Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

After Croatia also Cyprus skips the Copenhagen 2014 edition of Eurovision song contest blaming the public opinion on the economical crisis and further cuts on RIK's budget for 2014.  Shame, Cyprus has been always a nice addition to the line up, and has scored 9 top-10 finished since their debut back in 1981. Yet their best placing is 5th that they have achieved three times: 1982 with Anna Vissi 's Mono i agapi , in 1997 with Hari & Andreas Konstantinou 's Mana mou and most recently in 2004 with Stronger every minute with Lisa Andreas (it is rumored she won the jury only vote so it could have been the first win for the island, if ...). In the past ten years with the semifinals Cyprus has made it to the final 4 times and left out 6 times. Ivi Adamou 's La la love was the last qualifier, placing 16th in the final despite being a hot fan favorite to do much better. Worth mentioning is also Marlain in 1999 who was a top contender for the victory before the fina...

Blogilkar had the pleasure to interview the Italian Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore. How did he live those two last editions in Baku and Dusseldorf? Will Italy be back in 2013? Will there be an Eurovision night in Sanremo? What are his favorite Eurovision songs? What does he think of Italian fans behavior? Here is the interview in English version. The Italian original one is here . Last year, Italy was back with, let's say general euphoria and welcomed with open arms by all in Dusseldorf. How were you received this year? We were greeted very well, for me now all the event management and other heads of delegations are like one big family. Last year, Italy was not among the favorites and finished second. This year, the Zilli was among the main contenders for victory and finished ninth. Why? I can not tell exactly, it is a competition ... you can win, you can lose ... it's part of the game, moreover, to be ninth out of forty-two is not a bad result. Have ...

Blogilkar had the pleasure to interview the Italian Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore. How did he live those two last editions in Baku and Dusseldorf? Will Italy be back in 2013? Will there be an Eurovision night in Sanremo? What are his favorite Eurovision songs? What does he think of Italian fans behavior? Here is the interview in Italian, the English version will follow shortly. L'anno scorso l'Italia é tornata con diciamo euforia generale, accolta a braccia aperte da tutti a Dusseldorf. Come vi hanno accolto quest'anno? Siamo stati accolti benissimo, per me oramai tutto il management dell'evento e gli altri capi delegazione sono come una grande famiglia. Nel 2011 l'Italia non era tra i favoriti ed é finita seconda. Quest'anno invece la Zilli era tra i superfavoriti e finita nona. Come mai? Non so dirti con esattezza, è un concorso… si può vincere, si può perdere… fa parte delle regole del gioco, d’altronde arrivare noni su quaranta...

The 6th Junior Eurovision song contest will take place tonight in Lemesos, Cyprus and the theme song Fun in the sun will be performed live on stage by Evridiki & Dimitris Korgialas. Also the reigning Eurovision champion Dima Bilan will be there, singing his winning entry Believe as well as My number one fan . The winner will be chosen by 50-50 televote-jury, the most likely solution for the real thing in Moscow 2009 as well. Last year's winner from Belarus, Alexey, will present the award to the winner. Previous winners are: 2003 Croatia, 2004 Spain, 2005 Belarus, 2006 Russia and 2007 Belarus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3dYMzcjVMg , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6xhFnamZ2M&feature=channel , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HRyopK6uJQ&feature=channel

Kwan has re-recorded their summer hit Tainted love in Greece and places with the Greek lyrics by Dimitris Korgialas. Dimitris has already Finnish affairs in his CV as he represanted Cyprus in Helsinki 2007 with Evridiki - and what a lovely couple they are! Anyways, it's not a first time a Finnish Eurovision related artists hits it big in Greece. 20 years ago Kirka did it with Sadness in your eyes .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muiZrcKRRwo , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbx13cFVH_Q

Evdokia came, sung and looked a lot like young Evridiki singing a song she might have done in the early 1990's, in Greek - the only one - and beat Nikolas to 2nd place. Shame. Nikolas clearly had the best songs of the night, threatened only by Evdokia and Marlain, whose rock chick trick wasn't enough and she got rejected. Evridiki herself performed, so did Dimitris and their songs were better than any of the real contenders. A lot of shaky voices or just a bit boring songs and what was Sofia wearing? Did she escape from the Moomin valley or the valley of the dolls? But in all a pretty good final and the webcast from Cypriot tv worked fine while the one provided by eurovision.tv failed completely. At least here... On the positive side the song's in Greek despite the title and brings some original flavor to Belgrad. And a guaranteed 12 points from Greece. 1. Femme fatale - Evdokia Kadi 104 2. I can’t be - Nikolas Metaxas0 100 3. Rejection - Marlain Angelidou 84 4. Turning to ...

It was a great party. Good food, enough drinks. Most of the artists present. Biggest mess was created by the alien from space alias Verka. (S)he practically walked in a crowd of few meters packed around her with flashing lights. And Mama taking care all went smoothly, of course.