A Eurovision Experience

Sunday 27 May 2012 - Tonight was my first Eurovision Party. My friend Kylie invited Debbie and I over to hers for an evening of Euro-Pop and Euro-Power-Ballads (mainly), and way too much food - fondue, bruschetta, cheeses, meats, breads, petit fours (slices from French Twist!)

I had never really gone out of my way to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, but apparently it is a major event in European homes, and it seems that quite a few Aussies also have parties to watch and judge each European country's chosen song that (ahem) best represents them. All the European countries that had entries (42 in total, I think) then vote for the best act, awarding their favourites 12, then 10, then 8,7,6, etc down to 1 point, and the country with the most points is the winner. Some very interesting choices. I started out very cynical that I would even like any of the acts, but by act 4, I was pretty enthralled! As were the girls, who had been there, done that in previous years.

Fascinating viewing

My list of favourites (given the 26 fairly random acts):

• Lithuania - Donny Montell - good looker, started out wearing a very sparkly blindfold (the song was Love Is Blind or similar - get it? blind?) which he eventually whipped off and then did some rather surprising, Michael Jackson-inspired moves
• Russia - 6 lovely little old babushka ladies, apparently singing about baking and dancing - quite catchy and fun!
• Cyprus - half decent Europop, very danceable
• Italy - their version of Amy Winehouse, complete with 3 backup singers, good song
• Norway - very good looking boy, who would appeal to the gay male and straight female demographics, very tight jeans over lovely muscly legs - umm, I think the song was okay too
• Denmark - my favourite, a song called Should Have Known Better - very non-typical Eurovision song - read: not cheesy, no wind machines, the female lead singer played her own guitar and the band and the song were just overall pretty good
• Malta - boy bandy, with fancy footwork!
• Ireland - the identical blond twins known as Jedward - I had misjudged these kids the 2 times I saw them on the Graham Norton Show, because they seemed like annoying male bimbos and they have freaky standup hair - their song Waterline was really good! I liked it and would even happily listen to it again

Now, the interesting thing is just how different the European musical tastes are compared to ours. The Russian ladies came 2nd to a fairly ordinary (in my opinion) Swedish act, which beat them by something like 113 points, so far and away, it was the most popular song. Then in 3rd was Serbia, a man who sang a below-average power ballad - for a while, I was worried that he would actually win, or the hosts, Azerbaijan - whose song was fairly bad too, but lots of countries looked to be sucking up to them by giving them their votes. 

The ones who did well (other than Sweden and Russia) were the ones we really didn't like. The Albanian that I think came in about 5th, was this screeching Medusa woman, with dreadies wrapped up on top of her head and with one coiling down across her decolletage - fully creepy and a bad song, but the voters seemed to quite like it - go figure!

Of my list after Russia, the next best was Italy who came about 9th, Cyprus about 13th, Lithuania 15th, Ireland 18th, Malta 20th. Denmark was about 3rd last, and the looker from Norway was last! Interesting how the Europeans seemed to be voting for the songs (or countries) they liked, rather than basing it on looks the way we often tend to do in Australia... there's a thought!

On another topic, on Saturday night, Kim and I had a bottle of white at her place, then went to the Bowery Bar for Natalie's birthday. It was a really nice bar, and about a dozen of us had cocktails and chatted for a few hours. I took off about 11ish when the others went in search of somewhere to go dancing. It was a good night out. 

Collingwood had their 6th win in a row on Friday night against the Adelaide Crows. So happy and proud of the boys - interstate, sold out game with a crowd mostly against them, undermanned due to soooo many injured players being out, new kids in the team, Adelaide being 2nd on the ladder with only one loss so far. So much against them, and they still came through. I'd love to see just what they could do with their full team!! Love it. 

And Wests Tigers won the rugby league against North Queensland Cowboys at Campbelltown today for their 5th win in a row. It's a bonus on weekends when my teams win. All good. 

Bring on the new week. I can say that this May has been a pretty good month in my personal life. Let's work out the rest as it happens.