Went to Georges River Council’s booked-out Eurovision party at 4am in Hurstville. Incredible spread — free meatballs, cinnamon scrolls and coffee/hot chocolates!
FABBA performed 4.15am and they hadn’t seen my giant ABBA flag before, which we all waved around.
Yol and Ricki had attended last year and they invited me and Louise.
When the famous Eurovision fanfare blared at 5am, the auditorium was packed.
Council gave out free Eurovision Bingo cards and voting score sheets ranking “Bop-ability”, “Gives all the feels”, “Outfits be snatched” and “Flawless performance”.
My fave song was Croatia’s Ri Tim Tagi Dim, described by a critic as “for cat lovers and anxiety sufferers” and written and performed by Baby Lasagna (who hates lasagna!). It was inspired by many young people leaving farms and heading to foreign cities for better jobs. Though excited, the protagonist has anxiety attacks over leaving home and will mostly miss his cat. “Rim tim tagi dim” is the name of a fictional home village folk dance — “heavy metal with doilies” SBS called it.
I also loved Finland’s hilarious “No Rules” where a guy runs around pretending to be nude and there were last-minute strategically-placed props protecting his modesty. At Council’s party, several guys had dressed in the No Rules t-shirts, wigs and hats, so fun.
I loved UK entry’s Olly Alexander starring role in the AIDs TV series It’s A Sin and his song Dizzy unfortunately got zero in the public vote (which seemed unbelievable, considering the Eurovision audience).
ABBA’s appearance was mostly lifted from their Voyage show. Then my fave song didn’t win (came second) and it was all feeling like when your fave team comes last.
Just then I got a phone call from an ABBA fan we’d met early this morning and he offered a lift back so I gladly accepted and was out of there for a big long recovery sleeeeeeep…