Glorious!

Yesterday we watched the Norwegian Sports Gala 2010 where all the glorious sports heros from the Land of the Vikings and the Midnight Sun got their fair share of well deserved honor. Plenty of Olympic gold medalists and even a road cycling World Champion, the God of Thunder Thor Hushovd! And let's just be crystal clear, pre-written jokes awkwardly performed by dolled up athletes pulled out of their natural habitat makes up for plenty of embarrassing hide behind the pillow moments. We made new nominations for the Barbara Dex Award like every other minute.

But let's give the athletes a break, they were after all not the main reason why we watched the show. A major Eurovision alert went off at the GEE Head Quarter when we got the word that Haddy N’jie and Erik Solbakken would reappear as the hosting couple. Haddy looking as fab as ever and Erik cheesy and charming as usual. This year's MGP-hostess Anne Rimmen practiced her presenting skills on stage, apparently with welded-on hair imported from London. We like the sound of that, clearly a new Diva in the making.

And since Eurovision Diva Maria Haukaas Mittet has been nowhere to be seen for like the last five minutes it was about time she claimed back her rightful place in the limelight! Maria performed the official song for this year's Nordic Ski World Championship in Oslo. Our favorite Schlagerboys seemed to like it a lot!

But behold, Maria was not the only Eurovision Diva in the running to perform the World Championship song! It turns out Didrik had a go at it as well. Can we detect a change in media strategy for Didrik? It seems like he's been everywhere lately, and he's even funny, in his own cheesy way. Kudos Didrik, we never knew you had it in you!

Guess who's back, back, back?

We were all sad to see our Eurovision Diva Maria Haukaas Mittet go after an excruciatingly exciting dance duel with the super hunky Åsleik "Knerten" Engmark on Strictly Come Dancing last Saturday.

But, now she's back!

One of the other contestants had to withdraw due to an injury, and it turns out you don't have to ask twice for Maria to get back into the limelight! What a shocker. And hurrah!

But, hang on a minute, will this mean that darling Maria won't have time to participate in MGP 2011 after all? Oh, no! Or yeah, whatever...

So do you think you can dance, Maria?

Last night on the premier of this season's Norwegian Dancing with the stars/Strictly come dancing, our favorite Eurovision Diva showed us that she is not just a one trick pony. By the look of it, Maria Haukaas Mittet (yep, she's newlywed) actually can dance as well!

(pic from vg.no)


By scoring a decent 30 points with the judges and finishing on top of the scoreboard during this first round she's off to a flying start. So hold on be strong guys, this lady will be airing on a TV screen near you for yet many weeks to come!

Eurovision Diva gone Dancing Diva?

To prove our point on what we said about Maria Haukaas Storeng in our previous post. According to vg.no the Diva is now ready for yet another challenge in the limelight as a participant in the next season of Dancing with the Stars here in Norway. Now it's starting to sound like we don't like her, but we do honestly, she's great, and we think she could do very well as a dancing diva. But, yeah, sometimes less is more Maria! Previous seasons have showed that swinging your feathers on the dance floor can be a smart career move, so we wish her the best of luck, however we have reached a point where seeing her pretty face on screen just makes us wanna switch off the telly…

Summertime...

We apologize for not posting very frequently lately, but even ESC-bloggers have to take some time off now and then to recharge the batteries and enjoy the Nordic summer nights. Now it's back to work and busy days in the office battling a jam packed inbox. So much for recharging the batteries... Oh, well, as a way of fighting post vacation blues we can recommend putting some of your favorite Eurovision tracks on your playlist and turning up the volume to the despair of your colleagues. Cheerful Schlagers from the 80s works best.

Summertime isn't exactly peak season when it comes to Eurovision Extravaganza, but it is actually possible to catch a glimpse of some of your ESC-favorites both live and on the telly as many artists go on tour and appear on various summer shows and events. Say, if you happen to be near Mysen south of Oslo on the 28th of August, you can see Norwegian MGP-stars like Heine Totland (MGP-semifinalist 2010), Venke Knutson (MGP-finalist 2010), Åge Steen "Glam" Nilsen (ESC 10th place 2005 with Wig Wam), and ESC-diva Maria Haukaas Storeng (MGP-finalist 2010 and ESC 5th place 2008) as well as Ovi (who sat Telenor Arena on fire this year and landed a well deserved 3rd place for Romania) perform at Momarkedet. If you're not in Mysen, like most of us, you can catch the show on Norwegian TV2. We will most likely not tune in, since we’ve seen Maria perform like a gazillion times over the past few months. She is everywhere all the time, and we're starting to grow a bit tired of her shiny happy face. That girl really knows how to make the most of it for what it’s worth… Good for her!

There's no such thing as over exposure. Or is it?




We are starting to look forward to a new ESC-season and in September it will be revealed where next year’s shenanigans will be at. We know it’s somewhere in Germany that’s for sure. And rumor has it that the comeback kid Austria will be among the first to select their entry for next year. Hurray!

Our night: Semi-Final 2

After seeing the first semi-final in Telenor Arena we decided to watch the second with a bunch of friends at Ballroom yesterday evening. It was great to watch the action on the big screen while enjoying a glass of wine and taking in the fabulous atmosphere created by all the shiny happy, all dressed up party guests.

And not to mention the entertainment Ballroom treated us to before the show started. Norwegian ESC Stars were queuing up to play for us and we got amazing performances from Jostein Hasselgård, Maria Haukaas Storeng and Alexander Stenerud. Oh, joy! Afterwards we jetted off for some more ESC Schlager Extravaganza at Club Latter before we ended up at Euroclub.

Alexander Stenerud, mesmerizing the crowd as always.

Maria Haukaas Storeng looking fab, giving us her 2008 entry "Hold on, be strong".

Guri's wannabe date for the evening.

And here's Astrid's wannabe date, Jostein Hasselgård (4th place ESC 2003). Getting sort of afraid to move on when having such a hot guy on our hands.

Crap, we almost forgot, we have some non famous friends as well. Here's Hildegunn and Dang.

Astrid had a star moment with Aleksander Øverland Berg from NRK's "Ingen Grenser". Aleksander supports France in ESC. No wonder when seeing him own the dance floor at Club Latter!

The Danes celebrating that first part of welding job has been successful.