Which African country participated in the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest? Is that question so hard to answer? Apparently it is for the Norwegian’s. They also failed to answer what Sweden’s best result was in the ’80’s. I was not impressed when they thought it was third.
These questions was asked at an Eurovision Quiz last night. Norwegian fans met at Popcenter for this quiz and to watch the 1985 Norsk Melodi Grand Prix. Popcenter will open next year, but has a pre opening for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Several older singles and Eurovison logo’s were displayed on the walls.
We arrived just as the quiz had finished and they were counting up the points. As they went through it we got to hear the questions – and the fact that none of them knew that Morocco participated at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest. The arranger of the quiz, who have recently released a Eurovision Song Contest book in Norwegian failed miserable when he announced that the best Swedish result in the ’80’s was a third position! Whatever happened to the 1985 Contest being held in Sweden as the country had won the year before? Most shokingly was that many people actually had that question "right"! When we afterwards confronted the arrangers with the error in the quiz they looked quite embarrassed and replied with a "Shhh". It was a shame that we arrived after the quiz as we all agreed that we would have done a lot better. The winning group got 15 out of 20 rights. We would not have failed 5 questions in that quiz.
The day started with me being interviewed for both Dutch TV and Dutch radio. As regular readers will know then I have pointing out the fact that the Dutch entry seems to be haunting me this year. I think the fact that Dutch medias are now also after me shows that it is not just something I am imagining. Will you believe me, but I was also asked to sing Sha-la-lie! I haven’t been able to watch the program yet, but it was on last night and I do feel sorry for those Dutch people who had to listen to that. We alerted some of my boyfriend’s family in the Netherlands, but no words yet from them about it.
Yesterday was also the day for the second rehearsal from Denmark. Ok, it went a bit better than the first rehearsal, but they still have a lot of things to fix before they are ready. Everyone is now asking the question about how they will manage in so short time. Chanée & N’evergreen themselves don’t want to answer nor does anyone else in the Danish delegation. The Danish press conference last night was once again a very short one – or rather an ultra short one. This time because Thomas N’evergreen apparently managed to scare people from asking any questions, including the host of the press conference! I can absolutely relate to that Thomas must be frustrated when things aren’t working as they should, but sometimes you just have to accept how things are, get the best out of the situation, make changes if necessary and be willing to answer critical questions at a press conference.
