Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 135 - Big Glittery Eurovision Fabulousness!

Right. We are just hours from the start of the telecast of the Eurovision final (FYI if you misspell 'Eurovision', like I just did as 'Eurivison', the spell checker function has no idea what you mean; clearly very straight software), and I have a major, seismic change of heart to announce:


I love the Jedward (Ireland) song Lipstick.

Yes I know. Just three short days ago I decried it as infantile, annoying pop, but after listening to it many times, and seeing them perform live on Semi Final 2 where they, dressed in glittery red jackets with epaulettes on steroids, totally and completely rocked the house, winning over the crowd as they danced like manic candy using up all the sugar they could. In fact, Julia Zemiro, one of the co-hosts, announced when they walked off stage at the end of their number that they were going home to get more sugar. Likely true, and while they are so OTT that seeing the Top is just a distance sugar-crazed memory for them, they are fun, loud, and look to be having an absolute ball on stage. I actually think they could take this home for Ireland, which no doubt Ireland will loathe since they don't love the guys, and can't afford to stage Eurovision next year, but they are in with a real chance and I, for one, am prepared to come out of the junk candy pop song closet and say I love Lipstick by Jedward.


Yes, I feel dirty and ashmaed but I guess I will have to learn to live with that....


But not ashamed that Kerry and I were even remotely bothered as we filmed ourselves singing along to Lipstick in the car park of Marrickville Metro, slightly off key but having a ball. Yes, we can now truly call ourselves Euro tragics...


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Kerry and I pose before the party. Yeah I was going for high camp, now you ask!

Kerry's hat for the night, which she made herself. One of the most fun parts of Eurovision is how enthusiastically Kerry approaches it from doing her 'homework' before the event, so she is the repository of all sorts of arcane facts about the contestants, to the fabulous costumes she creates. She is a joy to have as a friend.

My gorgeous guy and a friend Steve pose next to my newly German fridge, which they zhoushed up for the night.

Vodka jelly shots in the colour of the German flag and the right colour order too. Kerry made them and I ate far too many of them! Yummy!

Table centrepiece - I got the tinsel German flags setting on Ebay and my gorgeous fashioned the ginat pretzels, bought from Luneburger into an edible table decoration

Reaching for a wine before getting stuck into BBQing the sausages and heating up the pastizzis in the oven. Hot work, and it set off the alarm so many times, but worth it as people devoured all the food he cooked up and loved it.

I am posing with Kerry and Stephen Moore who is a recent but enthusiastic Eurovision fan

My gorgeous guy wearing the centrepiece that was originally going to be a headdress. Style it baby!

The audience sits enraptured

Watching Denmark doing their thing

My gorgeous guy's sister, Carolyn, helps out in the kitchen slicing the rolls for the baby German sausages and sauerkraut, all experly prepared by my beautiful guy

Warren and Tracy with Ian looking on from the background

Posing with my darling man in the kitchen

Then Carolyn leaps into the shot!

Then I begin photo-slutting, jumping from group to group to record myself with them for posterity. Here I am pictured with Essie, Fahmin and Ian

With Tracy and Kerry

With Warren

The yummy German sausage rolls

Lots o' food and we managed to eat most of it! Thankfully for once we didn't overdo the food although I do have lots of potato chips left over!

Everyone looks on as Eric Saade from Sweden does his VERY cute thing asking to be Popular! Warren particularly liked his young twinkish look.... oh yeah and his red leather jacket was fab!

Waz really liked my German flag clad fridge...really!

France not only managed to go all high end and operatic but got a gorgeously cute man, Amaury Vassili, to sing it in Corsican no less.Talented and sexy.... thank you France!

Italy channelled Charles Azenevour, fabled French crooner in a song that was sweet and nice, but ultimately went nowhere musically. It did however gove Italy a top 5 finish so looks like they will be back after an absence of 14 years!

90s boy band pop anyone? Not a bad song but the UK could have done better than this generic song of empowerment, love and mung beans

For the first time ever the same singer defended a country's title, in this case Germany. I loved the song personally but it didn't do as well as last year's effort, which was a pity since Lena's song stood head and shoulders above the winning song.

A rambling bouncy song from Spain had bright glowing backgrounds and not much else. Yawn.

I love the giant inflatable microphone! Not bad for $6 from the variety store @ Wynyard station

After everyone had left, and everything cleaned up, Steve crashed on the couch talking to Kerry....

.... who talked right back before announcing she was exhausted and we all finally made it to bed at 12.30 a.m. on a school night.

So Azerbaijan won huh? Frankly I didn't see that coming at all. Kerry and I had listened exhaustively to the songs over two days or so and while I liked the song, Running Scared, I didn't think it was winning -worthy at all. I was fully expecting Sweden to win after they leapt to the top of the voting early on, and managed to stay there quite a few rounds. But when Azerbaijan hit the top, they stayed there, quickly sprinting way ahead of anyone else. Disappointing or not, at least the result was a surprise. I am glad we went out of our way to not read any web pages or watch the news, and when Fahmi announced he knew who'd won, I threatened him with not feeding his cat when he goes away if he so much as uttered a syllable. It kept him quiet!

The best part was that everyone joined in the camp fun, some even keeping track of their favourite acts on paper - Simon (John and Essie's neighbour) and Steve Moore - and made the night a really fun, silly night. It was exactly the kind of party we wanted, and I am so glad Kerry makes the effort to come down from Brisbane every year for something that is a highlight of my year. We have even decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our friendship by going to Eurovision in 2014, no matter the country! Of course, we haven't signed any contracts so we can ignore if it goes somewhere we don't want to travel to!

Anyway next year we're off to Baku for more camp, glitzy fun! I can't wait!!