Miscellaneous 
2 Comments Pop not politics for Eurovision 2009
I know it’s a little bit on the sad side, but with other half in London walking around in her Bra for charityand me staying at home due to work and oncall commitments, I found myself tuning in to Eurovision. Don’t laugh!
This year, new voting rules aimed at ensuring that the 54th Eurovision was a song contest, rather than a test of which country has the most allies, seemed to work. Marks awarded by national juries judging musical merit were combined with public votes before each nation awarded its points.
This resulted in the Top 5 countries being somewhat different to 2009;
1st Norway (previously placed 5th)
2nd Iceland (not in 2008 final)
3rd Azerbaijan (previously placed 8th)
4th Turkey (previously placed 7th)
5th United Kingdom (previously placed 25th)
The winning song “Fairytale” is quite strange number, written and sung by 2005 Norwegian Pop Idol Alexander Rybak who is classically-trained violinist so not your usual trashy Europop (although there was plenty of that… wasn’t there Germany?). Apparently he originates from USSR (now Belarus) which explains the Russian undertones the song has got and actually has a pretty good voice as is shown in this clip where he does a Jason Moraz number.
If you haven’t yet heard the song – its here on Spotify!