Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

First of all I must say I think we have the right finalists after all. I would have wanted to squeeze in Montenegro, Belarus, Andorra, Switzerland and Hungary but then who would I drop? I don't know! Romania, Albania and Denmark might be border cases but I am perfectly happy having them in the final as well... Also, predicting this year gets more difficult as the juries are involved. Who knows in the end how much impact they will have and will they boost songs like France and Lithuania on expenses of Ukraine, Greece and Turkey? Or will they vote for Ukraine after all because they surely give us a great show and entertaining stunning 3 minutes even if there isn't so much in it musically? We just have to wait til tomorrow to find out. Anyways, here are my predictions based on my feelings and what I have seen and heard over the past two weeks, putting aside my own likes and dislikes when possible and judging them with brains instead of heart. I gave them slots 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 ...

The theme song for the Eurovision 2009 seems to become t.A.T.u's Not gonna get us , their smash hit from 2001. We already heard it in the first semifinal performed by the girls themselves with the Red Army choir, a combination that made even the girls giggle. Tomorrow night we will hear it again in balalaika version by Waldo's People, Regina, Elena, Inga & Anush! Quite ironically if you plan to take part in tomorrow planned - and again today forbid - Slavic Pride in Moscow that is just what you must hope. The police in Moscow has announced that if the pride takes place tomorrow it will be stopped as illegal demonstration. Here are the videos for the original and the semifinal performance: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HL-N9oOjcs http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=TypdkNG0Yvo

The Eurovision 2009 final will start with Cirque du soleil and Dima Bilan will be flown in by an angel to sing his last year's winning entry Believe . And then he flies away again... Sounds like fun! The voting will be started by the astronauts in space. Or aren't they called cosmonauts?

Thank heavens the reports from Moscow tell the presenters Alsou and Ivan Urgant are decent and way better than Natalia and Andrey. Doesn't Ivan look like Zeljko Joksimovic?

Well, only on internet. You can watch it live on www.repubblica.it with commentary on line by Ernesto Assante and Gino Castaldo. As we know Svante Stockselius told in EBU's press conference that Eurovision "needs" Italy back and it is one of his priorities so let's hope, even if the experiment with San Marino last year didn't really go so well... E lo stesso in italiano qui: http://www.repubblica.it/2009/05/sezioni/esteri/mosca-eurovision-gaypride/finale-repubblica/finale-repubblica.html Quindi ragazzi, potete seguire l'Eurofestival anche in Italia in diretta. Collegatevi numerosi e fate vedere che interesse in Italia c'è!

The Finnish team and Waldo's People are satisfied with the first rehearsal for tomorrow's final earlier today. Karoliina's voice held despite soar throat and visit to hospital for a check up this morning. Last night the whole team was having a little party in their hotel watching the semifinal two together. They named Norway along with Greece and Ukraine as their worst competitors.

The secret German weapon Dita von Teese has arrived....

The 49th Eurovision took place in Istanbul on May 15, 2004. For the first time there was a semifinal so all the countries could take part every year and new countries could be welcomed. Also Monaco returned for the first time since 1979. The top ten countries from 2003 had a place already in the final and all the others had to qualify from the semifinal. Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia-Montenegro debuted. All 33 countries that televised the semifinal were able to vote. Israel just missed the final being 11th and Switzerland last with null points. Zeljko Joksimovic, Sakis Rouvas, Lena Philipsson and Tose Proeski were there. Belgium's Xandee was one of the biggest favourites but finished 22nd. But Norway came last for the tenth time! New countries Ukraine and Serbia-Montenegro fought for the victory and in the end Ruslana's show took over Zeljko's atmospheric ballad. Personal note : Istanbul was my very first Eurovision. Fantastic week and atmosphere in the hall. In the ...

May 15, 1993 Ireland hosted - and won - Eurovision once again. What makes 1993 different that it wasn't Dublin but Millstreet. A town of 1.500 inhabitants in the middle of nowhere. The town needed a new rail tracks and biggest station and Green Glens Arena's floor was dug out to make the ceiling higher. Sounds crazy, ha? Anyways, a new record of participants arrived: 25. For the first (and only) time a preselection was held in Ljubljana for the new countries willing to participate. Out of seven three ex-Yugoslavian countries made it to Millstreet: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. The Bosnian team literally escaped under fire during the night from Sarajevo. The new thing was that the last placed countries had to skip the next edition and give place to new countries. Luxembourg, Turkey, Denmark, Slovenia, Israel and Belgium had therefor extra sad night. Tony Wegas was there, so where Katri Helena and Tommy Seebach, both ESC 1979 veterans. UK sent Sonia who has scored a l...

Finland's lead vocalist Karoliina was taken to hospital this morning. She has itchy throat and her voice is down. All day yesterday Waldo's People have been busy filming the insert for the final and giving interviews to BBC and Russia Today amongst others. The interest for the Finnish group has been high in Russia and Waldo & co have been on various Russian TV-shows since day one. This morning it is also reported that the lead singer of Regina from Bosnia-Herzegovina has joined the already very long list of artists that has gotten ill in Moscow. Let's see how they manage the rehearsals (2) today and tomorrow before tomorrow's nights final...

Want to have a prime example of badly written article about Eurovision? Full of mistakes and errors that leads to believe the writer has trouble of understanding what he/she has read or simply ignores the facts and makes up his/her own? If he/she can't even read and understand the list of the participants and song titles, how can he/she ever become a journalist? Add a total ignorance for facts checking and you get this: http:// www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4253283,00.html DW-world.de - your link to Germany?

Shortly we will fill in the last empty spots in the running order.... Here we go! 01. LITHUANIA 02. ISRAEL 03. FRANCE 04. SWEDEN 05. CROATIA 06. PORTUGAL 07. ICELAND 08. GREECE 09. ARMENIA 10. RUSSIA 11. AZERBAIJAN 12. BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 13. MOLDOVA 14. MALTA 15. ESTONIA 16. DENMARK 17. GERMANY 18. TURKEY 19. ALBANIA 20. NORWAY 21. UKRAINE 22. ROMANIA 23. UNITED KINGDOM 24. FINLAND 25. SPAIN

Despite it being only televoters who pick up the songs in the semifinals before the mixed jury-televote kicks in in the final the outcome this year is rather balanced. It only proves that if the western European countries get their act together by sending good songs and stop lamenting and accusing of block voting (and ignoring mentioning the Nordic block votes systematically) they do get to the final. The ex-Yogoslavian countries sent rather mediocre songs in general this year and only Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina made it to the final but then they have good songs. From the ex-USSR countries besides Russia also Armenia , Azerbaijan , Moldova and Ukraine did it, as well as Lithuania and Estonia . All well deserved, too. Remarkable all Nordic countries - Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland - made it - but then they all sent strong entries this year. From the old western Europe we have France, Portugal, Germany, UK and Spain , from the south Israel, Malta, Turkey , Romania...

First they changed their voting semifinal from the first to second upsetting Portugal and especially Andorra, and now it is reported they failed to show the second one, where they were now supposed to vote altogether? Wasn't it in EBU's rules a participating country must show Eurovision live? The semi final they are voting plus the final? Did they use the back up jury tonight?

Azerbaijan... Croatia... Ukraine... Lithuania... Albania... Moldova... Denmark... Estonia... Norway... Greece! Well, once again 8 out of ten. I had put Hungary and Serbia as well but instead we got Denmark and Albania that were 2 out of my 3 "reserves" that I was playing with just Hungary, Serbia and Croatia. All Nordic countries in the final plus Estonia! Hooray! If in the first semifinal the opening act was boring and the interval act good, here it was the opposite: the opening act was fun and kinda sweet with those dancing bears and balalaika versions, while the interval act was highly uninteresting and effortless - didn't they really come up with anything else but a standard summer fest dance performance? The presenters? She was even worse than before and didn't even look good tonight. He was more active but NOT funny! And why didn't they show more the greenroom guy? Otherwise the atmosphere seemed better tonight, or simply trasmitetd better to the TV screens ...

The presenter of the semifinals in Moscow 2009, Andrey Malakhov surprised Jaana Pelkonen with a phone call full of praise and compliments. Jaana, who presented Eurovision 2007 in Helsinki along with Mikko Leppilampi is in Moscow and once again doing the live commentary for YLE on TV. Andrey stated that Jaana & Mikko were his favourite presenter couple over the past years. Nice to hear but apparently he hasn't learn anything from them, judging the way he failed to impress in the first semifinal. The most complaints about the show have been about the poor presenters - even so much the Russian TV and EBU have had to step out and comment on that, too.

YLE has announced that the Finnish Euroviisut 2010 will have a change from the current but very succesful format used for the past four years, each of them providing Finland with a finalist and its first win in 45 years. Propably it will combine the current invitation only format with open for all selection. They also promise big changes so does that mean dropping the semifinals OR making them even bigger á la Melodifestivalen? More details coming up in June just in time for Midsummer.

Waldo's People along with the artists from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania and Armenia are right now filming inserts to be shown in the final. They all are dressed in Russian national costumes, only Waldo is allowed to keep his cap!

The world's biggest free newspapers Metro has had a voting by music experts in every country it is published in Europe (except France) and the winner is Finland followed closely by Portugal. Funny as these two are the coutnries that have waited longest in the history of the contest for a win. Finland did it 2006 after 45 years but Portugal is still waiting.... Amongst nine jurors Finland came 1st once, 2 times second, 3 times third and 2 times fifth. Tozé Brito from Portugal describes Finland as an amazing mix of hip hop and dance with a very catchy and powerful chorus. Greek Fotis Konstantopoulos who placed Finland third said it's just what the televised contest needs: Many people in many different age groups will like it. Full results: 1. Finland (51), 2. Portugal (48), 3. Sweden (41), 4. Hungary (40), 5. Greece (38), 6. Denmark (31), 7. Czech Republic (28), 8. Russia (26) and 9. The Netherlands (21)

Here we go again. I find this second semifinal more difficult to predict. Five of them are very easy to predict, but for the other five slots I have several possibilities so I once again try to be hopeful and add those I rather would have there than trust my common sense (see Malta and Andorra in the first semifinal...). So, Croatia, Hungary and Lithuania are in instead of Denmark, Albania and the Netherlands. Azerbaijan Croatia Estonia Greece Hungary Lithuania Moldova Norway Serbia Ukraine

Gordon from De Toppers, the Dutch trio in Moscow 2009 is ready to withdraw from the competition if there will be violence when the Gay pride hits the streets of Moscow on Saturday. That is if the Netherlands qualifies tomorrow. If they don't Gordon will be marching! As we know the mayor of Moscow has not granted a permission to have the Gay pride or Slavic Pride in Moscow. In the previous attempts the police and anti-gay groups have attacked the parade. In 2006 more than 120 people were arrested when campaigners attempted to hold the city's first gay rally. City officials have warned they will break any attempts to hold the march.

To be ill, that is. She has an infection in her throat and her voice is down. She hopes to get better before Saturday's final. Waldo is not in perfect condition yet either but medication helps. Besidew them at least Hadise and Svetlana Loboda have reported being ill and there are rumours about some others, too. Is it something in the air in Moscow?

May 13, 2000. Stockholm. Globen. The biggest ever Eurovision venue til then with 16.000 people. It was all about lips in there! The production was great as one can imagine and this year's final host took Russia to second place. Latvia debuted with Brainstorm and finished 3rd. Ines from Estonia was a hot favorite but finished 4th after a rather nervous performance. Her then boyfriend Tanel Padar was backing her... Germany sent Stefan Raab. Roger Pontare, Serafin, Alexandros Panayi and Nicki French were there, too. But the clear winners were elderly Danish brothers that no one really paid attention before the rehearsals started. The Swedish TV also made them look great on screen and the rest is history.... http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqkyIaCH1gg

Eurovision in the mid-1990's was getting a bit boring. Ireland hosted the show for the third time in a row on May 13, 1995 and asked EBU to change the rules so that if Ireland won for the 4th time they were not even asked to host it again. Just to make sure they sent a song that had absolutely no chance. But it was won by an Irish again when Norway took it's second victory ten years after the first one, again by Rolf Lövland's song but completely different from Bobbysocks. This caused EBU to insert another rule: the song must include lyrics (see Slovenia this year!). Irish TV had obvious reasons to hesitate hosting the show again but in the end they declined BBC's offer to host it together in Northern Ireland's Belfast, and used Dublin's Point Theater again. The only venue to date to host two years in a row. Darja Svajger, Alexandros Panayi and Philip Kirkorov were amongst the artists but Norwegian-Irish Secret Garden took a clear victory over Spain's Anabel...

The first semifinal is over and the dress rehearsals for the second one tomorrow are in full swing in Moscow. Hopefully the presenters sharpen up their act as it was rather awful last night. Not only my opinion but everyone's I have been talking to today. Everybody in Finland is of course happy for Waldo's making it to the final. I just realized since semifinal(s) were introduced Finland has missed only 2 and qualified 4! That's not so bad is it? The second semifinal opening and interval acts seem to give us some humour with a lot of Russian cliches to play - including dancing bears!