01:39. Just home from Schlager Towers. Spain eventually chose the boyband Nash to finish near the bottom of the Helsinki scoreboard for them, with the Thomas G:son song 'I Love You Mi Vida'. It was a tortuous process which filled 3 hours and 40 minutes of Spanish airtime, only finishing at 02:10 Spanish time (01:10 here). Out of the songs which finished in the top two of the scoreboard (from the 25 original options available) it was the wrong song, by the less talented singers. It should have been Mirela, with La Reina de la Noche.

Sweden got it half right, choosing Andreas Johnson for the final, but dumping saucy After Dark, who finished fifth, in favour of a ballad that won't go very far in the final.

It's bedtime. We'll be watching more national finals tomorrow (ie. later today); Armenia choose their second ever Eurovision entry and Montenegro choose their first as an independent country. Oh yes, the Balkan block increases by another one this year!

Labels: Eurovision 2007, Melodifestivalen, Mirela, Mision Eurovision, Nash, Spain, Sweden

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We're decamping (ahem) to Schlager Towers tonight for an evening of Swedish schlager and Spanish cançiones, with heat 4 of Melodifestivalen in Sweden and the final - at last - of the tortuously long Mision Eurovision process in Spain. (If you click on the picture of the contestants here, you can listen to all of tonight's Swedish songs in a radio player-type thingy.)

Two highlights in Sweden should be Andreas Johnson and After Dark. Andreas would have won last year if the witch hadn't entered, although inevitably tonight's song is weaker than Sing For Me, which was one of my favourite songs of 2006 (not just Eurovision-related). See it here:



After Dark is a drag act, with possibly the most innuendo-laden song ever seen in a national selection. Their song translates roughly as 'Oh, When You Take Things Into Your Own Hands', but it's more complicated than that. We'll have more on this nxt week. In the meantime, let's marvel at After Dark's performance of La Dolce Vita, which secured them third place in the 2004 Melodifestivalen final. This is a much watched performance at Glitterball Mansions, our usual refuge of TV watching during the Eurovision season. Keep your eyes peeled - there are two people in the act, although tonight it's only the skinny one because the other one is recovering from pneumonia.

Give me glitter and glamour!



In Mision Eurovision, we are faced with the intriguing and bonkers situation where we have five songs left, and five acts. Four of the acts are solo women and the last one is a boyband, called Nash. Tonight, if I've understood this correctly, each act will perform at least part of each song, giving the Spanish public a mind-boggling 25 possible permutations on which to vote. Most of the songs are good and most of the acts are good, but whether each act is suited to each song is another matter entirely. What we're really hoping for, which will be hilarious, is for Nash, the boyband, to end up singing 'Busco Un Hombre' (I'm Looking For A Man) or 'La Reina de la Noche' (Queen Of The Night). We will also be continuing our disagreements over which one of Nash is the better-looking one. For me, it's obviously Basty, who reminds me of J from 5ive.

With 25 possible combinations and TV España's fondness for chatting in between things and programmes over-running massively, I'm taking my sleeping bag and a food parcel to Schlager Towers. We could be in for a long night!

Labels: After Dark, Andreas Johnson, Melodifestivalen, Mision Eurovision, Nash

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