Eurovision 2011 - 10/12/14 May 2011

You could have Tweeted Dickie Branson ?

That's because last year's winner Germany was a Big Four country which qualified directly to the final. In fact it was the first time a Big Four country had won (since the introduction of the Big Four). Here are the highest placed semi-final qualifiers in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest:

Highest placed 2010 semi-final 1 song:
BELGIUM - Tom Dice "Me And My Guitar" (Final 6th place, 143 points)

Highest placed 2010 semi-final 2 song:
TURKEY - maNga "We Could Be The Same" (Final 2nd place, 170 points)

ps Please no more about my being trapped in the train toilet on 17 April 2011, to avoid derailing this thread let's get back to Eurovision Song Contest 2011.

We're all just relieved you didn't derail the train. I for one shan't mention it ever again.

It turns out that I know someone (by proxy) in the Icelandic team. Is their song worthy of my support?

Well, it's already through to Saturday, and I for one like it Gav. Sweet little song, performed in tribute to its late writer.

Whether it's going to reach very high in the final results, I'm not so sure.

Although lets be honest, your opinion is about has about as much weight as a Lib Dem in the cabinet!

I won't post the link here for obvious reasons but the bloke on Twitter who is naming the people with UK Super Injunctions also tweeted about this incident then some of the gossip websites picked up on it too.

That Eire and Sweden both in the final, along with the gnome singers

Was someone trying to drown Sara?

As well as the sound problems something seemed to go wrong with the black graphic that covered the Vodafone logo. It seemed to appear at the right time but sometimes stayed on too long so we got a black graphic over the picture too.

How did this actually work? The fact that it appeared at the right time right down to the exact pixel makes me think it was automated but the fact that it didn't quite work properly makes me imagine someone sitting in London frantically pressing a button when they thought the scoreboard might appear.

Anyway, that is it for a another year. We've had overruns, sound problems, graphics problems and someone even got locked in a train toilet for a while. What will 2012 bring? I can't wait!

All it takes it for the Vodafone graphic to fade in rather than appear with the rest of the graphics and you can hit the Auto Take button as soon as the graphics appear and cover it before it's shown, most of the time anyway.

I didn't notice what happened on the time that it was missed though...

It's just a black mask that the vision mixer keys over the scoreboard as soon as they see it cut up, and loses it as soon as they see the vodafone logo disappear on the incoming feed. However this only works if the logo fades up after they cut up the scoreboard (i.e. the logo is driven by a tally/cue or the host gfx op is on the ball) and is taken off before they cut away from the scoreboard.

It works if the country hosting the broadcast understands (or the director host directing is from a country who do) - NRK and SVT have similar rules to the UK so usually also have to blank domestically (even if they are hosting...)

Looks like the Germans were cutting to the board with the logo already up and cutting away from the board with the logo still up - which shouldn't happen...

There will have been a rehearsal - as well as graphic templates provided - so now things are digital it's easy to position pixel accurately.

They blanked it for one showing but the black graphic stayed on for too long and just as someone noticed and faded it out, the scoreboard appeared again complete with exposed Vodafone logo. The Vodafone logo didn't fade on when it was shown, it just appeared at the same time as the results board.

Most of the time the black graphic appeared and disappeared at exactly the right frame so it must have been smarter than someone pressing a button.