Good morning! We're on the home stretch, and Slovenia is kicking us off

Good morning Eurovision chums, and welcome to day 4. Today we’re going to round off the emi finalists, and bring us up to 36 of the 42 songs. It’s a busy day with 10 countries to rehearse, including the hot favourite Sweden, which I have to say is the big one for me today. I’m also keen to see Slovenia (which I actually now have, see below), Turkey and Norway. Georgia will also be one to watch I think though I’m not expecting major surprises for the rest.I’ll try to do a couple before work, though fear I may be on catch up most of the today. This evening I’m off to the last of the pre-Baku events in London, the Cheese Fun Do I wrote about last week.

So Slovenia... Oh dear! This is not as good a start as I‘d hoped. The 5 backing singers/ornaments are doing what looks like a rather lacklustre flounce in no discernible pattern around Eva, with some occasional un-coordinated arm waving. Gone are the net curtain meringues around the head, but gone too seems to be any sense of presentation. I’ll wisely reserve judgement to see what this looks like on the screen, as if you analysed the performers’ positions on stage in the Slovene final it could have looked equally strange yet the cameras picked out some very impressive angles closer up, and this may be what they’re going for here, but at the moment it’s looking a bit flimsy. I also need a closer look at the detail on Eva’s frock, which seems to have some kind of floral appliqué but with just a cursory glance I’d say she’s a prime contender for the Barbara Dex Award. Very disappointing all round.

I'm having some trouble embedding the videos, but the link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJi2z6OCECU

Thanks once again to all the team at ESCExtra who have universally been the first to get the videos up for us - you're brilliant guys! 

Monty x