Eurovision 2012 Baku Final: Predictions Contest (Win a Shirt!) and Preview Haikus

The big day has finally arrived. At midnight in Baku, and 3 pm on the east coast, the final of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest will begin.

And to wrap up our week of celebrating Eurovision WTFs, we thought it would be fitting to reward you all with a chance to win some BSH swag that was borne out of a Eurovision WTF. Namely our Latvian Wolf shirt, in the size of your choice, shipped right to your doorstep. All you have to do to win is crack the code that is Eurovision with a little contest.
One quick disclaimer: we’re going to need to have at least 12 entries to make the contest valid, so make sure to tell everybody you know to enter so that we can fly past that minimum.

So much stuff after the jump. Rules for the contest, the running order for the final (complete with wave-y flags and a haiku about each song), and info about how to follow the show live.

Contest Rules:

You will be trying to predict the top ten and bottom five finishers out of the 26 countries in this year’s final. Your entry (to be submitted in the comment section of this post) should basically look like this (except with countries that are still competing, obviously):

1. Latvia
2. Montenegro
3. San Marino
4. Georgia
5. Austria
6. Finland
7. Portugal
8. The Netherlands
9. Switzerland
10. Bulgaria

…

22. Croatia

23. Belgium

24. Belarus

25. Israel

26. Slovenia

And here is the scoring system that will be used to determine a winner:

1st: (Worth 120 points)
2nd: (Worth 100 points)
3rd: (Worth 80 points)
4th: (Worth 70 points)
5th: (Worth 60 points)
6th: (Worth 50 points)
7th: (Worth 40 points)
8th: (Worth 30 points)
9th: (Worth 20 points)
10th: (Worth 10 points)
…
22nd: (Worth 10 points)
23rd: (Worth 20 points)
24th: (Worth 30 points)
25th: (Worth 60 points)
26th: (Worth 100 points)You’ll also earn points for countries that you correctly put in the top ten or bottom five, but whose exact placing you miss. These points will be determined by the following formula:

Points if you would have gotten it right
——————————————————– = Points you get (with rounding)
(Places Missed by + 1)So for example, if you predicted Lithuania to come in fourth but they actually win, you would receive:

120
—- = 30 points
(3+1)It’s a lot less complicated than it looks…

You must submit your ballot before the first points are announced on the show. This would likely be at roughly 5:10 pm, but just try to get it in as soon as you can after the last song is performed). Also feel free to submit before the show starts if you have a pretty good idea of what you think is going to happen. If you want to review any performances you can find them all here.

And like I said before the jump, we need at least 12 entries if we’re going to be able to give out a shirt, so tell your friends and neighbors to join in.

Enough rules. Now, the running order for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 Final…with haiku analysis.

Flag	Country	Artist – Song – Haiku
	1. United Kingdom	Engelbert Humperdinck – Love Will Set You Free Age seventy-six / But he’s still getting it done / Grannies love The Hump
	2. Hungary	Compact Disco – Sound Of Our Hearts Mediocre rock / Everyone wearing leather / You’ll forget this one
	3. Albania	Rona Nishliu – Suus Battlefield Earth-esque/ / Sounds like a boiling kettle / Modern Medusa
	4. Lithuania	Donny Montell – Love Is Blind Blindfolded at first / Then finds sight and air guitar / One-man discotheque
	5. Bosnia & Herzegovina	Maya Sar – Korake Ti Znam Piano bench / Blows even without wind machine / Bathroom break time, yes?
	6. Russia	Buranovskiye Babushki – Party For Everybody Adorable grandmas / Baking a victory? / Ladies came to win
	7. Iceland	Greta Salóme & Jónsi – Never Forget Over-dramatic / Volcanic intensity / Skinny tie death stare
	8. Cyprus	Ivi Adamou – La La Love Dancing on table / La La La La La La La / La La La La La
	9. France	Anggun – Echo (You And I) Whistle while you work / Cleopatra-esque lifting / Find those guys some shirts
	10. Italy	Nina Zilli – L’Amore È Femmina (Out Of Love) If Amy Winehouse / Was an Italian instead / And…um…still alive.
	11. Estonia	Ott Lepland – Kuula That boring grey vest / Stolen from Jim Tressel’s grave? / Remarkably dull.
	12. Norway	Tooji – Stay Stomping Norwegian / Darkhorse in a hoodie / Why’s he grab her hand?
	13. Azerbaijan	Sabina Babayeva – When The Music Dies Very depressing / Hometown Debbie Downer–why? / Repeat unlikely
	14. Romania	Mandinga – Zaleilah Accordionist! / A moonwalking bagpiper! / ¿En español? ¿Que?
	15. Denmark	Soluna Samay – Shoud’ve Known Better Her old sailor hat / Can’t top cellist’s Starter cap / She should know better.
	16. Greece	Eleftheria Eleftheriou – Aphrodisiac Craving viagra? / Perennial powerhouse Greeks / Won’t need a bailout
	17. Sweden	Loreen – Euphoria Some mumbly verses / Then frantic, snowy dancing / Odds-on favorite
	18. Turkey	Can Bonomo – Love Me Back Drunken sea shanty / Azerbaijan loves Turkey / And he loves them back
	19. Spain	Pastora Soler – Quédate Conmigo (Stay With Me) Spanish struggling / Not top-five since Ninety-Five / Decent soccer, though
	20. Germany	Roman Lob – Standing Still Big puppy dog eyes / Make long, desperate eye contact / And a stupid hat
	21. Malta	Kurt Calleja – This is the Night Surprise finalist / This won’t be his night at all / But his heels impress
	22. Macedonia	Kaliopi – Crno I Belo Aging Balkan star / Singing in a black blazer / Serbs do it better.
	23. Ireland	Jedward – Waterline Power ranger twins / The fountain of hyper youth / Will make a big splash
	24. Serbia	Željko Joksimović – Nije Ljubav Stvar Second in oh-four / Could do one better this time / Babushki battler
	25. Ukraine	Gaitana – Be My Guest Flowers in her hair / Virtual back up dancers / Trumpeters in skirts
	26. Moldova	Pasha Parfeny – Lăutar Follows trumpets on / And he sings about trumpets! / Let’s swim on the floor!

Here are the current odds from a bunch of bookmakers to give you a sense of how the experts think things are going to go. But beware–Eurovision results often defy reason. Last year’s favorite France finished in 15th, but for the most part the odds wind up at least in the correct ballpark.

You can watch live (or on delay after the show finishes) on a pretty decent live stream at the official Eurovision site. And you can talk about the show in the comments here (I’ll also be tweeting about the show a lot at @BenRothenberg, annoying the crap out of my tennis followers).

Good luck!