Tanzen!

You might think that drinking nothing but sparkly wine for the evening is fashionable and cool, but when you get right down to it it's basically nothing more than wine with bubbles in it. You know, alcohol.

But fun was had yesterday, even more than I expected. We, that is me, my sister, her husband and a couple of friends headed down to the Senate square a couple of hours before the Eurovision show begun, well in time to secure good places in front of the huge screen and to catch the pre-final show. The audience was treated with schlager stars singing good old Eurovision hits. This is where we opened the first bottle of bubbly and toasted for the song contest and especially for Hanna.

We also rehearsed the Eurovision anthem, cheering and shouting hello, much to the bewilderment of a few tourists who seemed to be in town purely by coincidence and just happened to walk into the square. We toasted for once in the lifetime experiences. God forbid you'd be seen drinking without a good reason.

Hanna's performance made the audience explode. And, incidentally, gave the reason for the third toast. I don't think I've seen people so laid back and not entirely focused on getting as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. There is hope yet. Every country got a good cheer, though the absolute favourites were Finland, naturally, and Ukraine. I was on queue for the loo when Verka Serduchka was on the stage, much to my dismay, but I am proud to say that it was me who led the queue to the sing (and dance) along. I got some looks from the teens in the next queue clearly stating like, that is so not cool, but I'm of the opinion they are too young to understand how to have fun. But I can now check another item on my list of things that probably should have been done before I turned 30 but which seem to happen only afterwards. Like walking into a club and casually mentioning at the door that my name's on the list and this is my posse.

We toasted just for the fun of it and of course every time Finland got any points. The audience was almost as good a show as the one broadcasted from the Arena. There were, in addition to the nearly 25 000 ordinary flag-waving enthusiasts, a group of people dressed in British Airways uniforms, complete with a small cart full of refreshments, and an old man in an ankle-length orange fur coat. If one was inclined to notice annoying things, it would have to be the group of young men behind me who seemed to be under tremendous pressure to let everyone know that even though they were watching the Eurovision song contest they were not gay. Argh. Like, who would care?

I'm still waiting for my voice to return or I might have to start looking for a job in the night time radio.


Currently playing: Dancing Lasha Tumbai
Current mood: It's half past 3 and I'm not really woken up yet.

The Official Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Entry

A.K.A Hear my plea, banana!

Saw the semifinal show yesterday. Well, not the actual semifinal, of course, but the second preview. A rehearsal, if you will. I must say that I'm very impressed.

I had to voice my concerns before the show began for the stage looked so tiny compared, for example, the array Rammstein sets up and I feared that there wouldn't be any room to manoeuvre. Boy was I wrong. The stage is awesome. The clips about Finland in between the songs are not as cliched as I thought they might be and the dance performance which will entertain people while the votes are being count is just... wow.

It was funny how we went through the entire motions of the actual show, counting down together for the moment when the voting began and cheering for the would-be finalists as that part was also rehearsed. There were a couple of old ladies sitting next to us who actually thought that this was it, the real deal, and were overly excited when they thought that Portugal had made it to the finals. My sister broke the truth to them gently, however, but I'm not sure if they got it anyway. Mind you, they also really liked the Albanian group's performance, complete with huge moustaches and too much vibrato. Besides, after E mentioned it in her excellent blog, all I could hear was the choir singing Banana!

I must leave for work now so I'll leave you with Bulgaria's kick start to the evening.

Watch the show. Seriously.

Sigh..

So, in order to look a bit more like a healthy human being instead of Casper the Friendly Ghost and scaring the neighbourhood children I bought myself some of that nifty moisturizer with a very modest amount of tanning agents. After carefully reading the instructions and putting much thought into the applying I've managed to make one of my legs piebald.

Go me.





For those waiting for the summer vacations I give you Los Bastardos Finlandeses. The official site and the video for the excellent Viva! Los Bastardos!

Happy 1st of May!

How can you tell when you've become old? When you take the (in)famous ferry to Stockholm and instead of 2 night of revelling you go to bed early so that you can take full advantage of the day in the city and the highlight of the second night is a massage?

Or when you hvae no energy left for the 1st of May celebrations because of the said trip and because you went to a SCA event the weekend before and feel like you haven't seen your home from the inside in ages? My being home today might also have somehting to do with yesterday's insane day at work with 3 people off sick and our dish washer breaking down half an hour before closing time. I had Yakety Sax playing in my head the whole day, and for a good reason. What saved the day was that we had been provided with silly hats to wear, and I went in early and secured a fake cow hide stetson with horns and cow ears and all. Very stylish I must say.

Anyway, it's a beautiful day outside, so don't be like me and grab a bottle of mead and any of the traditional pastries of your choosing and go out in the nearst park to soak up the sunshine! I'll continue avoiding washing dishes and trying to get rid of a song which seems to have not only gotten stuck in my head but is settling down and planting a garden. So in the hopes that sharing it will make it go away, or at least make me feel better for not having to suffer alone, here you are. The very addictive Nymphetamine (fix) by Cradle of Filth, and I really don't even like the band that much..