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Today in a month.......

17 April 2008 at 23:29 CEST

The first time I attended the Eurovision Song Contest was in Stockholm in 2000. It feels like a century ago as the contest has evolved so much since then! Now we're having two weeks of rehearsals, three shows instead of one and a much bigger media attention. But surviving two weeks of a Eurovision Song Contest is really hard! There are so many things going on at the same time: rehearsals, press conferences, receptions during the day, national parties in the evening etc. Sometimes, it would be handy if the day would have 40 hours instead of 24! But the atmosphere in the Eurovision Song Contest venue the hours before the big final is really unique: people from dozens of countries are debating who's going to win and how their own country will be doing!

It seems to me that this year, the so-called scandals around the Eurovision Song Contest have been bigger compared to the average year. Ireland is sending Dustin the Turkey with an unusual song, to put it mildly. Not only in Ireland, Dustin's participation has been discussed everywhere, but singers from other countries have been asked by their national media how it would feel to compete against Europe's most famous turkey! Spain is sending a controversial entry as well with Rodolfo Chikilicuatre and his Baila El Chiki Chiki. What might seem like a weird choice at first turns slowly into a notion of: "hmm, this is really a catchy song!" And let's be honest, some former European summer hits haven't had complicated musical arrangements either! France will send a song which wouldn't be out of place in a trendy club, but the French heatedly debated if it is a good thing to send in a song which is predominatly sung in English? Lots and lots of discussions in the European media this year.....

But the question remains: who will be the winner this year? Virtually a dozen songs have been named as winners so far: Dima Bilan from Russia who already came second in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, Sweden's Charlotte Perrelli who even won the whole event in 1999 - or maybe a total outsider? We'll only know on the 24th of May and till then we'll probably have had much more heated discussions and scandals!