Let the countdown begin...

New Eurovision Year officially starts on Thursday when Bulgaria hold their first quarter final.I know,Bulgaria- how's that for a spectacular opening?Info/videos of the participants seem to be pretty hard to come by,but I did find this- it's Monika Kirovska and "Bring Me Back My Freedom" from last years' finals...



Can't wait for Thursday... :/

I'm as harmless as a chicken in a freezer

Don't let it be said that Teitur is all about wonderful introspective songs about long-distance relationships and loneliness...



I love him!

WYM Official Top 10: Week 2

10: BWO- Lay Your Love On Me
9: Dima Koldun- Kazhdiy Den Na Zemlye (I do tend to get bored with Dima songs quite quickly...)
8: The Rasmus- Living In a World Without You
7: Take That- Pray (God knows why,I hated them first time around,but since buying the Greatest Hits album for (and subsquently stealing back from) my dad,I've been really getting into them)
6: Teitur- The Singer (Love this video,the way he nails the ending makes me all goosepimply.I can't wait for Friday)
5: Marie Picasso- Out of My Hands
4: BiS- Katya (read an amusing story about this song that I might write about some time if I can be bothered.Then again,it was probably made up anyway)
3: Leona Lewis- Better in Time
2: Baracuda- I Will Love Again

Now I've never been a fan of Queen,but my God this version of one of their songs is amazing...

1: Friðrik Ómar- Somebody to Love

Because of you I'm lonely

As if the last 2 days of sitting on my arse doing nothing weren't bad enough,I got sent home from work this morning for being full of germs :( Still,at least that means I can blog a lot today.

Great news Russian Reality TV fans- Fabrika may be gone but Zvezdniy Led is here! Literally meaning Starry Ice (how quaint),ZL started erm,recently,and what a celeb-fest the opener was! Unlike Dancing On Ice at home,where we have washed up Blue Peter presenters and- as Keira pointed out- Westlife for the grand finale,the Russian version has big names like Dima Bilan (yes,him again) and his manager Yana Rudkovskaya skating,performing to live music sung by the likes of Russian overlord himself Filip Kirkorov!No Z-listers presenting either- Zvezdniy Led is hosted by Maksim Galkin (who else,this is Kanal Rossija after all...) and Dima B's Eurovision buddy/Yana's boyfriend Evgeniy Plushenko.

As seems to often be the case with Russian Reality TV,the performances are pretty dramatic- there's your normal ice skating lifts and stuff but also a few other interesting elements as well at times.Also as seems to often be the case with Russian Reality TV,they talk for a hell of a long time after the performance...

Here's Dima and his partner Elena Berezhnaya (Team Berlan as they explain at the beginning).They did quite well,as you'd expect.I'm having a bit of a love-hate relationship with Dima's hair at the minute,I'm thankful that the mullet's gone,but still,is a ponytail really necessary?



Also,it seems Dima's got a new song out.It's called Lonely and well,I really like it actually.Even if it does remind me of something you'd hear in the chavvy clothes shops on Chatham High Street.

There's less crap songs than there used to be

So excited,I'm off to Denmark on Friday morning to go and see this man...



It's costing a small fortune,despite only being 2 hours away,but I missed him in London in August,because I thought coming here early would be a good idea.I've seen videos of this tour from various different places,and it looks pretty damn good.Now if only I could work out how to get to Esbjerg...

What promotion!

My family come from a tiny tiny island (actually,it's not that small- as big as the Isle of Wight apparantly) in the Tyrrenhian Sea called Ischia.Wikitravel says "Ischia is the largest island in the bay of Naples and is considered by many to be the most beautiful." Ha,in your face Capri! Anyway,not much goes on there,there's a lot of German tourists but that's about it.Until now,now Mr Shut-Up-Baby-Don't-Be-Fake went on holiday there that is.Here he is loving the Castello Aragonese so much that he can't even bear to look at it.And here he is also doing the Italian thing of wearing dodgy clothes and posing on a moped*.Now these pictures have made it into OK Magazine,hopefully a trend will be set amongst other Russian pop stars and Dima,Dima and Chelsi and the BiS boys will want of a bit of l'isola verde action.Must get involved with the family business pronto!

*In the background of the moped picture there's a typical Ischitanian taxi.They're certainly an experience everyone should try!

They ask you where you're from,but never tell you about themselves

The Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg started yesterday.It finishes tomorrow- some festival that is.Anyway,there are a lot of bands/singers there,some I've heard of,but most of them I haven't.One I do know though,is Philipp Poisel.Lovely-German-Friend-Just-Up-The-A7 sent me one of his songs a while ago,and I really really like it.I'm becoming quite accustomed to this German music business it seems :) Unanständig means a whole manner of things (rude,obscene,shocking...),things you wouldn't really think of when listening to the song if you don't speak German.Now I do speak German,but apart from the first line (post title),the lyrics are pretty difficult to translate.My friend explains it as "he sings to a girl that he wants to do nice things with her and that it doesnt matter what other people say/think about it".How sweet :)



I have since listened to a lot of his album,and it's pretty good.Will probably write some more another time when I'm not insanely tired.Well,I did spend the whole day at a bloody trade exhibition thing in a school today after all.If there's one thing I've learnt about the Germans since I've been here,it's that they love their trade fairs!