Eurovision 2011: the final – live blog

Will Blue triumph? Can Jedward win? Enjoy every ridiculous minute of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest live from 8pm with your glamorous hosts, Heidi and Stuart The finalists: semi-final one and The finalists: semi final two 8.16pm: It’s the first act! His name is Axel, but goes by the name of Paradise Oscar, and he is from FINLAND . Ooh, Jeff Brazier! Right, so basically it’s about someone called Peter who knows each European country by heart. He is off to save the planet, apparently, and we’re all welcome to join him as long as we sing da da dum da da dum. I’m only going if Paradise Oscar doesn’t wear that bloody awful shirt. 8.13pm: The phonelines are open, and you can start voting! Except you haven’t seen any of the acts yet, but since when did that matter? VOTE JEDWARD. You know you want to. 8.07pm: They have no been joined by 43 Lena lookalikes waving the flags of Europe. And now the actual Lena, doing the final chorus. And a full swing band. And many, many, fireworks. My head hurts. 8.00pm: IT’S STARTING! Live from the Espirit arena in Dusseldorf, which is apparently packed with 35,000 fans. Or so Graham Norton tells us, for he is in charge of UK proceedings. Our hosts for the evening are Anka, who is wearing a red dress like a 70s shagpile rug and a over-tight ponytail; Judith, who is wearing Bacofoil and doing the French bits, and a man called Stefan who is the actual Swedish Chef off the Muppets. He is talking about TV vankings. I hope these are rankings. Ah, there’s nothing like a bit of set-piece intro comedy, is there? Lena can’t perform last year’s winning song, Satellite, because she is also competing this evening, so Stefan and Anke are performing a rockabilly version. Imagine how bad that could possibly be, and then multiply it by about 7 MILLION. 7.58pm: It’s nearly time! It’s Heidi here now right through until 9.30pm, when Stuart will take over. 7.47pm: Oh, apparently the warm-up guy is cracking xenophobic gags. The Irish are drunks, the Italians are short and the British have no sense of humour. Oh, bravo. 7.44pm: Heidi Stephens: A message from James in Dusseldorf – loads of Union flags on display, apparently, and the warm-up guy is getting the crowd going. Who the hell do you book to do the warm-up for Eurovision? 7.24pm: Stuart Heritage : Right, you know how these Eurovision drinking games work by now. Whenever any of the following happens, you have to drink something. Or eat something. Or just generally despair at the world a little bit. I will be doing the last of these suggestions, whereas Heidi will be wittering incoherently in no time: 1 – The UK’s entry is described as ‘our strongest in years’ 2 – The hosts misguidedly attempt to flirt with each other 3 – A song rhymes ‘fire’ with ‘desire’ 4 – A song rhymes ‘high’ with ‘sky’ 5 – While announcing their country’s voting scores, a presenter unsuccessfully tries to chat up the host 6 – Someone wears enough fake tan to make you question the reliability of your television’s contrast settings 7 – A performer finishes their song by bellowing into a wind machine 8 – A song makes a cackhanded nation-specific political statement that’s lost on 99% of the audience 9 – The UK doesn’t do as well as people thought it would 10 – Someone mumbles bitterly about political voting 7.16pm: Heidi Stephens: Guten abend meine freunde! It’s nearly time! I’m going to take you through the first 90 minutes of this evening’s show, which should cover most of the 25 glorious musical contributions from Europe’s finest musical talent. At 9.30pm, my lovely co-host Stuart Heritage will be taking over for all the amazing interval entertainment and the scoring, right through to the bitter end when Blue are crowned champions and the UK faces the prospect of hosting the 2012 show on a budget of £8.50 and a pocketful of fluff and buttons. OK, maybe not, but I think the UK might do alright. The good news is, we can’t do any worse than last place in 2010, so hurrah. I haven’t seen much by way of the performances this year, so most of what’s going to occur this evening will be new to my unpolluted eyes and ears. I’ve also heard bits of the UK entry, but not the entire song, so if there’s bit in the middle where they all make a human pyramid with Duncan on top playing the spoons, my horror will be unfeigned. I have, however, made a note of the all the artists’ names and song titles, so I don’t waste valuable viewing time looking up how to spell something in Slovenian that sounds like it’s just been coughed up by a horse. Alas Stuart and I didn’t make it to Dusseldorf this year, but we are receiving dispatches from JAMES HODGE, who is sending all the news and gossip from inside the arena so we can post it here. Apparently it is currently packed to the rafters with lots of very excited people, some of whom are waving the flags of more than one nation. And this, my friends, is the spirit of Eurovision. Also, Jagermeister. 7.10pm: Heidi: Hello and welcome to the annual Guardian Eurovision Song Contest liveblog, coming to you live from the UK! Stuart: Bonjour et bienvenue à la réunion annuelle Guardian Eurovision de la chanson liveblog concours, à venir avec vous en direct du Royaume-Uni! Heidi: You’re doing this on Google Translate, aren’t you? Stuart: Yes. Heidi: Oh. Hello! I’m Heidi! Stuart: And I’m Stuart! Heidi: And we’re your Eurovision liveblog hosts! Stuart: Bonsoir! It’s going to be a crazy crazy Euro liveblog party! Heidi, you are looking very beautiful this evening. Heidi: Thank you Stuart, and you are also looking very handsome. Right, that’s the obligatory clunky flirting over. Welcome to the 2011 Eurovision Liveblog! It’s a night of bad outfits, demented dancing and impenetrable lyrics, and that’s just from Blue and Jedward. We are very excited. Clearly the whole of Eurovision is too much drama for one liveblogger to cope with, so tonight’s liveblog will be a two person affair – Heidi Stephens will be kicking things off at 8pm, with Stuart Heritage picking up the sequinned baton at 9.30pm. Do feel free to join the fun by leaving your comments below, and don’t forget to let us know where you are, who you’re with and who you’re cheering for this evening. We do not discriminate. If Moldova float your boat, so be it. Yay, Eurovision! Enjoy! Eurovision 2011 Eurovision Television Heidi Stephens Stuart Heritage guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 14, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.