In this week's episode, the most dramatic group chat story of the week that didn't involve the military secrets of the United States, Poland and Ukraine hope to set the stage for success.

And what do those semi final running order slots mean for your favourites?

I'm Stephen Perkins and this is Douzepois.

Hello, London, we are ready for your votes.

It is Monday, 31st of March, and I'm here with another round up of the Eurovision news from the past seven days.

Some quite serious and some very, very silly.

And if that isn't Eurov in a nutshell, I don't know what is.

So let's take a quick skim through the latest headlines.

First of all, with the contest around a month and a half away, all of the acts are putting plans in place for their staging in Basel, and most of them are dropping little hints to get us hyped for what they have in store.

The latest teasers have come from Ukraine's Zipablat and Poland's Zacina Shtakowska.

Speaking to rfi, Szifablatt lead singer Daniel Leszynski said that they'd engaged a new director for their performance and that the changes in the number are radical.

It's completely different now.

Not to be outdone, Justina Szczikowska, whose staging of Gaia in Poland's national final was already pretty amazing, has revealed that she and her team are planning a special effect that has never been done before at Eurovision, saying that at the end of the performance we are planning to create a 3D effect.

At the very least, we will try something different.

Poland do have a track record in recent years of trying fairly ambitious things with their performances, but not always successfully, as we saw last year with the staging of Luna's the Tower, which kind of overwhelmed the song.

Anyway, this all sounds very encouraging, so we look forward to seeing what Poland and Ukraine and indeed everyone else, have in store for us come May.

In other news, we have officially hit the silly season of Eurovision 2025, thanks to what sounds like a complete non story over a group chat in the wake of the US government accidentally adding the editor in chief of the Atlantic to a group chat in which they were discussing their plans to organise a strike on Yemen.

This one was never going to be the most high profile group chat story of the week, but it gained a bit of traction with certain corners of the fandom.

Nonethele.

Essentially, the Eurovision Fund website ran a story reporting that a group chat had been set up on Instagram for this year's contestants but that certain acts had been excluded from it.

Inevitably, speculation started about exactly who was being excluded by whom and why.

So Denmark's Sisal, who is entering the contest this year with Hallucination, decided to put an end to the drama by posting a statement on Instagram which I just need to address this.

I have never excluded anyone from a group chat.

I started a group chat for all Eurovision participants but I could only add 13.

I immediately wrote please add everyone you can.

I tried to add everyone but it said can't add because they didn't follow me and some had private accounts.

There are still participants missing and we are trying to get them in.

No one is being excluded and people need to stop believing everything they read and stop creating unnecessary drama.

We have a great community and the only thing I stand for as a person is creating a positive and inclusive space.

We're here for the music.

So there you have it.

No scandal, no exclusion and in all honesty, no more dramatic than any other group chat that any of us have ever been a part of.

Moving back to more serious business, the big story this week was of course the announcement of the running orders for this year's two semi finals on 13th and 15th of May.

The approach that debuted last year in which the Big five and the host nation will get to perform non competitively in the semi final that their country votes in, will be continuing for 2025.

So here's what that setup looks like.

Tuesday's semi final opens with Iceland's Vibe forming Roha.

Then slot number two is Poland's Krzysztina Srkowska with Gaia.

Third will be Clemen for Slovenia with How Much Time Do We Have?

Followed in fourth by Estonia's Tommy Cash with Espresso Macchiato.

Then there's a break for our first Big Five preview.

Spain's Melody with Eser Diva followed by Ukraine in position number five for Zethablatt with Bird of Prey and then Kai for Sweden on in sixth position with Barra Bardabastu.

Portugal are on seventh with Napa's Deslocado and eighth is Norway's Kyle Alessandro with Leiter.

Position number nine will be taken by Belgium's Red Sebastian with Strobe Lights.

And then we have our second break for Italy's Lucio Corsi with Volevo Essere Unduro.

We return to the competition after that with Azerbaijan's Mama Gama and Run with youh on in 10th position followed by Gabri Ponti for San Marino in 11th with Tutta l'Italia 12th position goes to Albania's Skodje Electronica with Zerme.

Then 13th is Claude for the Netherlands with C'est la Vie.

14th is Marco Bosniak for Croatia with Poison Cake.

Then our final break of the night for Ho Station, Switzerland with Zoe Mi's Voyage and then concluding with Theo Evan for Cyprus with Shh.

So initial thoughts on this one before we move on.

Iceland seemed to be a good choice to open the contest with a fun, high energy song and frankly, if anyone has the vocal hef to survive the curse of performing second, it is Poland's Justina.

Ukraine are in a surprisingly difficult spot going on early and before overall favourite Sweden.

But I can see the logic of Ukraine being a reliably popular country at Eurovision with a lot of public support.

Who can probably survive that?

Obviously the banter option would have been to have Italy running straight into San Marino afterwards.

So I am a bit disappointed that Azerbaijan are sat in between but we can can't have everything.

The only other thing I'd say is that taking a break for Switzerland to perform when we only have one competitive song left does feel a bit odd.

And Cyprus are kind of sat there on their own at the end, but maybe that will help them.

I think if it were up to me I would have put Switzerland one spot earlier just because I think Netherlands, Switzerland, Croatia, Cyprus would flow better.

But we'll see how it plays on the night.

Over to Thursday's second semi final and we're starting with Australia's Gojo and Milkshake man followed by Montenegro's Nina Zizic with Dobrodoshli.

Ireland are on third with Emi and Laika Parti followed.

Latvia's Tautometas with berman Lajmi on fourth and Armenia's Parg with Survivor on fifth and Austria's JJ with Wasted Love on sixth.

Then we take our first break for the UK's Remember Monday with what the Hell Just Happened before Greece's Claudia takes the seventh spot with Astoromata.

Then Lithuania's Cartasis with Tavo Aquis in eighth position nine goes to Malta's Miriana Conte with Serving.

Then tenth is Georges Mariam Schengelia with Freedom followed by another break for France's Luann with Maman after her.

In position 11 is Denmark's sisal with hallucination.

Then 12th is Adonis for Czechia with Kiss Kiss Goodbye followed by Luxembourg's Laura Thorne in 13th with La Poupet Montlison in 14th is Israel's Duval Rafael with New Day Will Rise.

Then Our final break for Germany's Abor and Tina with Vala followed by our final two performances, Prince with Mila for Serbia in 15th and then Finland's Erika Vickmann closes things with ich Kommer in 16th position.

I think most people's takeaway from this one is that it doesn't look too hopeful for Montenegro, which is odd given that they've just returned to the competition after a couple of years break and you'd think that setting them up to fail like this doesn't feel like much of a welcome home.

I really like Dobrodoshli so I'm hoping it can find a way through, but this is a pretty competitive semi final and I do think they've been dealt quite a bad hand here.

Austria also have an arguably tough draw there for a favourite song, but being the last competitive performance before the first act break where we go over to the United Kingdom might end up working in their favour.

Other than that, there are no real surprises here.

With a lot of the big favourites being lined up for the final third, it feels like favourable spots for Denmark and Luxembourg.

That should boost their chances of qualification and Erika Vickmann being the climax of the night feels right and just that's the news.

Taken care of.

So there's just time for a quick check in with the bookies before we sign off.

The top five hasn't changed much since our last check in.

It's still the same five countries, just in a slightly different order.

Sweden are still the favourites to win and have drifted slightly, but still have very favourable odds of around 2.

1.

Austria are still in second place but have also drifted out slightly with odds of around 9.

4.

France have moved up into third place with odds of around 5.

1.

Israel have moved down to fourth with odds of around 9.

1 and Netherlands are still in fifth place with odds of around 121 to win.

So essentially France more favoured than last time, everyone else in roughly the same order but with their odds a bit longer.

But I do still think we are far enough out that there is still plenty of time for this all to change, especially once the rehearsals begin in Switzerland.

That's it from me for this week.

Thank you as always for listening.

If you enjoyed, please do remember to subscribe on your podcast platform of choice so that you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes.

And if you could leave us a glowing review to help us climb up the charts, we would really appreciate that.

I will be back next week with a brand new episode.

Until then, goodnight Europe and good morning Australia.