Terminal 3.... The Eurovision Blog

Well another year's contest is over and I'm now back at home. So what are my thoughts on the contest? There are two things that stand out this year.... 1. Belgrade's/Serbia's apathy towards the contest, and 2. The results (as always!) So let's look at them in turn.... 1. After the recent elections, it appears that Serbians are keen to join the EU and after many years of troubles, which I will not go into, I would have thought that hosting the Eurovision would have been an excellent way to show what they are capable of. However, in the city itself, you would have been hard pressed to actually know that the contest was taking place! For most of the week, the only thing you could see with regards to the Eurovision was that a few shops were cashing in on the merchandise, a single information stall in one of the squares and I saw one advertisment for the Azerbaijan entry (there may have been more). So why did they not take up the opportunity? Was it that after the rec...

Well I don't think so anyway!!! With the first semi final out of the way I managed to correctly predict that Russia Azerbaijan Poland Norway Romania Greece Armenia Bosnia & Herzegovina all would qualify. What happened to Belgium and The Netherlands??? Well by the looks of it the viewing public didn't think them good enough to qualify!!!!!!!!!!!!! Such a shame as for me 2 of the best songs have once again been knocked out!!! Well the big question is who will join them???

Dobro Dan! Hello from Belgrade and from the Eurocafe, where we are typing this blog from! Wednesday of Eurovision week and what has happened so far?! Well, the travel over from the UK to Belgrade is a story in itself! Paul and I were due to meet up in Frankfurt after taking different Lufthansa flights to Frankfurt. Paul was due to land in Frankfurt from London Heathrow 15 minutes before my Manchester flight landed. However, it seems that Heathrow's problems go further than terminal 5 and his flight was delayed just enough for him to get to the Frankfurt gate, just after they closed it. So there was little old me on the Frankfurt to Belgrade flight by myself wondering where Paul was! After arriving in the hotel, a few hours later I was joined by Paul who looked like he was ready to go home already and was without luggage, which was still somewhere between London and Belgrade. To cheer us all up, we have a UK TV star as one of the receptionists. Yes, Mr. Cheap as Chips, David D...

Ok the first set of rehearsals are over now for semi final 2 and my opinion has not really changed. I still think that the following will go through to the final:- Sweden Iceland Turkey Ukraine Switzerland Denmark Hungary Malta Portugal However I now think that the final place will be between Georgia, Macedonia and Cyprus. Now suprisingly enough I never really liked FYR Macedonia or Cyprus when they were first chosen however, I now think both could qualify but we shall see.

My Opinions have changed somewhat.............. The first 2 days of rehearsals saw the first semi final being rehearsed and I have to say I was pretty suprised by what I saw which now means that I think that the following will qualify:- Norway Azerbaijan Russia Greece Armenia Belgium Greece Romania Poland Bosnia & Herzegovina 1 week to go and we will know

Saturday, 13th May 1995. Dublin, Ireland. The third year running that the contest had taken place in Ireland! To save Ireland's TV company from going out of business, Norway won the contest instead of Ireland. With a song containing only 24 words, Secret Garden won with the song entitled "Nocturne." The top five finishers were..... 1st - Norway - Secret Garden - Nocturne - 148 pts, 2nd - Spain - Anabelle Conde - Vuelve conmigo - 119 pts, 3rd - Sweden - Jan Johnsen - Se på mej - 100 pts, 4th - France - Nathalie Santamaria - Il me donne rendez-vous - 94 pts, 5th - Denmark - Aud Wilken - Fra Mols til Skagen - 92 pts.

Saturday, 13th May 2000 saw the final of the Eurovision Song Contest take place in The Globen Arena, Stockholm. The contest set a record of attendance of 13,000 people, a record which would only last for one year. The contest saw The Olsen Brothers, representing Denmark, win with 195 points, 40 points clear of 2nd place Russia. The top five finishers were.... 1st - Denmark - The Olsen Brothers - Fly On The Wings Of Love - 195 pts, 2nd - Russia - Alsou - Solo - 155 pts, 3rd - Latvia - Brainstorm - My Star - 136 pts, 4th - Estonia - Ines - Once In A Lifetime - 98 pts, 5th - Germany - Stefan Raab - Wadde Hadde dudde da - 96 pts.