Diary

Irish radio journalists blew me off in a very unprofessional way, but I am at least satisfied with the winning song of this year's Eurovision Song Contest - that is not at all common! I finally found time to do a bit of sighseeing and tomorrow we're flying back to Denmark.

I am very pleased that Denmark made it to the final, and that we now, once again, have all five Nordic countries in the final. I managed to get 10 out of 10 in guessing the qualifiers from the second semi-final, but will I also get the winner right?

Most people seem to think that Romania stole their spot for the final and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s statements are beginning to annoy me. In the meantime Iceland and Portugal appear to have stolen quite some hearts among the fans and the press – and Lys Assia is being abused.

A welcome reception that turned out to be a gigantic party with several winners performing, a first dress rehearsal with script mistakes, a fabulous Dutch party and lots of mosquito bites, that was basically my Sunday and Monday.

An Icelandic party with lots of good music, great performances and fantastic food – and Vladimir Putin inspecting the press centre which is getting more and more crowded and directly dangerous when Patricia Kaas is around, those are the keywords for the past two days.

The worst press conference moderator in years, a press centre where the security level changes every day, a Swedish delegation that was only allowed a 5 minutes press conference and a hotel which thinks my boyfriend hired me for one night that pretty much describes my fifth day.

First the security was so tight that journalist and artists couldn’t get their accreditation badges, then it was brought back to the level we know and Wednesday the Russians installed a new “Big Brother is watching you” toy which quite quickly became annoying and time consuming for most people.

Yesterday was N day. N for Norway and it turned out to be quite a circus act in more than one way. The Eurovision Song Contest juice is also popular, but people are wondering where the water is... me, I am just happy that in two weeks I will never have to see a Russian hot dog again.

Sunday’s accreditation problem is solved and it appeared like everything nice and slowly got into the Eurovision rhythm again during Monday. Denmark and Iceland even had time asking the question about if Iceland should re-join the Kingdom of Denmark.

The first day of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest gave us, just as expected, some starting problems, some though to a degree where it can be described as a scandal, but it is not all negative. The Russians do impress in some ways.