Dodging Eurovision bullets left, right and…right here
Bonjour madames and monsieurs! This has been a good week for moi, what with university finished for the semester (bar 1 exam in a fortnight) and, of course, Eurovision 2010 so close I can taste the bratwurst – couldn’t think of a quintessential Norwegian delicacy off the top of my head. The unfortunate thing about the latter is that, because I’m here in Australia, we don’t see the first semi final until Friday night (it happened around 12.30am on Wednesday morning my time), the second until Saturday night (12.30am Friday morning) and the grand final until Sunday night (12.30am Sunday morning). Whilst this makes for an excellent weekend for any hardcore Eurovision fan such as myself, it does mean that avoiding all news is imperative if I want to be surprised when I do see the broadcasts. This may not sound like a difficult task to you, but for me so far it has involved things like:
a) Covering up the view window when I check my inbox so that I don’t see any giveaways on who has made it through. I receive regular emails of breaking news and everything else contest-oriented from MyEurovision (if you haven’t already subscribed, do it at http://www.eurovision.tv. It’s a brilliant way of keeping up with the latest info). I have had a few close calls with my touchpad evilly selecting to view the juicy “Breaking news: The ten finalists from the first semi are…” email without my permission – luckily I was able to flick my eyes elsewhere in time. In 2008 I accidentally discovered the first finalists and was not happy about it.
b) Not signing into YouTube for fear of seeing their overly efficient ‘recommended for you’ list, which would most likely contain videos such as ‘Finalists of S1 Eurovision 2010, including blah blah blah Jaz now knows all the secrets blah blah blah’.
c) Blocking my ears/eyes when the news or random news breaks appear on Sunday because, for as little time the media here devote to Eurovision when it rolls around, they always have a slot reserved for blurting out the winner. Channels like 7 and 9 probably do this in an attempt to stop people watching the final on SBS – well too bad, coz I ain’t listening to your reports!
d) Covering up the RSS feed I rigged up from the contest site when I blog right here! It seems v. unfair to me that I can’t even write about Oslo without having to tiptoe around the site to ensure my eyes aren’t exposed to any Euro-revelations too early in the piece.
As you can imagine it’s quite a task to keep the info under wraps for my own benefit – but it’s so worth it! The first semi is on at 7.30pm tomorrow and I am so excited! I’m planning to wave my home-made flags, paint my face appropriately and look sad because I will be lonesome when I do this. But chins are well and truly up anyway!
In other self-indulgent news I have ordered my 19th birthday present from the Eurovision shop – all of the fan books from 2006 onwards! Granted, my birthday is still a few months away, but the older ones were limited and all of them were on sale, so I was thrilled to start my collection. I’m going to need a shelf in my bedroom specifically to hold all of my ESC merchandise once they arrive…ideally, I’d have an entire room. I also want to say that the Eurovision shop (located on the official site mentioned above) is very efficient, well run and has great prices. Delivery takes two seconds if you live in Europe, and only around 12 working days elsewhere, so I can expect my package sometime next week. Of course if I receive it and all the books have fallen apart I shall immediately take back this shameless plug, but I doubt that will be the case. If you want to increase your collection, the shop is the place to go (or possibly eBay). They’ve got the CD’s and DVD’s, fan books aka programmes, coins, bags, hats, board games, shirts, jumpers, mugs, and though I didn’t see them, they probably have ironing board covers, sieves and wallpaper as well.
As this has been a rather random post I’ll end it with this: I stand by my predictions for the finalists and winner (go Lena!) but I’m prepared to hit and miss. Look out for my Saturday morning response to what I see tomorrow night, and so on and so forth.
Counting down the hours to half seven!
X Jaz
PS – I will cry if Serbia doesn’t get through. Literally.
eurovisionbyjaz.com 
Start the Eurovision conversation