FANS will gather around their TV sets this weekend for the annual festival of all things European.

Excepting of course for Australia, Azerbaijan and Israel who will also compete to win the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest from Lisbon.

The thing to bear in mind is that this week in the Portuguese captial two semi-finals will cut the number of countries from 43 to a more manageable 26.

The Big Five which includes the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy and France will go direct to the final as will Portugal who won last year's contest.

A singer hoping to repeat his success of 2009 is Norway's fiddle playing Alexander Rybak, 32, who won the contest with the song Fairytale. However, this year's entry That's How You Write A Song is not a patch on his previous winner but he should still make the final.

A outstanding performer to look out for this year is Estonia's Elina Nechayeva, who will, I promise, take the roof off the venue with her song La Forza a classical operatic performance specially written for her voice. Elina is a huge classical music fan who loves both Mozart and Tchaikovsky

Another song which is being rated as a contender at this year's contest is Israel's Netta with the song TOY, which examines the theme of domestic violence.It should sail into Saturday's final but her on stage performance is all important for certain qualification.

If the early reports coming out of Eurovision are to be believed then Ireland's Ryan O’Shaughnessy with the song Together has ignited it.

The song's video shows two young men walking through Dublin holding hands and if stories are to be believed that is a definite 'no, no' for the Russians who are intending to screen something else and while it will do no harm to create controversy, the song is weak and is likely to fall in the semi-final.

I hope that I am wrong and it is the Russian song which takes the fall instead in the second semi-final, but somehow I doubt it.

This year's UK entry SuRie was one of the less fancied songs at our national selection, but with the song Storm she triumphed.

Born Susanna Marie Cork, she was raised in Hertfordshire.

If you haven't seen her before then you will immediately see the resemblance that she has to a young Annie Lennox.

To my mind the song is anthemic once it gets going and has an easily remembered lyric but there may be better songs to topple our girl including Lithuania, Moldova and a big outsider that could finish near to the top, namely Poland.

Hopefully, the qualifiers from the two semi-finals will include Moldova Lithuania, Russia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Israel, Australia, Denmark, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania,Sweden, Ukraine