Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Finland celebrates its 100th anniversary as independent country in 2017 and one of the hundreds if not thousends official events is the Hula hula challenge. Come midsummer eve, the whole of Finland (and not only as groups of people have entered the game abroad as well from the United States to Colombia, Greece and Spain) will be dancing Hula hula at the same time and make a new world record! YLE has created a great fuss around the Hula Hula Suomi event and even an alternative video was made based on the participant videos. If only the same effort was used for UMK..... Join the fun on Friday June 23 and learn the choreograhy. YLE1 is broadcasting Hula Hula Suomi all evening from 5pm til 10.15pm live from all over Finland. The biggest Midsummer party ever!

The media keeps wondering why Norma John an Blackbird failed to qualify for the Eurovision song contest 2017 final. Here and there pops up the idea that YLE should just drop UMK2018 (that is already in the planning with the first submission phase long gone), save the money and get Saara Aalto to do a X Factor UK like staging extravacanza for next year. Luckily no one's taking it with Norma John. They receive praise and consolances unlike for example poor Seija Simola back in 1978 when her until then flourishing and succesful career just died that night in Paris and she never recovered. Today, rumours tell, she's a bit bitter old lady living outside the spotlights in southern corners of Helsinki incognito.  But back to UMK. UMK stands for Uuden musiikin kilpailu aka Contest for new music. Sadly everyone has understood it stands for Contest for new artists. Or at least anyone with an ongoing career to speak of is taking part. Unlike in Sweden taking part in UMK or Eurovision...