Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  It's time. The Vienna's City hall aka Wiener Rathaus will host the ceremony on Monday January 12, 2026 at 7pm CET hosted by You can watch it live right here .  As usual there will be three rounds of voting. First the Big4 (only 4 as Spain withdraw) and host country Austria will be drawn into voting and performing in one of the two semi-final. Then the semi-finalists will be first drawn into the first or the second semi-final pot by pot, and after that also they will be drawn into the first or second half of that previously drawn semi-final. Sounds a bit chaotic but it's very straight forward and simple in the end.  Later once all the entries have been chosen and published and handed over to Ebu and their staging and props and all that is sorted out the producers will determinate the running order for each semi-final to make it smooth and dynamic and interesting, as they say.  As a Finn I am of course hoping for the second semi-final and second half as since introdu...

I am usually not so into opening or interval acts as even if they usually are spectacular or even fun they seldom leave any lasting memory. Last night's Close encounters of a special kind by Ahmad Joudeh and Dez Maarsen is an exception. I loved every minute of it even if I'm not into ballet or modern dance. Maybe it's because of Ahmad's backstory that I knew well thanks to great documentary film Dance Or Die, that everyone should search and watch (For the Finns out there it's here ). This Emmy 2019 award-winning touching documentary tells Syrian born Ahmad's journey into world consciousness. At home in war-torn Damascus, he was threatened with death until the Dutch National Ballet offered him who defied death the opportunity to dance and live, albeit still under many mental and physical pressures. Directed by Dutch Roozbeth Kaboly this short film was released in 2018. Dance or Die depicts him dancing in the ruins of the camp where he had grown up, visiting his f...