Eurovision 2009 – The draw for running order

First off, here it is …

1 Lithuania
2 Israel
3 France
4 Sweden
5 Croatia
6 Portugal
7 Iceland
8 Greece
9 Armenia
10 Russia
11 Azerbaijan
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina
13 Moldova
14 Malta
15 Estonia
16 Denmark
17 Germany
18 Turkey
19 Albania
20 Norway
21 Ukraine
22 Romania
23 U.K.
24 Finland
25 Spain

And now a bit of analysis/commentary

I’ll write more in a separate entry a bit later about this. First thought: 8th is unexpectedly excellent for Greece considering what goes before, Norway’s draw is good but slightly tricky, and the UK must be jumping for joy to be coming off a run of six clear-cut uptempos. The huge number of slow songs at the start harms all of them though, and will make Sweden sound like a piece of thrash metal in comparison.