:: Eurovision 24 :: Oslo 2010

I thought I have seen it all! clearly thats not true. One week after the deadline for submitting potential Eurovision songs to RTÉ, rumours are rife of an unusual entry. All Kinds of Everything , ESC Today and even RTE itself, are reporting that Dustin the Turkey is one of the contenders for Eurosong 2008, with his song '12 Points' ('Douze Points'), which may in itself be a tongue-in-cheek parody of all things Eurovision. If the rumour is true, which I hope its not, and he is selected for the Irish final, it will mean that the remaining five Eurosong finalists have to face one of the country's biggest and best-known stars in the race for Belgrade. Dustin shot to fame when he was introduced in RTÉ's highly successful show The Den in 1990. He was introduced as a character as a prize for a golf tournament winner - however, it turned out that he was not only still alive, but also had a North Dublin accent! Since then, Dustin has outlived four human co-present

Unsurprisingly, following the negative coverage of the original logo, RTS have adopted a new logo featuring a violin staff in the Serbian colours of blue, white and red. It was officially launched the same day as the Semi Final Draw's and "Confluence Of Sound" is the theme of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. eurovision.tv reports: "Belgrade will become the place where energies will meet, where ideas will be exchanged and where new values will be born. The confluence of colors and sounds served as the inspiration for the final solution. The 'marriage' of colors and energies represents the coming-together of all European nations to celebrate together the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. It also served as inspiration for our slogan: The Confluence Of Sound. It represents the coming together of not only nations, but also the music, joy and energy that they bring."

As you can see, I am writing this two days late, as I was in college the day they did the draw. I really don't understand why they do the draw in the afternoon while nearly everyone is working. If it was in the evening, it would be better, and they would get higher audience figures. On Monday 28th January, the 38 countries competing in each semi-final were drawn. Most interestingly the running order won't be known until March. Well done to RTS and the people of Belgrade for a great show. If you missed the show that day, don't despair, the show is available below with thanks to You Tube. The countries competing in the 1st Semi-Final on Tuesday 20th May 2008: Andorra Armenia Azerbaijan Belgium Bosnia & Herzegovina Estonia Finland Greece Ireland Israel Moldova Montenegro The Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Russia San Marino Slovenia Germany (voting rights, will not participate) Spain (voting rights, will not participate) The countries competing in the 2nd Semi-Final on T

Switzerland has made an internal selection for its Eurovision entry as they have in previous years. Paolo Meneguzzi will represent Switzerland in Belgrade with "Era Stupendo". allkindsofeverything.ie has the MP3 audio here.

Making a disappointing start in 2007, where they finished last in the semi-final, the Czech Republic used the same selection format as they did last year. The Czech national final was held on the 26th January 2008 where the winner was chosen by text voting. The winning entry was Tereza Kerndlova with the song "Have Some Fun".

8 songs competed in the Maltese Final at the Malta Fairs & Convention Centre on 26th January 2008. The winner was chosen by televoting (80%) and a jury (20%). The winning song is "Vodka" by Morena. Malta have had disappointing results recently. The country finished last in 2006 and failing to make it out of the semi final in the 2007 contest. I really love Malta and always have a soft spot for them. They always have good songs. I really hope they do well.

On Monday 28th January 2008, all eyes will be on the host city of this year's Eurovision Song Contest, Belgrade, for the first time, to determine which country takes place in which of the two Semi-Finals. The live show takes place at Belgrade's City Hall, and is being hosted by Serbian broadcaster RTS. The programme will be streamed live through Eurovision.tv's esctv, so make sure you tune in at 13:00 CET (11.00 GMT)! more information . More information on the draw is available from eurovision.tv Here are the 6 pots for the Draw: Source: EBU

RTÉ Television has confirmed that the national final to select Ireland's Eurovision Song Contest 2008 entry will take place on Saturday February 23rd 2008. According to allkindsofeverything.ie it is believed that the University Concert Hall in Limerick city would be the venue. This wouldn't the first time that Limerick's University Hall has been the venue for the selection of Ireland's Eurovision entry. Back in 1994, the University Hall staged the National Song Contest, hosted by Pat Kenny and the song chosen on the night of March 13th, was Rock'n'Roll Kids sung by Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan. Two months later, the song went on to give Ireland a record breaking third successive Eurovision Song Contest victory, in Dublin's Point Theatre. Unlike 1994, when regional juries chose the Irish entry, the 2008 entry will be chosen by the public, from a selection of six songs. RTÉ has also confirmed that around 150 entries have been submitted t

Their final was held on 12th January 2008 in Nicosia. The Cypriot entry has a French title, same as last year, although "Femme Fatale" performed by Evdokia Kadi , was actually the only song in Greek in the selection. It is likely to stay in Greek for the Contest in May.

On 10th December 2007, RTVA announced that Andorra would be represented in Belgrade by the song "Casanova" sung by Spanish singer Gisela. MP3 version on the song available from allkindsofeverything.ie

Albania became the first country to stage its national Eurovision selection. Following semi-finals on the two previous evenings, the Albanian entry was chosen by a jury on 16th December 2007 at the Festivali I Kenges. The song chosen was "Zemrën E Lamë Peng" (We Let Our Hearts Stumble) sung by 16 year old newcomer Olta Boka.

This may be of interest for our United Kingdom visitors to the blog, but Samantha Janus who plays Ronnie Mitchell in the popular BBC soap drama Eastenders actually represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 1991 in Italy. I actually never knew this until she appeared on the talk show "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" and they showed a clip of the entry "Message to your Heart". Her song came 10th out of 22 songs that year. See below Samantha singing for the United Kingdom in 1991. Personally I really like the song.

Ticket news concerning the exact details of when and how tickets for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest is still yet to be finalised. Early reports that they would begin on January 13th have proved to be a little optimistic, reports esctoday.com. Ticket sales for the Eurovision Song Contest is something managed exclusively by the host broadcaster and is a task normally outsourced to a reputable ticket sales agency. They are expected to be sold to international fans on the internet.

After checking the website about a 1,000 times, finally tomorrow, Tuesday 15 January, will see the launching of the new official site of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. One of the new features offered by the website will be the live streaming of national finals. The first one was the Cypriot final, on Saturday 12 January and two more have been confirmed so far: Azerbaijan: National final is on February 2nd at 18.00 CET and Estonia: National final is also on February 2nd at 20.30 CET Visit the new eurovision.tv here .

All Kinds of Everything, the popular Irish Eurovision Website has launched a new website with a new design and a new domain. The new website can be seen at: http://www.allkindsofeverything.ie/

While Austria have withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, it seems that it is likely that ORF will broadcast the final of the contest on 24th May according to head of program Wolfgang Lorenz, ESC Today reports. That puzzles a few people including myself. First they don't want to participate, yet they want to broadcast the show. Lorenz stated that broadcasting the final is an option and that at the moment, he assumes that the show will be aired on ORF. Austrian private channel ATV will definitely not take over the contest. After disappointing results in 2004 and 2005, Austria withdrew from the contest in 2006 but returned in 2007, but only finished 27th, with only four points in the semi final which led to another withdrawal from the 2008 contest.