Thank you for the party and here be the awards of the Norwegian jury

This day was inevitable: Eurovision is over. Lisbon has gone South. We have started wearing cotton again, our hair is all flat, we haven’t been interviewed by a single journalist for 24 hours, we listened to music that was not representing a country, we read a newspaper article that wasn’t about a country’s contestant in Eurovision and there is not a dishy head of press in sight to provide us with lovely boys to chat with.

We needed a few days to sober up. Which we now regret. Because the last couple of days are ripe with very sad, deadly news from Gaza, and as the political controversies are growing, so is the online debate about this year’s Eurovision winner. Guess Netta’s teddybear run away rather quickly and left her in a Jerusalem pickle. 

In Norway the left wing is almost drowning us all in political conspiracies, analyzing every single word and move by Netta while claiming not to give the slightest about Eurovision. We kindly declined the opportunity to give them a reality check on national radio, left our Israel hat not so neatly on a shelf in Lisbon and started saving up for next year, when two weeks of daily Israel party will allow for a satire fest of epic dimensions, for which you should stay tuned. Also, we trust the NGOs will use this opportunity well, as they did before Azerbaijan 2012, and that Tel Aviv will come to their senses and host the party as it shouldn’t be much different from what goes on in that city every single day anyway. In the meantime we should all know Donald Trump is the one to target our anger at right now, not Netta.

Nevertheless. The Norwegian jury is ready for the last time this season. And we have a couple of awards to hand out for THIS year’s contest, where Lisbon has been nothing but kind and welcoming to everybody apart from composers trying to get in to the Israel party:

Best lifesaver: The Nepalese hair and nail salon in the basement of our apartment in Lisbon. We didn’t know this year’s hosts planned on providing the press with hair and makeup as well, but we’ve got to give it to them: Just climbing down the stairs after showering and having someone blow-dry your hair into curls envied by the majority of housewives of Portugal anno 1965, was nothing but pure bliss. Watch and learn, Israel.

Best proof that the juries are clueless: When Sweden got the public vote. The reactions in the press center was priceless to say the least.

Best proof the juries need some education: When Italy got the jury votes. We’ve been trying to wrap our head around why Italy is always so punished by the juries, but our source in the Italian delegations explains that the jury probably didn’t understand the lyrics as they don’t have the benefit of the commentators. That sounds plausible. For next year we demand that no jury can be complete without at least one member who is fluent in Italian. Rome, MMXX!

Best partyanimals: Denmark, binge drinking in EuroClub every single night, being very open to talk to everyone and singing all kinds of funny so-called viking tunes. In the meantime, our own Alexander Rybak hid in his hotel room, saving his voice. We all know who got the best result in the end, and we have a new favorite Scandinavian country at our hands.

Most awkward moment of the final: When we yelled «Sweet! We need to take our bush out!» while seated right next to major Norwegian media as Slovenia hit the stage. We were of course referring to our white pompom, that we got from Lea Sirk, but the name for pompom and bush is unfortunately the same in Norwegian. And there’s our reputation with the Norwegian press, challenged once more.

Second most akward moment of the final: The Portuguese police, pulling our Norwegian flag out, thinking it was British for a little while. No further comment.

Best service provider: The Zara store in the Vasco da Gama shopping mall besides the arena. When the zipper of Guri’s skirt broke in the middle of the final, they spent exactly 7 minutes finding her some fabulous red pants, dressing her up in them and removing all alarms so she could get back to the arena in no time. Bonus was she just missed Salvador Sobral’s performance as well. Watching some dude repairing a piano has never been her thing anyway.

The unpronouncable-French-name-composer-award: Philip Kirkorov. While we have known Kirkorov for many years as that eccentric, very tall Russian who walks around the press center, manages to get a spot in the green room every single year and who always complains when Russia doesn’t win, we didn’t know he also writes great songs outside of Eurovision and even sings them himself. “Disco Partisani” has kickstarted our every morning in Mouraria, and we are confident Russia would have won with him as the songwriting artist. Kirkorov for Russia/Moldova/Bulgaria 2019!

Best «oh, man, we need to get ourselves on international TV» moment: When we went ballistic in the press center while Alexander Rybak was playing in the final. We screamed so much we didn’t hear a thing, and immediately got around 20 cameras on us, so we didn’t see much of Alex’ performance either, which was all a bit of a bummer when we had to comment his performance directly on Norwegian TV straight afterwards. We smiled and said he did his best performance ever and that he probably would win, and luckily NRK reported the very same thing from the green room straight after, so it MUST be true. But at least we should be famous in countries such as Moldova, Macedonia or Greece by now.

Best «Wow! That’s actually her!» moment: Ruslana, showing up onstage at the closing party in EuroClub, singing «Wild Dancers» just centimeters away from our faces. We declined the opportunity to touch her, as that would probably would have resulted in a few words of wisdom from Netta, but we swear we could have if we wanted to.

Best «Oh, no, not her again» moment: Ruslana, staying up on that stage after she finished «Wild Dancer». We all know that lady only know one good song while the rest is very, very strange and not exactly singalong friendly. We suggest a limit for her next performance.

Best «That’s right, we’re a little older than you» moment: Portugal’s former junior Eurovision participant Pedro Madeira in the afterparty, holding our hand while singing a love song, until he probably realized it was a bit like serenading his moms, and moved on to some skinny fan boys on the other side of the stage. But we’re telling you we liked what we heard. Pedro Madeira should totally participate in Eurovision for Portugal with fast food music very, very soon.

Best pictures by us:

We also took a few pictures on the final night, of course. But we were kind of sick of letting the artists steal the limelight by then, so we decided to leave them in the background for now. Here goes our two minutes of fame:

That’s it for now. See you next year in…no, wait, better not mention where.