Retro Sunday: Portugal 1996

We suppose you'll have to be a hardcore Eurovision fan to prefer old ESC classics over Christmas carols these days, and we have been searching really hard to find something sufficiently Christmassy in this week's Retro Sunday. The most obvious choice must be this pearl from the first time Oslo was the Eurovision host city:



Not only is this Portugal's best result so far, and a wonderful, happy celebration of Portugal's versatile historic roots. It has also connections to one of the best feelgood Christmas movies of all times, Love Actually. Lúcia Moniz portrays Colin Firth's (aka Mr. Darcy, we forgot his character's name in this movie) love interest Aurélia. Their encounter makes us almost start to think that Portuguese, not Italian, is the language of love and it's so very romantic when Aurélia mumbles something in her own language while Mr. Darcy keeps blabbering away in his own stiff upper-lip Oxford English. It's all extremely stereotyped, but what the heck, it's Christmas and we will allow ourselves to become mushy and sentimental.

Thanks to the Portuguese for keeping it real and almost always singing in their own language in Eurovision. We look forward to the Festival da Canção and hope to God they choose a decent entry for Düsseldorf. Because there's no other country we more wish success and a long awaited victory. And we wouldn't mind spending a couple of spring weeks in Lisbon either.

Feliz Natal a todos!