Every year at Eurovision we get together with a mixture fellow song contest geeks and bemused neighbours and friends who just like eating and drinking.

This year it was my turn to organise the sweepstake, so everyone has some sort of vested interest in every country, and I made these cards. I think they were meant to be like passports to start with, then I realised I wanted useful extras like facts about the artists (taken from the incredibly patchy biogs on the official Eurovision site). And I've made them to print on a home inkjet printer, without too much ink, so they don't look much like passports in the end.

Feel free to rip them off! (Print pages 1-13, then do page 14 on the back of each one, cut and fold...)

We've just celebrated another record increase in audience share at Fire Radio, a station where I love picking the hits for the playlist.

The last time our share was as high as now, iPods looked like this. They only had black and white screens and couldn't play games.

Original XBox, Nintendo Gamecube and Gameboy Advance were state of the art.

This was the latest way to get email out and about...

(And the only way to do music, games and email on the move was to carry one of each.)

You needed more for web browsing. The best Apple iBook weighed nearly 3kg and had less processing power and storage space than today's iPod Touch.

Facebook was called "Thefacebook" and you could only join if you were at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia or Yale.

No-one in the UK had seen "Lost", but in America they thought it would be the best show on TV.

Kate Thornton presented a new show called "The X Factor", but winner Steve Brookstein failed to get a Christmas number 1.

Keisha and Mutya were still in The Sugababes.

Brian McFadden had a number 1 hit and was still married to Kerry Katona.

IT WAS A DIFFERENT WORLD BACK THEN...

Our listeners today can access 12.7 million Spotify songs, 140 million YouTube videos and 666 million people on Facebook, and over 10 billion apps have been downloaded using a 100g phone in their pocket.

They don't listen to Fire Radio because they have to, only if they want to.
And they chose to listen just as much this quarter.

Congratulations from Steve Jobs (and Bern)

(PS - did you guess the year? It was 2004.)

While chatting about suitable music for the Dennis The Menace show on Fun Kids, how did I not realise before - Dennis is an emo kid waiting to happen. It's just one heartbreak away...

OK, we're down to the serious bit, where everyone looks like a potential winner, and it's time to start polishing the final packages. So whose idea was "Club Classics"? Anything to do with the radio station which advertises in the show and is owned by the people who manage the winning artists? I'm calling it "Is This Heart?" week.

Rebecca
"Show Me Love" - nice, sounds pretty similar to the original. Not my thing, but it should cross her over to new fans - smart.
"Amazing Grace" - how weird, one of our church interns showed this film about the song and its writer this week, and I thought how amazing it would be if someone did it on X Factor - it is, by lots of measures, the world's most popular song. I don't think Rebecca did the best version ever, but the choice was bold and brilliant.
STATS SAY... big week for Rebecca, best ever, she's in.

Mary
"Never Can Say Goodbye" - more camp than a Butlins showtunes minibreak.
"Memories" - ouch! "What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget" sums it up, pitchwise. Oh no, there is a big emotional story... So you'd be heartless not to vote for her, frankly. Grrr. I'm sure Tesco's aren't exactly thrilled by how desperately everyone is to get her out of there. I suppose that's unlikely to hurt Mary's chances either.
STATS SAY... same as always - most likely to exit if the iTunes crowd is right. But often they're not, so we don't know...

Matt
"You Got The Love" - very clever choice of song, thank you Florence for preparing the way, actually quite amazingly good. I like it for being the tune which sounds most like what we love from the artist, and least like what would be playing on Heart every night.
"She's Always A Woman" - Matt has his own theme this week, songs recently covered by rock people. Nice, don't know if Simon knows how big a hit it was this year, but it was a bit wobbly for sure. I think it's still Matt's show to lose, though.
STATS SAY... actually not a great week for Matt, but he's still ahead of the pack. He's in.

Cher
"Nothing On You" - also a great song choice, sounds like Cher the actual artist instead of last week's "Cher! The musical". Hope she's not damaged by the apparent identity crisis of the last few weeks.
"Love The Way You Lie" - very well delivered, we're particularly loving the flame effects, and it worked for us. Not everyone has to do ballads to be successful, surely? Glad she's looking like at least she knows who she is.
STATS SAY... most ratings for her for ages, but she is a "marmite" artist with as many awful reviews as good ones. Should be through, but I don't think she's really winning the most votes.

One Direction
"Only Girl" - nice twist on a girl's song, though it did sound like they were singing "I'll make you feel like a man". Good enough, but I doubt it'll win them any new fans. The big question for these guys is how big their fanbase really is now.
"Chasing Cars" - another hugely popular song made even better by having five singers and a key change. They're also looking more polished than ever. By the numbers it works.
STATS SAY... a big step up for the boys this week, but will it be enough to get them all the way to the finish?

SO WHO'S OUT?
The numbers point to Mary, but she may have overwhelming support from the older audience who never goes on iTunes and finds her distinctive against all the other acts. To me it looks like these acts have grown, however, while Mary just does what she does, and I'm going to guess that her fanbase isn't big enough to take her to the final. Let's see at 8pm.

Watched the show this afternoon, jotted some thoughts and crunched the stats. Looked at how each contestant's songs did relative to each other in terms of stats too, to see if we could spot standouts. Mostly all went as expected, with a few odd exceptions...

Wagner
"Creep" - totally worked for me (?? did I just write that about Wagner??). Love it that Louis totally misunderstood the lyrics and thought it was about a "winner" instead of a "weirdo". Sums it all up somehow. Can Wagner do some more classic misheard lyrics, like Bonnie Tyler's "Nothing but a hard egg" and Macy Gray's "I wear goggles when you are not here"?
"Addicted To Love" - this is all very "cruise ship" - ideal if you want to entertain people who like what they like and can't go anywhere else.
STATS SAY... better than last week - probably safe! 64% of his ratings are for "Creep", the standout song.

One Direction
"Summer of '69" - short and sweet, felt like a slightly unsatisfying snack, but not unpleasant. Hmmm.
"You Are So Beautiful To Me" - for rock week? Never mind, it was really good. Shame the harmonies seemed a bit low in the mix, but the lead vocals were outstanding.
STATS SAY... better than last week - probably safe! 53% of their ratings are for "Summer of '69", so both songs were liked pretty evenly. I think their fanbase just like everything they do, and I'm surprised their second song didn't stand out more. Did it connect as well as the judges thought?

Mary
"All I Want Is You" - very good!
"Brass In Pocket" - also very good! Has Mary found her real niche? Good luck writing original songs for her, though - she looks like a karaoke queen tonight.
STATS SAY... worse than last week. We know she doesn't generally have many fans on iTunes - could that now be a crucial problem for Mary? Could be danger. Ratings split evenly between the songs - no standout song. Not a good sign.

Cher
"Girlfriend" - ouch, no. I think Cheryl has drastically failed to understand Cher's fanbase - she needs to be credible urban, not cheesy Disney pop-rock. Judges totally disagree, but I'm hearing alarm bells...
"Walk This Way" - OK, but still another scene from "Cher! The musical" and I suspect not a big fanbase pleaser or builder.
STATS SAY... not much better than last week. My gut feel is DANGER, DANGER (but I got it totally wrong and said she was safe last week, so what do I know?!) 58% of her ratings are for "Girlfriend", but lots of them say "urgh" and "really?" Hmmmmm.....

Rebecca
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - loving the song choice, not so much the Simply Red-esque lite funk backing track. I liked it on paper,  weirdly still wanting to like it more in practice.
"Satisfaction" - soulfully done in a very nice way, like an undiscovered Motown original. Someone really should unglue her shoes at some point, though.
STATS SAY... in a bit of decline. 59% of her ratings are for "Satisfaction" - a definite standout. I'm hoping that is good enough to save her.

Matt
"I Love Rock And Roll" - errrr...?? It looks like the whole routine - song choice, style and dancers - have been mixed up with Wagner's. Did they swap for a bet? I suppose he doesn't always need to do fragile numbers - "Creep" would have been amazing, though...
"Nights In White Satin" - ahh, there we go, that's the tortured soul we paid to see. Well done on avoiding Coldplay obviousness too. The biz.
STATS SAY... back in growth, back on top. 76% of his ratings are for the clear standout "Nights In White Satin" - GIVE THE PUBLIC WHAT THEY WANT!!!

Katie
"Sex On Fire" - you couldn't pick a more popular rock song for all the Heart listeners out there. I'm still not sure who I'm watching post-haircut. The "moves" looked too stage school, more "We Will Rock You - The Musical" than actual rock. For me, that's really offputting, perhaps not for the great ITV1 public.
"Everybody Hurts" - sounds like classic Sunday night "please don't chuck me out" Katie. Pretty good, not amazing - Simon's right about the short edit being a problem - maybe the judges should have been asked to talk for 30 seconds less, would that improve things?
STATS SAY... bit of a decline from last weeks peak. Slight majority (53%) of Katie's ratings are for "Sex On Fire", but not a huge standout.

OVERALL
Really hard to say who is in danger. I'm going to suggest Mary, Katie and Rebecca for bottom three, but Cher is a bit of a worry and Wagner is... still Wagner. It's unbelievable that he would make the final... isn't it?!

It's REALLY close... Cher leads, Katie stands out in second (lots of her ratings are poor, but not as many as usual), Matt is having an off week, Wagner has more ratings than usual (most stinkers), One Direction and Rebecca both a little down. Paije looked like he had an amazing upturn, but is still one of the two lowest ratings shares. Mary is lowest, but also with a sharp upturn, and we know she's never been in the bottom two despite usually having the lowest ratings share.

So. To be honest, I don't think iTunes is going to be much help this week - it's all too close, and there are too many artists who prove to be exceptions with more support than we can predict.

Lowest shares: Paije and Mary

Lowest trending down: One Direction and Rebecca

Last night's predictions from my musical judgement + a bit of modelling: Paije and Wagner

Let's see which, if any of these, are right...???

EDIT - AFTER THE RESULTS

OK, Cher in the bottom two was a total shocker. Can't say we could have predicted that from iTunes or the music itself. I'm guessing she alienated her fanbase more than expected, and other people aren't yet warming to her. Either that or she seemed so safe, people didn't bother voting. Or maybe Simon was right about the damn stairs, and no-one could remember the tune after all the time the judges spent bickering about them. If the judges are more memorable than the talent, the talent gets no votes, even if they were really good...

Paije, on the other hand, was the only person predicted for bottom two by two of the models above, so is the least shocker, but it's still a shame he had to go.

We've got to come back to the question of why Wagner hasn't been bottom two yet, and when that will happen. Clearly his fanbase is bigger than expected, but I suspect not much bigger - reality is catching up for him. When he is finally bottom two, it will be the shortest final judging bit ever. I still prefer Tony Ferrino. (Why can't Wagner be a short term affair?)