Yet more of Koldun

It's hard to believe that almost a month on from the Eurovision Song Contest, I'm still getting so many visitors to the blog from people searching for Dima Koldun. So I decided to put up a few more photos of him. If only those web visitors had picked up their phones and voted for him, we might not have had to endure a reprise of Molitva at the end of the show.

Koldun gets a visit from schlager royalty - Queen Carola herself. Isn't she tiny? Or isn't he strapping?

Rehearsing the Paul Daniels magician moves before Helsinki performance.

I've never seen anybody accessorize this well with a pink pillowcase.

Koldun enjoys a visit from Rosie Palmer and her five sons.

Three steps to a textbook Koldun moody pose. 1: Back yourself up against a door. 2: Tuck fingers into your (girly) white belt and look tense 3: Tilt your head at 40 degrees and give it some teeth.

No wonder there are all sorts of rumours circulating about what goes on below deck aboard the Good Ship Koldun. All the nice boys love a sailor.

Frodo left the shire wearing his best hobbit bling.

Can you tell what it is yet? Koldun does his Rolf Harris impression.

What might have been

Even a full week on from Eurovision, my site is still getting hit at a rate of knots by people searching for Dima Koldun, the Belarussian entrant. So I thought I'd put up the last of my photos of him.

Right: There was an air of potential mullet about Dima's haircut in the run-up to the final.

Did anyone notice that he'd had a new haircut for his performance in Helsinki? There was a certain air of the Paul Daniels magic show about his performance and the cheesy dance moves were fabulous.

Right: Poor Koldun looks none too pleased with the Belarussian delegation's attempts to give him a short back and sides.

It appears that not even appearing all over the net in various states of undress was enough to win the competition for poor Dmitry. Mind you, it was enough to take Belarus into its first ever Eurovision final and a respectable sixth position. Helped, of course, by the awarding of 12 points by Russia and Ukraine which, of course, I'm sure is nothing to do with them either bordering Belarus or being close political allies. Unbelievably, the UK gave poor Koldun zip.

Of course, he might have fared a little better than sixth place if only the draw had been a little kinder to him. As it was, Koldun performed firmly towards the start of the show and by the end, most viewers were probably too drunk to remember it. I know I was.

Right: In an attempt to liven up his magician's act performance, Dmitry rehearses backstage on how to pull his rabbit out of the hat.

Praying for Belarus to get through

With less than two hours to pass before the beginning of the long-awaited Eurovision semi-final in Helsinki, I would bet that there are 28 very nervous contestants preparing to give it their all on stage. Koldun will be one of many praying for their chance to make it through to the final on Saturday.

The lot of the losing semi-finalists is a tragic one. Their fate is to be known forever as mere "also-rans", valiant challengers eliminated in the earlier heats of this trashy contest. Eighteen brave thoroughbreds destined to fall at the first furlong. Within the next five hours, eighteen brave contenders will find their ship of dreams crashing spectacularly on the barren rocks of semi-final humiliation. And as you cast your eye down the list of tonight's participants, it's easy to see that some are sailing sturdier ships than others. Some of the ropier entries are only capable of sinking into the abyss.

On this cheerful note, and without further ado, here are my ten predictions on which countries will sail a steady course towards participation in Saturday's final, in no particular order:

Belarus
Turkey
Denmark
Andorra
Bulgaria (she'll get by with a little help from her neighbourly friends)
Switzerland (just about)
Serbia (look at the size of my diaspora)
Macedonia
Slovenia
Cyprus

Dima Koldun back by popular demand!

After a stampede of visitors to the blog following my recent exclusive, I have decided to give the audience more of what they want, namely more Dima Koldun photos. As you can see here, even a routine morning shower can become a photo opportunity when your goal is Eurovision glory.

Left: "Can I have the results of the internet juries?" After using the shower head as a telephone, one can only wonder what he did with the soap.

It's hard to predict who will win in Helsinki and I would be sceptical about trusting the many Eurovision polls online, for the simple reason that they allow voters to award 1-12 points, whereas in reality, people will only vote for their favourite song, not for several. But let's see where Koldun stands in the major Eurovision polls. At present, all signs point towards a top 5 finish. At escnation, Belarus is rated fifth by the voters and fourth by the juries. It's a similar story at soult and at the demandi website, where English-speaking voters have ranked Belarus in fifth position. The highest current rating for Koldun appears to be found in the escstats poll, where voters rank Belarus in third position and juries rank him second to Greece.

Left: After all this number crunching, Dima needs a lie-down.

Moving further afield, will Koldun be able to rely on any neighbourly voting to push his quest for glory onwards? Well, not necessarily, if the escestonia poll is anything to go by, where he is in seventh place. This is up one place from last week though. There doesn't look much hope from Poland either, as eurowizja places him only in eighth position.

So what does all this mean? All signs appear that Koldun will make it through the semi-final into the final. We all know what a good record the successful semi-finalists have in the final itself, so a top five finish is likely. A win is also possible, although this will depend on the performance on the night.

You can help cheer on Koldun in Helsinki by downloading this free, original wallpaper for your desktop. Simply left click on the image, wait til it appears, then right click and set as desktop background. And remember to vote for him on the night!

Bookmark me: More Dima Koldun to come!

Video fabulousness from Macedonia

At last, this is what a Eurovision video should look like! It's Macedonia's Karolina and her entry, Mojot Svet, which poor Karolina has controversially been forced to sing entirely in Macedonian. But look at the video, it has all the key ingredients of trashy, pop fabulousness - Glitter and ticker-tape raining down from the skies! A wind machine! And glitterballs, big glitterballs, more glitterballs than your wildest dreams could hope for! Swamped in all this trashy paraphenalia when watching this, you can almost forget that the song isn't as catchy as it really should be. Let's hope Macedonia makes it into the final!