look into my eyes and see it's true

:: NEWS ON 2007 ::

Time to Party
The Helsinki coverage will be the first High Definition TV broadcast of Eurovision. For those technically minded it will be in 1080i HDTV with 5.1 Surround Sound (yum!). BBC has confirmed they will carry to HD transmission and as SBS takes the BBC feed, one may assume Australia will also be in for the DVD quality coverage.

Public Events:
Melbourne - Eurotrash Bar, 18 Corrs Lane, Melbourne (off Lt Bourke St parallel to Russell)
Fitzroy, VIC - Spanish Club, 59-61 Johnston Street (Bar: 5pm - 1am)
We will add any other public event we hear about - email us: rod AT netspace.net.au

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Worst. Predictions. Ever.
EDU only predicted four of the ten qualifiers - and when over 1/3 of the field qualifies, that is a crap result! We only only got Turkey, Georgia, Latvia and Bulgaria right.
At least only two of our bottom ten (Slovenia and Belarus) qualified, so we still know sh*t from shinola.

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She Spied Me at Eight (Thirty, EST)
SEMI-FINAL: Saturday, May 12th - 8.30pm (SBS-TV)
GRAND-FINAL: Sunday, May 13th - 7.30pm (SBS-TV)

SBS will delay the Semi-Final of Eurovision 2007 by over 36 hours.
EDU has some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that viewers of the Semi in Australia will have to wait nearly 40 hours to see the event on TV. We have become accustomed to the typical 12-14 hour delay, seeing the Semi on a Friday night. For 2007, SBS has decided to move the Semi to Saturday. The good news is that the semi will be sandwiched between a Finnish documentary about how crap they are at Eurovision (Finland Zero Points, 7.30pm) and the greatest mockumentary of all time - 'Get Ready to be Boyzvoiced' (10.40pm) which is about a crappy Norwegian boy band, but hey (Mr President), its close enough.

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On Again Off Again
Rumours abound that the EBU is planning some major changes for Eurovision 2008 onwards - like two semi-finals, back-to-back on the Thursday (one for Eastern Europe and the other for Central and Western Europe) and the possibility of the Big Four having to qualify (only the winner from the previous year may automatically qualify). If true, this will definitely set the chat among the pigeons.

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Visionary Dream

We've accounted for the neighbourhood voting, we've argued over which songs suck and which blow, and we've come to a compromise. EDU is ready to offer our typically unreliable predictions for ESC 2007:

Qualifiers from the Semi - Austria Turkey Georgia Cyprus Israel Latvia Bulgaria Czech Republic Belgium Estonia

Our Top Ten (in order): #1 - Georgia #2 - France #3 - Ukraine #4 - Israel #5 - Latvia #6 - Cyprus #7 - Bulgaria #8 - Turkey #9 - Czech Republic #10 - Finland

And our bottom Ten: #33 - Slovenia #34 - Switzerland #35 - Croatia #36 - Belarus #37 - Malta #38 - Albania #39 - Portugal #40 - Norway #41 - Montenegro #42 - Denmark

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I Hear Your Heart

Austria's (extremely good) entry will tie-in closely with the AIDS gala held each year in Vienna. Eric Papilaya will appear on stage as part of a huge red ribbon (the AIDS charity symbol) which will also contain his stage act participants. The 700 metre long ribbon will consist of: feathers, Swarowski crystals and pyrotechnics!
Eric says "one would never expect such a production for a rock song, so I am pretty sure that we will surprise Europe and get our message across pretty well."

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It Depends On US-English

Once again FYR Macedonia's entrant has had her urge to sing in English thwarted. Karolina Goceva - who sang 'Od Nas Zavisi' in Macedonian in 2002 despite her requests to the national committee to let her sing in English - had prepared a mixed English and Macedonian version of the seemingly popular (though to EDU ears clearly inferior) 'Mojot Svet'. The National Committee has again told her to sing only in Macedonia - even though Elena Risteska (she of the Creme Brulees) sang 'Ninanajna' (2006) in both English and Macedonian.

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Champions with Gambling Chips Decide the Outcome

Running Order for the Semi Final:

01 Bulgaria
02 Israel
03 Cyprus
04 Belarus
05 Iceland
06 Georgia
07 Montenegro
08 Switzerland
09 Moldova
10 Netherlands
11 Albania
12 Denmark
13 Croatia
14 Poland
15 Serbia
16 Czech Republic
17 Portugal
18 FYR Macedonia
19 Norway
20 Malta
21 Andorra
22 Hungary
23 Estonia
24 Belgium
25 Slovenia
26 Turkey
27 Austria
28 Latvia
Running Order for the Grand Final:
01 Bosnia and Herzegovina
02 Spain
03 -
04 Ireland
05 Finland
06 -
07 -
08 -
09 Lithuania
10 Greece
11 -
12 Sweden
13 France
14 -
15 Russia
16 Germany
17 -
18 Ukraine
19 United Kingdom
20 Romania
21 -
22 -
23 Armenia
24 -

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My Story

In one of the weirder plagarism claims in ESC for a while, British songwriter Barry Mason has accused The Ark of stealing his 70s hit 'Love Grows (Where my Rosemary Goes)' but says he would not have minded if they'd just asked.
The Ark in their 'defence' all-but admit the resemblance, saying "You can usually find songs in Melodifestivalen that sound nearly the same as other songs... As long as there's something newly created in it, it doesn't matter if it's reminiscent of something else."

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Work Your [black] Magic

The Swiss Evangelical Alliance (SEA) has issued a communique condemning DJ Bobo for his vampiric track, citing the "danger that unstable people may take BoBo's message seriously and try to end their life."
Evangelicals fear lines such as "You're here to surrender with your life", "Sell your soul" & "from Heaven to Hell enjoy the ride" will induce suicides (overlooking the far more likely cause - listening to the dreadful song itself).
The SEA's communique was titled 'Victory at any cost?' but having listened to DJ Bobo's track, EDU thinks it is more a case of 'Barely scrapping into the grand final at any cost?'

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A Song Without Salam

The translated lyrics for Teapacks' 'Push the Button':
Push The Button
The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He's gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers
They hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologic willingness to harm

(Chorus)
They're gonna push the button, push the button
Push the bu... push the bu... push the button
Push the button, push the button
Push the bu... push the bu... push the button

There's a lot of suffering
In the streets there's too much violence
And we stand a good chance of staying alive, even unscathed
Tactical advancement of a fanatical regime
A tragic situation that brings tears to my eyes

And I don't wanna die
I wanna see the flowers bloom
Don't wanna go kaput kaboom
And I don't wanna cry
I wanna have a lot of fun just sitting in the sun

(Chorus)

Messages are exploding on me
Missiles are flying are also landing on me
Cops and robbers are running all over me
And they're jumping me, getting on my case
Alas, halas, answer me, my God, hi
This nightmare is too long
When I'm barely alive and everyone is aiming at me
Maybe it's too late to sing that I gave her my life
Police, rescue team
It made it to the Kdam, a song without salam
Again I'm stopping the breathing in my heart
So I won't drop dead
First it's a war, now it's resuscitation
Boom boom, that's what is happening now
In between a rocket and a machete, a viewer and a reporter
Underhanded opportunism and a kidnapee, rain and a heatwave
An escalation in the levels is setting up camp
Nothing, nothing, that's what everyone is doing

Hardliners become more extreme and officers more serious
The naive become more moderate, waiting for the data
And reply (that everyone is helpless)
A world full of demons where we are nothing but pawns
And champions with gambling chips decide the outcome
Sluggish management, a ship filled with water
And everyone is drinking to good health, and drowning
Maybe it's too sharp
We should sing palm tree songs, desert songs with no flags
I'm still alive, alive, alive
And if it keeps on being scary, only then will I say
I'm gonna push the button...
(Chorus)

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But Nevertheless

No Morrissey! Say it aint so. The Beeb confirms that Morrissey will not be participating in the UK entry to ESC 2007.
Rumours are that the BBC told Morrissey they would make him enter 'Making Your Mind Up' and compete against some nobodies for the right to be the best UK entrant since Cliff. Steve, naturally, told them where they could place the embarrassing National Final. 'Dear BBC, we truly hope the ratings for Making Your Mind Up are adequate compensation for missing out on a massive draw card for the Final and any chance the UK has of winning Eurovision in the next decade, Regards EDU'

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Leave Me Alone

The unnecessary changes to format continue to gush forth from the EBU. Not content with letting non-performers vote (Serbia-Montenegro 06) and having nearly 40 nations read out just the three top votes, Helsinki will see changes to the running order draw (typically the hosts pulling ping-pong balls out of a chicken-wire sphere).
The first three finalists (nations) drawn will be allow to nominate their position on the night (20-24th seems to do well) and the same will happen for the first five nations drawn in the Semi-Final. This will "add more excitement to the draw" says Svante Stockselius. Perhaps next year one of the ping-pong balls can be explosive. Now that would make the draw exciting.

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Oxymoronic Theme

The theme for Euro-07 is 'True Fantasy' which is promised to "embrace Finland and Finnishness in terms of the polarities associated with the country" - so mentals with mobiles, basically. The design agency are hinting that the design will be based around kaleidoscopic patterns, which should help the drinks really take effect.

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Addicted to You

February

3rd Feb	Estonia
	Malta
	Poland
	Slovenia
10th Feb	Romania
	Denmark
	Norway
16th Feb	Georgia
	Netherlands
	Ireland
17th Feb	Finland
	Iceland
20th Feb	Spain
24th Feb	Bulgaria
	Latvia
	FYR Macedonia
25th Feb	Montenegro
28th Feb	Greece

March

2nd Mar	Portugal
3rd Mar	Lithuania
	Croatia
4th Mar	Bosnia and Herzegovina
8th Mar	Germany
	Serbia
10th Mar	Sweden
	Czech Republic

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Can't Wait Until Tonight

Hot off the presses, here are the dates for ESC 2007, the presenters' names and the likely venue. The Fins may not have expected to win, but they don't muck about in getting organised.
Dates: 10 May 2007 & 12 May 2007
Presenters: Jaana Pelkonen and Heikki Paasonen
Venue: Hartwall Areena, Helsinki (tbc)

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Together We Are Many

There are potentially eight additional countries taking place in ESC 2007 (Seven really, the split of Montenegro from Serbia means two new entrants when previously there was one). The list of potential entrants in 2007 include all the usual suspects from '06 plus:
   Azerbaijan - pending AzTV becoming an active member
   Austria - broadcast the 2006 contest live
   Czech Republic - pending finances
   Georgia
   Hungary - pending finances
   Luxembourg - pending TangoTV becoming an active member
   Montenegro - possibly not eligible until 2008
   Serbia