The Internationalist Eurovision Blog

Though you may be reading this update in March, it is still an opportunity for us to reflect on what has been a crazy February by even Eurovision Season standards. With all the twists and turns to explore in this article, it may just be best for us to throw ourselves straight into it! Ukraine Let's start by talking about the elephant in the room or perhaps more accurately, the elephant who is withdrawing from the room after it was asked to carry political slogans in order to be in the room. There was always going to be a sense with the private-public broadcaster collaboration at Eurovision that it would come to this but unfortunately nobody really wins from the farce that has been this year's Ukrainian Eurovision adventure. Once we are thick into the off season, I am going to write an article on the effect of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on Eurovision because it has now been allowed to affect (in some form) five different editions of the contest and it is beginning to get ti...

Everybody has a special place they have always wanted to go. For some, it is the glamour of Los Angeles, for others, it is the culture unlike any other that is Japan and for me, it has been for many years the small nation of Estonia. To rewind a bit, having watched back through every Eurovision Song Contest, I not only came to find that Estonia was responsible for sending many of my favourite songs to the main contest itself but also for hosting one of my favourite shows in 2002. This caused me to read deeper into the history and culture of both music and theatre and sure enough, the results are astonishing. Whilst I won't go into the full details of this idea, let me summarise it by saying that culture has defined the direction of Estonia as a nation and shaped its history drastically. For more details, send me an email at finlay26may@yahoo.com and I will happily send you in the right direction for how to learn more. So when the opportunity came up not only to visit Estonia but ...

To some February is the month of Valentine's Day, to some February is the month of miserable winter weather, but to me February is when Eurovision truly heats up ahead of knowing all of the entries next month. It suggests a lot that my frequency of entry-writing has gone up from an entry per month to an entry per week as we roll down towards May (less than 100 days to go). With that in mind, it's time for a reflection on the comings and goings of the last couple of weeks. United Kingdom I mean, it's difficult to say anything that changes the conversation about the UK at Eurovision. Michael Rice will clearly give it his best in Tel Aviv with a song that is very firmly in the not bad category but ultimately he won't be as good an ambassador for the UK at Eurovision as SuRie was last year and the song is pretty much guaranteed to end up languishing near the bottom of the scoreboard. The weird six-singer, three-song format didn't help proceedings and just showcased ...

I've only just fully recovered from a chilly weekend on Sweden's West Coast but have firmly decided to strike while the iron is hot and take advantage of five more weeks of Melodifestivalen fun to tell you everything about the experience of being a live punter at the first Semi-Final of Sweden's biggest show. My ex-flatmate Phil was the lucky person who decided to come along for the adventure and we met promptly at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 at 6 am. Somehow, the cheapest way to get to Gothenburg on Saturday morning was to fly British Airways so we took advantage of their Euro Traveller fare category to board a 7:50 am flight, landing into Gothenburg around 10:50 am. This may sound obvious given the time of year and the location but there was a lot of snow... everywhere! Many people around me thought going to Northern Europe in winter is a silly thing to do but when the opportunity to watch the first Melodifestivalen Semi at the 1985 Eurovision venue presents itself, ...