Terminal 3.... The Eurovision Blog

List of participants updated for 27th Jan..... Albania - Olta Boka - Zemren e lame peng Andorra - Gisela - Casanova Armenia - Sirusho Harutyunyan - (song title not yet known) Belarus - Ruslan Alehno - Hasta la vista Bosnia & Herzegovina - Elvir Lakovic Laka - Pokusaj Cyprus - Evdokia Kadi - Femme Fatale Czech Republic - Tereza Kerndlová - Have some fun Israel - Boaz Mauda - (song title not yet known) Malta - Morena - Vodka Montenegro - Stefan Filipović - (song title not yet known) Netherlands - Hind - (song title not yet known) Switzerland - Paolo Meneguzzi - Era Stupendo Turkey - Mor Ve Otesi - (song title not yet known) Ukraine - Ani Lorak - (song title not yet known) (New entrants in red )

What with Malta and Czech Republic chossing 2 absolutely fabulicious songs (and is it me but does Tereza Kerndlova have a look of Jennifer Lopez to her) and the 3rd Semi Finals in Norway and Lithuania and the Bulgarian semi final this weekend has turned inot everythin a Eurovision fan would love. But to top it off we still have Belgium with their 1st Quarter Final and I send my good luck and best wishes to Femme Fatale with the song "Deceadence" and then Montenegro choose their singer tonight whilst the song will be chosen through an internal selection. My goodness it does seem to be the year of "disco-europop" this year. I wonder what the other selections have in store for us Eurovision fans. But to keep you going here are the Maltese and Czech songs. MALTA:- CZECH REPUBLIC:-

List of participants updated for 26th Jan..... Albania - Olta Boka - Zemren e lame peng Andorra - Gisela - Casanova Armenia - Sirusho Harutyunyan - (song title not yet known) Belarus - Ruslan Alehno - Hasta la vista Bosnia & Herzegovina - Elvir Lakovic Laka - Pokusaj Cyprus - Evdokia Kadi - Femme Fatale Czech Republic - Tereza Kerndlová - Have some fun Israel - Boaz Mauda - (song title not yet known) Malta - Morena - Vodka Netherlands - Hind - (song title not yet known) Switzerland - Paolo Meneguzzi - Era Stupendo Turkey - Mor Ve Otesi - (song title not yet known) Ukraine - Ani Lorak - (song title not yet known) (New entrants in red )

Ruslan Alenho with his song "Hasta La Vista". Will he do as well as Koldun in Helsinki? I am not sure!!! The song itself is very "Europop" and seems to be following a trend at the moment amongst those that have chosen to have this type of music rather than following in the footsteps of last years winner. Will Belarus go through to the final with this song on May 24th? I am not sure I suppose it depends who else is in the semi final with them and which nation the former Soviet States decide to vote for this year. All things considered Good Luck to Belarus in Belgrade!

With Norway, Denmark and Lithuania all hosting their second semi finals and with Iceland going to the Semi Final stages of their competition things are starting to hot up. But the biggest news of the weekend is of course what song will Belarus send to Belgrade as their follow up to Koldun's "Work Your Magic" which gave them their highest finish to date in their 4 Eurovision attempts. Belarus choose their participant on Monday 21 January and it will make them the 10th country to have decided.

Today saw the new revamped Eurovision website opened. I visited there earlier and I have to say that I am impressed with the site! It has a very good look and the content seems to be improving year upon year. One thing that the EBU can be commended for is the amount of effort they have put into improving the official website of the contest. Add the fact that they are now helping to stream some of the national finals, I can only see the website getting better and better! Well done EBU! Give yourselves a pat on the back!!!!!! It's well worth visiting, so if you're interested, click here to visit.....

After objections, the organisers of the national selection procedure in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have removed the six commissioned songs that were due to take part in the 2008 final. It appears that due to the contest having been advertised as an "open" contest, there were objections to the six entries having been commissioned by the organisers and only submitted songs will now compete for the FYROM place in ESC2008. The final is due to take place on 23rd February in Skopje. I wonder if the commissioned entries were better than the submitted ones! ;-) Anyway, it's good to hear that the organisers have taken action and stuck by their "open" contest!

Some good news coming out of Sweden today! The rumours that have been circulating Carola will be returning to the Melodifestivalen in a duet with Andreas Johnson. Having already won the contest once and two top five finishes, can Carola make it a fourth time to Eurovision and get a second win? It will be interesting to her their song and to see her progress towards in the contest! Good Luck Carola and Andreas!

List of participants updated for 12th Jan..... Albania - Olta Boka - Zemren e lame peng Andorra - Gisela - Casanova Armenia - Sirusho Harutyunyan - (song title not yet known) Bosnia & Herzegovina - Elvir Lakovic Laka - Pokusaj Cyprus - Evdokia Kadi - Femme Fatale Israel - Boaz Mauda - (song title not yet known) Netherlands - Hind - (song title not yet known) Switzerland - Paolo Meneguzzi - Era Stupendo Turkey - Mor Ve Otesi - (song title not yet known) Ukraine - Ani Lorak - (song title not yet known)

After watching the Cypriot final on eurovision.tv I am left with one burning question! Do Cyprus want to qualify from their semi-final? With a good number of entries over recent years I was looking forward to seeing the first national final to be webcast over eurovision.tv, however I really couldn't believe my eyes when the result was announced. One word that comes to mind with the winner is..... outdated! I could quite imagine this song being sung in an old black and white movie, but in the 2008 Eurovision - come on! It's about time that countries took this contest seriously! To win Eurovision now, you have to either have very good friendly neighbours or a damn good song. I know good songs are hard to find, but at least they could try! This song isn't even a good novelty song like Ukraine 2007. I'd say that this song would be a nil pointer, but everyone knows that they'll get 12 points from Greece! Here's a video of the winning song...... why Cyprus, WHY?!

With 1 National Final in Cyprus, the 1st semi final from Denmark and Lithuania, the first of the wildcard shows and Switzerlands song being aired for the first time. What a night it will be. The highlights for me being the Cypriot final and hearing the Swiss song which I hope will be as good as previous songs by the singer Paolo Meneguzzi.

and I personally felt that the wrong songs qualified to the final. My personal favourites were Tinkerbells with "Hold On" and Nicholas Carlie with "Colliding" and still feel that these 2 should have got the automatic qualifying places. However the Norwegian public didnt agree and whereas Tinkerbells have gone to the second chance round Nicholas Carlie ended the night being eliminated from the competition. The singers and sogns which automatically qualified were Veronica Akselsen - Am I supposed to love again and Ann-Marie Anderson - Ándagassii, whilst Tinkerbells are joined in the second chance with Podium and their rock entry "Lystgass". I will be watching with bated breath over the next couple of weeks to see who gets the Norwegian ticket for Belgrade and I hope it will be Tinkerbells.

and that was 25 years ago. Germany have over the years sent so many fantastic songs to the Eurovision Song Contest and have come so close on 9 occasions with 4 second places and 5 third places. The last time a Top 3 place was gained by Germany was in Israel in 1999 and since then have only managed the top 10 on 3 occasions. This year Germany have increased their National Final to include 5 acts and all are famous within Germany too. 4 of the acts have all had big hits and the 5th is a star of the stage. From listening to songs they have all performed I believe that the one to watch for and most probable to win the German ticket for Belgrade will be "in my opinion" No Angels who just happen to be the most successful girl band in Germany ever!!!!!!! A German Spice Girls!!!! Having heard their songs I think they are brill and would think that they will be fantastic in Belgrade. Heres one of their songs to tempt you.

With the Eurovision selection season well upon us, we turn our attention this time to the Belgian selection process! Having already tried to qualify for Belgium in 2004, 2008 sees Femme Fatale (a.k.a. Betty) making a further attempt to get to a Eurovision final. Terminal 3 have managed to get an exclusive interview with Femme Fatale and I'm sure you'll find her answers interesting...... It was 2004 when you last entered the Belgian Eurosong. Can you tell me what was it that made you accept the challenge to represent Belgium in Belgrade? It might sound like a cliché, but it's always been my dream to represent my country at the Eurovision Song Contest. I think it would definitely be a once in a lifetime experience for me. Having said that, I did have to think twice before accepting to take part again. The whole selection procedure in Belgium is very long and stressful, but I think that my participation in 2004 will help me as well this time. The song you will be perfo...

Some good news for Eurovision fans, which will hopefully be the sign of things to come. I was one of the many fans that were unlucky not to watch the webcast of Evridiki's win in the Cypriot final, as the server was unable to cope with the traffic and crashed. To save it happening again this year, the official Eurovision website - eurovision.tv - will also be screening the webcast. The final is scheduled for 12th January and I believe that it's due to start at 20:15hrs GMT, but if anyone knows any different, feel free to email us. Happy viewing!

Dateline..... 26/12/07 News..... Tickets sales/reservations start 13/01/08. Well we are now on 6th January and there is still no news on whether this is the actual date that ticket sales will actually start. According to an article on ESCtoday, they stated that the ticket sales should have started in December, but that they were running late. Since that time, there has been no further information as to whether this is an actual date or whether ESCtoday have been fed a lie. Also, what's with the ticket reservations with regular ticket sales starting at a later date?! With the speed that tickets are sold for Eurovision, why not just start regular ticket sales immediately? Come on Belgrade, keep us fans informed!!!!!

So with the start of 2008, let's start with a look at where we stand so far with the choice of entries for this year's contest. As more and more are chosen, we'll keep updating the list. So here's the first installment....... Albania - Olta Boka - Zemren e lame peng Andorra - Gisela - Casanova Armenia - Sirusho Harutyunyan - (song title not yet known) Bosnia & Herzegovina - Elvir Lakovic Laka - Pokusaj Israel - Boaz Mauda - (song title not yet known) Netherlands - Hind - (song title not yet known) Switzerland - Paolo Meneguzzi - Era Stupendo Turkey - Mor Ve Otesi - (song title not yet known) Ukraine - Ani Lorak - (song title not yet known) So we have details on 9 countries, only 34 left! :-)