Emails and Faxes.

Folded:

• Brinner (breakfast at dinner. Think the All Day Breakfast at Little Chef)
• Red Dead Redemption (check out the trailer here. This will be bigger than GTA IV)
• Ne-Yo (best dressed singer in R’n’B. What? That’s worth something)
• Fat Ben on The Apprentice (busting out of those pinstriped suits like a middle-aged banker. Rock on)
• Eurovision 2009 (no Terry Wogan on the sauce, Andrew Lloyd Webber doing the song, fit girl singing it, and we still lose. This is a screw up to be proud of)

Creased:

• Brunch (neither one thing nor the other. Just get up earlier)
• UFC 2009 Undisputed (looks more like fornication than fighting)
• N-Dubz (like Vanilla Ice never went away. Most embarrassing pop group ever)
• Slimmer Ben on The Apprentice: You’re Fired (lost the weight, gained about a ton of make-up)
• Captcha verification codes (women are easier to read)

Here it is, the moment literally nobody on Earth has been waiting for – the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.

This year, Eurovision is coming all the way from Moscow. We’re not, by the way. We’re sitting on a sofa in what appears to be a US military-approved stress position hammering away on a grossly underpowered laptop. But that’s beside the point. Can the UK win Eurovision this year? No. No we can’t. But join us back here at 8pm so we can all watch the spectacular failure together.

The liveblog’s ready for you after the jump, incidentally. What are you waiting for?

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We may have mentioned this three or four billion times in the last three days, but when has that ever stopped us repeating ourselves?

Tomorrow evening at 8pm we’re going to be liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest. Why? Because after taking a year off in 2008 we’ve apparently forgotten how utterly hellish it is to liveblog Eurovision. But that’s not the point – the point is that you should be here too. We’re just like Terry Wogan, you know. But only in the sense that we’re fat, red-faced and balding. We’re not as funny.

So will you join us? Oh say you will. The man to your right won’t be singing. That’s a good thing, by the way.

So this is it. It’s been a while – a bit too much of a while, according to our weakened mindstate – but we’ve finally profiled all but one of the Eurovision entries this year.

That leaves us with just one to do – for some poxy little island called ‘the UK’ – before our great big Eurovision 2009 liveblog. Tomorrow evening, at 8pm, we’re going to be liveblogging the arse off the Eurovision Song Contest, either until it finishes or until we have a stress-related nosebleed. Don’t bet against the latter. Anyway, our point is this – be there.

So, finally, here is the Eurovision 2009 profile for Jade Ewen from the UK…

United Kingdom . Jade Ewen, My Time

And now to us. The UK has broken with tradition this year by not letting the public chose its Eurovision song, which is obviously a good thing because, judging by our last few entries, the British public are all medically braindead. So will My Time by Jade Ewen change our Eurovision fortunes? Hardly – just because we’re not entering a singing binman or a creepy rapper this year doesn’t mean that Europe hates us any less. What’s more, the song has been composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber so it essentially sounds like something that a middle-aged housewife from Surrey would be played to help her out of a coma or, worse still, the backing music to a tragic Britain’s Got Talent contestant’s intro tape. And isn’t a song about how much you deserve to win Eurovision bound to get on everyone else’s nerves, Jade? God, we’re screwed.

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Eurovision 2009 is only two days away now. It’s exciting stuff, not least because it means all this is nearly finished. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

And, for the penultimate time, we’d like to remind you that we’re going to be covering the Eurovision Song Contest live right here, this Saturday at 8pm. And if you do one thing this weekend, make sure you read it and comment and stuff. It’s very important that you do, because otherwise we’ll cry. And nobody wants to see that.

But first, here’s the Eurovision 2009 rundown for Svetlana Loboda from the Ukraine…

Ukraine · Svetlana Loboda, Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl)

If any of you ever wanted to know what Cirque Du Soleil would be like if they staged a pornography show in the canteen of a factory that makes motor oil, then the start of the video to Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl) by the Ukraine’s Eurovision entry Svetlana Lobodo should give you a fairly decent idea. And if you ever wanted to know what this oily cake-based trapeze porn would be like if it was soundtracked by a drunk mariachi robot, then the rest of the video should give you a fairly decent idea. In fact, we’re doing Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl) a disservice here, because it’s one of the very few Eurovision entries this year to sound like it comes from the future. We’ve actually got quite the soft spot for it, especially since Svetlana seems determined to finish as many of the lines of her song as possible by shouting the word ‘BOM!’ which, by any yardstick, is mental.

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Two big pieces of Eurovision news for you today. First, there was a Eurovision semi-final yesterday. Who was eliminated?

All sorts of crap, that’s who. And so who went through to the final? Again, all sorts of crap. This is Eurovision, you dimwit. Our second piece of news is much better – we’re liveblogging Eurovision on Saturday. Have we mentioned that already? Well tough, because we are. And you should probably read it on Saturday too. Because, let’s face it, you’ll have nothing better to do.

Here’s the Eurovision 2009 profile for Hadise, who’ll be representing Turkey…

Turkey · Hadise, Düm Tek Tek (Crazy for You)

What’s the word we’re looking for here? We’re trying to describe Hadise, and the right word seems just out of our grasp. So let’s go with either ‘HELLO!’ or ‘BADOING!’ instead. Hadise, you see, is beautiful. Preposterously beautiful. So beautiful that we want to keep her in a box and hug the base of the box in the foetal position for the rest of our lives. We love her. We actually love her. And we saw her first, so back off anyone who’s more handsome or wealthy or charming than us. We’re quite prepared to fight you. Anyway, Hadise is so unstoppably beautiful that we’re definitely voting for her during Saturday’s Eurovision. Which is a shame because her song Düm Tek Tek (Crazy for You) is sort of rubbish. But she’s hardly likely to marry us if we don’t vote for her, is she? No she’s not. So shut up.

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Have we mentioned that we’re liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday? We are. Please come back then and validate us.

Only on Saturday, mind you. We’re not liveblogging any of those poncey Eurovision semi-finals. Especially not the one tonight, even though it could well be the last we’ll see of either of today’s participants. We refuse to liveblog that. You can watch it on TV if you like, just be aware that doing so makes you a gigantic nimrod if you do.

Here’s the Eurovision 2009 for Malena Ernman from Sweden and Lovebugs from Switzerland…

Sweden · Malena Ernman, La voix

Eurovision, like all things in life, tends to move through stages. Just off the top of our heads we can remember a Turkish-influenced stage, a hard rock stage and a transsexual Israeli disco stage. But could the next big Eurovision fad be opera? On the basis of La Voix by Malena Ernman, this year’s Swedish European representative, probably not. It’s not so much opera as a weird opera/techno hybrid, which is obviously quite an uncomfortable mix. It sounds, in fact, like a song that should be performed during the opening ceremony of the Gay Olympics. And since Eurovision essentially IS the Gay Olympics, La Voix should be pretty unstoppable. Or at least it would be if Sweden was a former Soviet state. But it isn’t. In summary, then, bleugh.

Switzerland · Lovebugs, The Highest Heights

IMPORTANT! Before you click on the video above, read a few of Lovebugs’ achievements: they’ve supported The Rolling Stones. Their new album was produced by one of U2’s producers. According to their Eurovision biography, their music is characterised by ‘atmospheric guitars and melancholic underlying themes, paired with a hypnotic, driving beat’. So The Highest Heights, the song chosen to represent both Switzerland and Lovebugs at Eurovision, must be pretty special, right? Well, almost. The song seems to have been designed with massive stadiums in mind, and sounds a little bit like a cross between Coldplay and Black Kids. And we sort of like it. Do we like it because it’s good, or because it’s not tinny disco nonsense performed by a bimbo? You tell us. Honestly, we’ve lost the ability to think.

This is it! This is actually it! This is actually Eurovision week. Finally. Finally.

You’ll be bored of these reminders by Saturday, but don’t forget that we’re liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend, right here. We’re doing it because we love you. And you love us too, right? You love us enough to stay in and comment on the liveblog, right? Because lord knows that we’re pathetic enough for doing it in the first place. We don’t want to be doing it alone.

Here are the Eurovision 2009 profiles for Quartissimo and Martina Majerle from Slovenia and Soraya Arnelas from Spain…

Slovenia · Quartissimo and Martina Majerle, Love Symphony

Confusing Slovenia and Slovakia used to be quite easy to do – after all, they sound the same and we get the impression that people from both countries are monobrowed hunchbacks – but not any more, and we’ve got Eurovision to thank for that. As we’ve already told you, Slovakia’s Eurovision entry is morbidly depressing, but Slovenia’s sounds like it should be used on an advert for diamonds or wildly expensive catfood or something. Love Symphony by Quartissimo and Martina Majerle is also unusual for another reason – there’s hardly any singing in it. Honestly, the first third of the song is nothing but a bunch of old men wanking about on violins, and you don’t even get to see what the singer looks like until about 30 seconds from the end. It’s all very mysterious. Mysterious but not good. Definitely not good.

Spain · Soraya Arnelas, La noche es para mí

Before we start, let’s play a game. Guess which Spain has entered Eurovision this year – the one that’s all history and flamenco guitars and boredom, or the one that’s all Benidorm and all-inclusive chip dinners and awfulness? Neither! In a dramatic departure from the norm, Spain has tried something fresh and new for this year’s Eurovision – it’s decided to rip off Touch My Fire, the 2005 UK Eurovision entry by Javine. Only, you know, it’s in Spanish so it’s a sort of Javine/Dora The Explorer hybrid. In English, La Noche Es Para Mi means ‘the night is for me’, from which we can presume that Soraya Arnelas is either a drug addict, a burglar or a Slow Loris. Any of these things would be more interesting than the song itself, mind you, which appears to go on for several decades without ever really doing anything.

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Before we get down to the profiles, we’ve got some real, actual Eurovision news for you.

We’re going to be liveblogging Eurovision again this year. Yes, we know we missed it last year, but thanks to a pioneering technological breakthrough – we bought a laptop – we’ll be spending the evening of Saturday May 16 giving you a second-by-second commentary on the Eurovision Song Contest. At least until we deliberately drink ourselves into unconsciousness, anyway. Be there. If you want.

That said, here’s the Eurovision 2009 rundown for Marko Kon and Milan Nikoli? from Serbia and Kamil Mikul?ík and Nela Pocisková from Slovakia…

Serbia · Marko Kon and Milan Nikoli?, Cipela

Two things strike us about Serbia’s Eurovision entry this year. First, their song translates as ‘Shoe’ – the first shoe-based Eurovision entry since that Croatia entered that woman with the sex tape a few years ago. Do Marko Kon or Milan Nikoli? have a sex tape? No. And that’s why their song isn’t as good. And secondly, what the hell is this? A man with an afro and the voice of the devil rapping about shoes to the sound of an accordion? Who could possibly ever think that’s a good idea? And the woman who walks on midway through, strokes the afro-devil’s face, wiggles around like a prostitute and walks off again? No, actually in retrospect that’s a stroke of genius. Anything to take our mind off what an appalling song this is.

Slovakia · Kamil Mikul?ík and Nela Pocisková, Le? tmou

Slovakia hasn’t entered the Eurovision Song Contest for a few years. This might be because of several intricate financial and social conditions in the country, but we prefer to think that Slovakia was the only country in Europe with any self-esteem. But whatever, Slovakia are back again now, and judging by their Eurovision entry Let’ Tmou, it’s because they think that Europe has got a little bit too cheery for their liking lately. Because, christ, it’s depressing. We’re talking French levels of depression here. Let’ Tmou’s video is all half-burnt candles and anguished cello playing, and that’s about as far into it as we want to get. That’s pretty much because if we tried to translate even some of the lyrics we’d probably end up hanging ourselves from a light fitting or stabbing ourselves in the face as a reaction to the futility of it all.

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We’re going to start doubling up on these Eurovision profiles again. Not because we made a fundamental calculation error, but because we love you.

What’s the big Eurovision news of the day? Only that bloody rehearsals have started in Moscow. And from these we can tell you that the woman from the Ukraine is a dirty girl, that the girl from Albania is energetic and sexy and the man from Lithuania is a git. You’re welcome, readers.

Anyway, here are the Eurovision 2009 rundowns for Elena Gheorghe from Romania and Anastasiya Prykhodko from Russia…

Romania · Elena Gheorghe, The Balkan Girls

Before we go any further, we’d just like to make it clear that Balkan girls are lovely. Almost embarrassingly lovely. And intelligent. Intelligent and lovely. But The Balkan Girls, the Romanian Eurovision entry this year, is the exact opposite of that. It’s stupid and whatever the opposite of lovely is. It’s less of a song and more something you’d hear a pimp chant outside a grotty Bucharest brothel – “The Balkan girls they like to party like nobody, like nobody/ For crowd delight, we’ll shine all night,” it goes, and it doesn’t stop until it’s broken you down and you agree to get a miserable cut-price handjob off one of them. Also, rhyming ‘kiss’ and ‘prince’ is beyond ridiculous. And no amount of writhing models in a pop video is ever going to change that.

Russia · Anastasiya Prykhodko, Mamo

About now, Russia is probably starting to realise that hosting the Eurovision Song Contest isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s the cost of the operation to deal with, not to mention the vast, life-draining pointlessness of it all. The old aversion of wanting to win Eurovision again is probably the reason why Russia has decided to enter Anastasiya Prykhodko this year – a funny-looking woman with a voice that, let’s not beat around the bush here, sounds like a man. And it’s also the reason why Mamo has no discernible melody to speak of. Still, Mamo does have one thing going for it -  two minutes in, Anastasiya hits one massive sustained note. So, if nothing else, at least we know what she’d sound like if she fell down a well. See? We’re all about the positive.

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Eurovision 2009 is close. So close we can taste it. It tastes like blood. Oh, wait, no, that’s where we’ve tried to chew our own tongue off because we can’t stand Eurovision. Our mistake.

Anyway, want to know the Eurovision news for the day? It’s an unusual one – today’s Eurovision profile is a song that we don’t completely hate. In fact, we really wouldn’t mind if it won. In other news, we’re going to spend the rest of today scrubbing the shame from our bodies with our fingernails.

Here’s the Eurovision 2009 profile for Flor-De-Lis from Portugal…

Portugal · Flor-de-Lis, Todas as ruas do amor

You know what you get with a Portuguese Eurovision entry, and that’s a desperate reminder that Portugal has more to it culturally than a couple of hundred bright pink English skinheads throwing garden furniture into a hotel swimming pool. This year, we’re proud to say, is no different at all – Todas as ruas do amor by Flor-de-Lis is full of all kinds of traditional Portuguese instruments. And it’s this total absence of nasty dance beats or old mulleted men in silver suits who think they can single-handedly stop all wars (hello Holland) that makes Todas as ruas do amor so disarmingly lovely. Portugal doesn’t stand a hope in hell of winning Eurovision this year, although on the basis of what we’ve heard from the rest of the continent so far, it absolutely should.

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11 days. That’s it. 11 days and it’s the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. But don’t be sad, because we’ve still got an infuriatingly large amount of countries to get through before then.

And with such a short amount of time left until Eurovision, we’re sure you can imagine how busy it is over at Eurovision HQ! Why, just last week it was announced that Dita Von Teese might be performing with the Germans during their performance. Which is exciting, right? Right? Oh, why won’t anybody answer us?

Anyway, here’s the Eurovision 2009 rundown for Lidia Kopania from Poland…

Poland · Lidia Kopania, I Don’t Wanna Leave

Hey kids, do you like Celine Dion? You do? Then we’d guess you’re probably Polish, because this is the second year running that Poland has entered a Celine Dion soundalike into the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year’s entry vanished without trace, but will Lidia Kopania do any better? Oh, who knows. Her Eurovision biography largely ignore her in favour of endless crowing that her managers used to know Phil Collins or something, and I Don’t Wanna Leave is so treacly and bland that you could listen to it 400 times and not remember how it goes. It’s a good job you’re pretty, Lidia. We’ve voted for much less.

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Now we know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that we can’t possibly top yesterday’s Eurovision profile.

And you’re right. We can’t. Yesterday we profiled the worst Eurovision song in history, and nothing can come close to even equalling its magnificent awfulness. But here’s the next best thing – the favourite to win Eurovision. Relax, though – it’s performed by a child who’ll you’ll probably want to injure.

Here, then, is the Eurovision 2009 profile for Alexander Rybak from Norway…

Norway · Alexander Rybak, Fairytale

Believe what you read and you’d think that Norway had this year’s Eurovision Song Contest all sewn up. After all, it’s a little bit Irish-sounding, it’s written and performed by an impossibly young handsome international star and musical polymath and it got more selection votes than any other song in Norwegian history. But look a little closer at Alexander Rybak. Look at all the precocious confidence in his cocky little voice. Look at the carefree way he throws back his shoulders. Look at the unnaturally thick flop of his hair. Alexander Rybak, friends, is nothing more than the Norwegian Ray Quinn. And as such he must be stopped. Stopped, you hear? STOPPED!

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Look, it’s been a rubbish week. Nobody’s got any money and we’ll all be dead by the summer.

But help is at hand. Because now, in today’s Eurovision rundown, we have a treat for you. Something that will blow the gloomy old cobwebs away from your life and give you the best start to the day you have ever head. We’re not exaggerating. Today we bring you the absolute worst Eurovision entry in the entire history of the competition. Excited?

Good. Here it is, then – the 2009 Eurovision entry from the Netherlands, by The Toppers…

Netherlands · The Toppers, Shine

It’s become a recent tradition that the Netherlands never gets through to the Eurovision finals no matter how talented its entries are. And this year, to all intents and purposes, it looks like they’ve given up. Yes, The Toppers might be a record-breaking Dutch supergroup with a string of number one albums and sold-out shows to their name, but look at them. Just. Bloody. Look. At. Them. They’re wearing silver suits, for crying out loud. Two of them have got mullets. And as for Shine itself, any song with the opening line “There are so many wars right now in this World” then goes on to assert that “The only thing that we have to do is love the one we hate… Maybe the answer is just this simple song to keep the world from going wrong” deserves to be punched in the face. This isn’t just the worst Eurovision song we’ve heard this year – there’s a strong chance that this is legitimately the worst thing we’ve ever heard. Ever. Ever. In our entire lives. God, it’s awful.

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Halfway through the week, but we promise you that it’ll be the best half-week of these Eurovision 2009 rundowns.

Well, maybe not the best. But the most interesting, at least. Why? Because Friday’s profile is performed by the worst boy in all the world, and tomorrow’s profile is the absolute worst song we have ever heard in all our lives. And today’s profile? Well, um, let’s skip over that, shall we?

So here’s the Eurovision 2009 rundown for Andrea Demirovi? from Montenegro…

Montenegro · Andrea Demirovi?, Just Get Out of My Life

You know what there isn’t enough of in this year’s Eurovision? Angry young madams, that’s what. You know, the girls whose men have made them so furious that they’re compelled to press the ‘Europop demo’ button on their Casio keyboard and write a song containing a couplet that rhymes ‘fire’ with ‘desire’. And it looks like the closest we’ll get to that is Just Get Out Of My Life by Andrea Demirovi? – a song that forgoes the fire/desire’ route and instead experiments with some genuinely preposterous imagery: “You are like a moonbeam that makes feel so lonely” it goes, even though we’re almost certain that the man in Andrea’s life is nothing like a moonbeam whatsoever. Also – SPOILER ALERT – she only wants him out of her life because she loves him. Bless.

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