Croatia – (pop. 4,496,869; a crescent-shaped country in Europe bordering the Mediterranean, Central Europe and the Balkans): Kraljevi Ulice & 75 Cents, Romanca

Unless you count the Bosnian entry – which you shouldn’t because it’s closer to performance art than anything else – we’ve almost gone a fortnight doing these Eurovision betting odds without finding a horrible novelty song. Almost. Thanks to Kraljevi Ulice & 75 Cents, our luck runs out today. For the most part, Romanca is the sort of half-arsed, first-pass generic Mediterranean folk music that gets played to hundreds of gormless holidaymakers in hundreds of indentikit tapas bars every week, but there’s just one crucial difference. While most of Romanca is sung by a swarthy fat bloke with a typically high opinion of himself, a rapping million-year-old man in a funny hat pops up intermittently to yell things like “They’re telling me tonight that I’m in banana!” and “I was the first internet in the world!” again and again. We wouldn’t mind, but he just does it so flipping angrily. Current Eurovision betting odds – 100/1

Next week: Cyprus! 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.