I just came to the realisation that Eurovision is not two weeks away, as I thought this morning, but just the one. ONE WEEK. ONE. Is it me or is it unusually early this year? It's too early! But thankfully I came prepared and here's the last of the torture previews: featuring Ukrainian craziness, Albanian gay dancebeats and Saki-Saki-Sakis!

( Semi final 2 )

According to reports Johnny Logan wants to take part in Eurovision again.

Obviously he's terrified of not being asked to judge several national Eurovision preselections in the future and he feels he needs to remind everyone just who the King of Eurovision is. (For me it'll always be Deen, but ok...)

I'll vote for him as long as he brings us a Balkan ethnic uptempo pop song. With a wind machine.
Shake it, Mister Logan!

Graham Norton is Eurovision's new Terry Wogan

Wooohooo!
Poofs in power, as it should be when it comes to Eurovision!

(yes, I used to like Terry Wogan, but he's gone from funny to sometimes plain ignorant -not to mention a very sore loser- these past years)

Holland is sending two poofs & a straight guy to Eurovision

Yeah, ok, what else is new -apart from the straight guy I suppose-, but good God! This is fantastic! Ought to be hilarious. And it might score points with the grannies, who knows. "Oooh, what a bunch of well-dressed men".

Check them out, for as long as you can stand it:


I think it's clear.
We must ask the Walloons to send Get Ready!

The Barbara Dex award went to ... Andorra this year. And quite rightly so.

As a Belgium I can only be disappointed that we won absolutely nothing this year, the Barbara Dex award was our last hope. Though we are runner up... so that's something.

Tsk.
It's discrimination I tell you. Pure discrimination.

Winning Eurovision has its benefits: you get a glass-studded dildo, the praise of millions of Europeans, a couple of mentions on Line Out, and in Dima Bilan's case you even get a street named after you. A street!! Why not rename the whole city while they're at it? "Dima Bilantown", come on Medvedev, you know you want to...

Unfortunately winning Eurovision also has its drawbacks. Apart from costing your home country millions of Euros (or Roubles) to organise this campfest, there's also the hatred of millions of Europeans, you invariably get accused of plagiarism (every single year) and this time bad halfnude photos resurface with whispered gossip of "gay porn"and "escort".
Not in Russia, of course, where Dima is well on the way to sainthood (hey, the man resurrects ballerinas and little kids, I'd like to see you try it!), but pretty much everywhere else.

But look what a sex scandal did for George Michael's career! It can only increase his popularity in the gay community. And what else could Dima be aiming for? It's all one big plot to make this boring song a tad more interesting. I bet the KGB's involved....

*points at icon*

You know, looking at what other people do for Eurovision parties: cupcakes with flags painted on them, giant scoreboards with group scores, and national foodstuffs, the Girlfriend and I have decided that our Eurovision Party is terribly amateuristic and it just does not suffice any longer.
For next year we're planning something bigger and better.

After all, 2009 is the year where Belgium will surely win.

Eurovision night, highlight of the year. Thanks to the ever-expanding contest, I now have three highlights in my year. Thank you, Europe!

Score sheets needed to be made and printed (and the first thing your guests say is “oh, a slight point of criticism, I’d have liked a second column to make my predictions for the final, as opposed to just checking my own favourites”. Cretins! … of course they’re right and the matter shall be taken care of next time.), you need something funny to put on your walls (a photo of that dress is funny in its own right), flags must be hung up, cats need to be told to behave and –of course- your outfit must be perfect. The Girlfriend went for a classy black/yellow/red ensemble and we tried to recreate that dress with a red skirt and t-shirt and some white tape for me.
I opened the door to our guests, amongst others a Marcel Vanthilt-lookalike, a second Soetkin-from-Isthar-in-that-dress, a Michel-from-Ishtar (with guitar) with their Kolossali Krokodili, and the Games could begin…. (Photos to follow)

Don’t panic, in case you missed it, you can watch it again on the official website.
( and this was the show. Spoilers within )

Tonight's the night for Ishtar. If I can believe the blogs, it could go either way. Some say they're annoying but will get through, others say they're annoying and we'll disappear into nothingness. Whatever the result -though I'm secretly hoping for a place in the final of course- I'm trying to make myself an Ishtar-worthy dress for tonight. Unfortunately I don't have a circus tent or a red table cloth lying about, but I'll have to make do with what I *do* have.

The cats are already getting on my nerves, which is a sign that I'm feeling stressful, but so far I think I've got everything under control.
A little.
The score sheets are printed, so are most messages for on the walls, I need to find a frame for my Ishtar photo (we need all the prayers we can get really), my outfit needs thinking about, I need to shave the cats so they stop shedding hair all over the place and I need to calm down.
Then everything will be ok.


EUROVISION SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

( Hungary, Malta, Cyprus, FYR Macedonia and Portugal )
And that’s it for the second semi-final.
Of these 19 songs 10 will qualify to join the top 10 from the other semi and the 5 automatic qualifiers in the Grand Final. From those 25 songs the winner will be chosen. It’ll either be a Bombastic Ballad, a turkey, a political conspiracy vote or a trashy dance song -probably something to do with the devil-. I can’t wait.
Still to come: Spain, the UK, Germany, France and Serbia. Well, and the actual shows of course.

Because posting two songs every day is too slow for me.

( Croatia, Bulgaria, Denmark and Georgia )