Finally Russia won and we could go to Moscow. I was quite excited about that, however I had some financial problems in 2009 – due to the global financial crisis. As I have indicated in my 2000 looking back, I stopped working that year and so my only income was interest from investments which took a horrible dip as the money was invested in the stock exchange and so I was unable to go for the entire two weeks. Also the hotel in Moscow was quite expensive. I arranged with Morten that I would be there just the first week and then go home and he then got someone from Norway to share the room with him the second week. This worked out perfectly because Per Michael was coming just for the second week and so he replaced me in the hotel room.

Two South Africans also decided to go to Moscow, Nelius Ferreira for his third Eurovision in a row and Carl-Piet van Eden for his first time. They decided to stay until the end.

I flew with Qatar airways via Doha which seemed the most direct route to Moscow.

The Russian visa was quite interesting cost wise – if you wanted it instantly, it was like say 100 euro, and then there was a drop of like 10 euro for each day you were prepared to wait until like 50 euro if you waited a week. I decided on the first one otherwise it would mean going to the embassy again to collect and traveling to Pretoria a second time. So for the first time ever I had my visa on the day of application.

For the first time I would also not arrive at the same airport as Morten. With Moscow being so big, there are several airports and Morten coming from the west would arrive at the Western airport and I coming from the South would arrive at the Domodedovo airport. Luckily Andy coming from Kazakhstan would also arrive at this airport and his flight was like an hour behind me. So we arranged that I wait at the airport for his arrival and then he has arranged with Alexey Tcharykov to pick us up and we pay him instead of a taxi.

We first went to the accreditation center and there was a long queue but Andy knew someone who came to fetch us and took us pass all these 100 of so people waiting and we ended up right in front of the queue to get our accreditation.

I was then taken to my hotel. Alexey had to leave immediately to go and get Morten at his airport as his flight was about to land at that time. I really liked our hotel, a big hotel with many floors and something like 23 of the delegations stayed there as well.

The hotel also had a foreign exchange counter where I could get ruble for my euro (again it was impossible to get any Russian money in South Africa).

Once Morten arrived and we had settled in properly, we walked around for some sightseeing, but the wind was blowing quite heavily. Near our hotel was some important tourist attraction with statues and stuff – I am not really a tourist so I sort of just tagged along and got to see the Russian people.

My highlight of Moscow was the underground – I love going down the escalator almost 1 kilometer and up and just to see the faces of people coming in the opposite direction – these escalators were always crowded, no matter what time we traveled. Our hotel was fairly close to the venue and the press center, like 3 metro stops.

The lay out of the press center was quite interesting and the pigeonholes – they were allocated alphabetical by COUNTRY and mine was under S – SOUTH AFRICA so almost like 1000 or so before me. The interesting thing is that you got a key for your pigeonhole and so you could go and unlock it any time you feel and see if there was something in.

Ralph Siegel returned and this time he wrote the song for Montenegro, “Just get out of my life” for Andrea Demirovic. I had a gift for Ralph as well as a certificate saying his 100th song had been covered in South Africa. The moderator made a mistake and said South Africa offered Ralph citizenship, when it was just that due to him having written so many songs that were covered in South Africa and sold well, the idea was that if ever he was tired of Germany, he could come to South Africa anytime and get citizenship. Meanwhile his partner Bernd Meinunger had already bought property in Cape Town as well as Nicole, so they already had South Africa as sort of a summer destination. They also have a music publishing company called CAPE TOWN songs.

Interesting in the press center was the fact that they had translators and so you could get the press conference in French, English and Russian – so nobody sat in front and translate . It was done automatic by translators in the back and you got it on your earphones.

The actual venue was just a few steps away from the press center. Everything was so well centered and easy to get to.

Remembering me from Belgrade, some people of the Belarus delegation showered me in gifts each time they saw me, especially one woman who was not very good in English, but each time she saw me, said “Here’s another gift”. I cannot even recall all the stuff, many of the items I gave to Morten to take to his OGAE members – I know there were crystal glasses and Vodka and chocolates. The interesting thing also was I often got a little note saying DEAR GUEST – there is a souvenir for your from a delegation. You can pick it up at the Equipment storage – this is because it was too big to fit into the pigeonholes. 90% of the time when I got this notice, it was something from Belarus.

A funny thing also happened with Belarus. While sitting in the press conference room someone came in with something we thought was CD’s. I took three, one for me, one for Morten and one for Andreas in Austria. Imagine my shock after a while when this CD’s started melting and then I realized this was not CD’s in a box, it was ice cream. I think quite a lot of people discovered this as well. Belarus had so much ice cream, you could feed an entire army on that.

With Sakis returning to Eurovision for Greece, I decided to do a project with a South African singer Izak Davel – he is sort of the South African Sakis. He was doing a new CD and I thought it would be nice if he covered Sakis 2004 song “Shake it” and we also presented it in a denim pocket since Izak also had a denim company as a sponsor. His record company told me I would not get on the plane to Moscow without it. Well, it is 8 years later and I am still waiting for it. This was really the worst thing for me, especially as Sakis knew about this. But he was so cool, in Moscow he said to me, “It’s not your fault, if they did not see the opportunity, it is their loss”. His 2009 song “This is the night” had been covered since by several singers but he has not returned to Eurovision so I could give him a copy.

Miss World 2008 Ksenia Sukhinova, who was filmed in image of girls of all participating countries, was decorating the venue and other parts of the city – It was interesting to see how she represented each different country.

Breakfast in our hotel was such a treat. Besides a lot of food and some very interesting and delicious, with 23 delegations staying there, I had breakfast every day with someone from another delegation – Albania, Romania, Iceland, Belgium, etc. This was the closest I had ever interacted with the artists.

Even more closer interaction came from Albania. The delegation was staying on the same floor as me and Morten and their singer Kejsi Tole practiced their song and dance routine in the lobby in front of our room. Albania also had a twin as backing dancers and these two guys decided to give me and Morten a personal show inside out bedroom just before the rehearsals so we could tell them where they could improve.

One day Morten and I visited the RED SQUARE – well, I had seen pictures of this square so many times on TV and filled with soldiers, it looked huge. I was quite disappointed in real life – it was actually fairly small. Around it was a huge new shopping center but so expensive, I did not even bought a postcard. This is surely the shopping paradise for the Russian millionaires.

Slovakia returned to the contest after quite some years with “Let’ tmou” by Nela Pociskova & Kamil Mikulcik. They had a big selection that year with several interesting songs. OGAE rest of the world was able to convince the other clubs that we should also take part in the OGAE Second chance contest and we would enter a song from a country without an own club. We decided on a song from Slovakia for our first entry. So I did spend a lot of time with the Slovak delegation to try and see which song we could enter – one with a video.

The Czech republic was also there with a song I still think it is one of the worst ever entered, “Aven romale” by Gipsy.cz. We were told at the press conference that they were quite successful in China. The song did badly and that was the end of the Czech participation for quite a few years.

Chiara was back for Malta for a third time, this time she was singing “What if we”.

Lidia Kopania was there for Poland with an interesting song “I don’t wanna leave”.

Israel had an interesting song “There must be another way” sung by Noa & Mira Awad – I however expected more from the song – it promised so much but did not deliver in the end.

The 5 Nordic countries all have entries that are worth mentioning. We have also covered all 5 in South Africa – the first time ever that all 5 Nordic entries have been covered and three of them turned platinum here but it was the three that did not do as well as the ones of Norway and Iceland which came first and second. I think these two covers were not as well promoted as the ones from Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Interesting is that these three all had 5 or more SA artists covering them. The Finnish cover is so far the biggest seller of a Finnish song in South Africa and it is even played by Eurovision DJ’s at events – I heard Louis Klomp played in it Copenhagen – besides the Afrikaans cover, it was also done in English and Spanish here.

2009 also seemed to be the year with the most covers in South Africa – almost 75% of the songs have been covered. The most interesting cover was that of the German entry “Miss kiss kiss bang” – it was done in a duet between Patricia Lewis (who had covered both Charlotte’s entries -1999 and 2008 successfully) and David Hasselhoff from Knight rider fame. David even sings part of the song in Afrikaans.

Some years later Greece entered Eurovision with a song called “Alcohol is free” but this is exactly what happened in Moscow. Each member of the press got a lot of free coupons for free drinks – I think at least 5 a day and we got these coupons in advance. The coupons had different colours like green for Monday and red for Tuesday. Because I was not in Moscow for the second week, I gave out all my coupons to others.

The best promo CD ever (for me) came in the form of “Shine” from De Toppers of the Netherlands. This promo single must have cost a fortune. They also spent a lot of money and the three guys drove into the press center on bicycles. One of De Toppers actually left before Moscow, namely Gerard Joling who represented the Netherlands in 1988 at Eurovision. He was replaced by Jeroen van der Boom, who went on to cover the Danish entry of this year successfully in Dutch. Another Topper is Gordon who is really famous and had number 1 hits before. The third Topper is Rene Froger who also had a lot of chart success prior to De Toppers.

Some guy called Mesjieu Maurice covered Shine in Dutch as “Schijn” and also in the dialect of Limburg as “Sjien”. The proceeds of this single went to the Toon Hermans Huis for people with cancer.

Actually 2009 was the year of really special promo singles. Another stunning one came in the form of Yohanna from Iceland with “Is it true”. She also recorded several language versions, among them German and Russian.

Another out of this world promo pack came from Armenia – the song “Jan-Jan” by Inga and Anush. They also had the most beautiful t-shirts.

Serbia had a horror song but again a fantastic promo package with the CD having versions of the song in Serbian, English, Russian, French, Greek, Hebrew and Finnish.

They also brought a beautiful bag (but no shoes)

Yet another stunning promo single came from Turkey in the form of “Dum tek tek” by Hadise.

I ran into Philip Kirkorov in the press center and was able to hand him a promo single we had done – a cover by Lee Scott of his song “Shady lady” which Lee calls “Los my alleen”. Philip was really surprised by it.

Arash was there for Azerbaijan – he was in duet with AySel and their song is “Always”.He had a big hit called “Temptation” and it was covered by the boy band Hi 5 as “Versoeking” and I was able to hand Arash this CD – he too was extremely surprised that one of his songs travelled all the way to South Africa.

Romania had a song called “The Balkan girls” which I thought was really interesting and we covered it with Cole van Dais as “Suid-Afrikaanse meisies”.

Even Slovenia had a small promo single but it was cut in the form of a music instrument – really eye catching. The song “Love symphony” by Quartissimo featuring Martina was just too much of an instrumental track to really catch the attention of the fans.

A highlight for many was the visit to Vladimir Putin to the venue where he saw part of the Azerbaijan rehearsal and then came into the press conference room. I hardly recognized him as he was much shorter than I had expected. It was really nice of him to come and say “hello”. He had a lot of security guards with him. I think some of them left with Belarus ice cream.

One evening Jakob and Karina came to our hotel room to fetch their show tickets. It was the first time I met these two members of OGAE Norway.

I spoke to Malena Ernman as she mentioned the feathers from her dress was from South Africa. I really like “La voix”.

“Believe again” from Brinck was not really featuring on the radar but for some reason this song was in such demand that I had no less than 12 SA singers who wanted to cover it. At least six did with the biggest hit coming the way of Heinz Winckler who was the first Idols winner in South Africa. The first SA artist to cover “Believe again” was Henry Alant and we had the promo single in Moscow to hand personally to Brinck. In a year with really great promo singles the Danish one was awful, not even a cover.

Alexander Rybak from Norway was the overwhelming favourite to win with “Fairytale” and it did win. I like it but it was not a wow song to me.

Spain brought Soraya with a catchy song “La noche es para mi (the night is for me)”. I was able to also get a full CD by her.

Patricia Kaas was one of the big names, singing for France “Et s’il falliat fe fIaire”. I did not know of her until Eurovision as she surely is not well known among the average music lover in South Africa.

The United Kingdom has Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber writing their entry “It’s my time” sung by Jade, but it was to me one of his weaker compositions. Interesting is that a Russian teenage magazine had the promo single attached to the magazine and so many of us bought this magazine just for the single. I cannot even recall the name of the magazine, I knew once I took the CD single off, I gave it to the first young Russian female I came across in the street.

In 2008 the three big ex Soviet countries all had great songs. In 2009, their entries were no up to my taste, especially Ukraine with the awful “Be my Valentine (anti-crisis girl). Georgia decided to stay home after the EBU did not approve their entry – being political.

As usual I bought the double Eurovision CD and like Ukraine and Serbia, this was also special with the names of the countries written in Russian.

I also brought for the second year a special competition CD called EUROVISION ONS SING JOU LIEDJIES with covers of Euro songs in Afrikaans.

Well, as usual, there was some drama, this time on my departure. As the Russian ruble is worthless in South Africa and I cannot even exchange back home, I decided to workout exactly how much my taxi will cost to the airport. I ordered the taxi from the hotel reception and was told the fair will be x amount of ruble. I added like 10 ruble for a tip and made sure I spent the rest on sweets and things. The taxi came and Morten and me had a slight problem finding it – instead o being infront of the hotel, the taxi went into the parking lot. We finally located it and off I went. The driver was nice and friendly and asked me about my experience in Moscow. The streets were fairly empty – it was after all a Sunday morning. Imagine my shock when we got to the airport and the fair was 10 ruble more than I had. I explained to the driver that I was told the amount and added 10 ruble and now it is a further 10 ruble more – he said we went through a tollgate which was 10 ruble. I said I have no more Russian money so he will have to wait until I get to a foreign exchange counter at the airport to get 10 ruble, but he said it was okay – he understood. I gave him some souvenirs I got at Eurovision, like the cup and he was very happy.

The flight home was fairly uneventful and I was home in Johannesburg at the start of the rehearsals for semi final 1. Luckily with internet, I was able to follow what was happening back in Moscow. Although I was home in South Africa, I sort of figured in Moscow as well. Morten was unable to convince the reception staff at the hotel that I had left and Per Michael was the new person in the room, so poor Per Michael was the entire time “Roy”.

Nelius, who was the board member for Africa at the time, attended the OGAE meeting on behalf of R O W and I gave my pigeonhole key to Morten so whatever came in their, he could take for his members. There were 42 entries in Moscow and I had gotten 40 promo singles before I departed, missing just two – DENMARK and PORTUGAL and they gave into my pigeonhole after my departure and Morten posted those two off to me once he was back in Oslo – so I had a full house.

My favourites from Moscow are
Netherlands – Shine – De Toppers
Sweden – La voix – Malena Ernman
Bosnia & Herzegovina – Bistra voda – Regina
Iceland – Is it true – Yohanna
Montenegro – Just get out of my live – Andrea Demirovic

Horrors came in the form of
Czech republic – Aven romale – Gipsy.cz
Ukraine – Be my valentine (anti-crises girl) – Svetlana Loboda
Russia – Mamo – Anastasia Prikhodko
Serbia – Cipela – Marko Kon & Milaan
Latvia – Probka – Intars Busulis

It was quite difficult booking a flight to Belgrade – the best was with the Greek airline- Johannesburg – Athens – Belgrade. Returning was a problem, the flight there left Belgrade at 10 am on the Saturday morning, landed in Athens at midday and departed only 12 hours later at midnight for Johannesburg. I had to take this although it was not ideal, meaning I miss the entire Saturday of the final. But I have missed the final before so this was nothing new. For me the first week was anyway the most important, meeting the artists and composers and getting the promo singles.

Serbia has an embassy in Pretoria but they have a strange visa policy – all visas are done in Belgrade and not at the embassy in Pretoria. This made life tense for me as, although I handed in my passport a month before departure, I was only informed 2 days before departure that the passport can be collected at the embassy.

Nelius Ferreira was going again with me, like he did to Helsinki, so anyway both our passports were coming back on the same day. He however did not fly with Greek airline as he wanted to watch the final and so he flew via Frankfurt which is never a good option for me as Frankfurt is always a busy route and more expensive.

Morten booked a great hotel for us. We also had a prior arrangement – the woman working at the travel agency where Morten booked, was from Belgrade and she arranged with her brother who was still living there to meet us at the airport. So we paid him instead of a taxi. He also took us to the accreditation office to get our accreditation before dropping us at the hotel.

Our hotel was overlooking a MacDonalds that was bombed a few weeks prior to our arrival. At that time the war had just about ended and many people were nervous going. I was not as I live in a country where all kinds of attacks happened often and you anyway will die when it is your time.

Having not been to any ex Yugoslavia country and remembering my difficulty with foreign currency exchange in Kiev in 2005, I consulted my bank for advice on the best way to take money. They advised me to take traveler’s cheques as that is the safest option and lowest commission. The traveler’s cheques were in US dollar. Well, imagine my shock when the Monday morning I went to a bank there and they gave one look at the traveler’s cheques and said sorry, we do not exchange them, especially not American express traveler’s cheques. I went to 3 other banks and all had the same response. That meant I was stuck without money. Morten allowed me to use his telephone to phone the AMERICAN express office in the Netherlands who said sorry, Serbia is one of the few European countries who do not accept this and my bank should have never sold that to me.

It was impossible to deal with the bank in South Africa, I did many e-mails but they were not answered, or someone just said we can deal with this when you are back in the country. I heard that same day of a Finnish Eurovision fan who was on a train from Poland to Belgrade and he was robbed – his passport, laptop, money everything. The Finnish embassy in Belgrade came to his rescue – helped him with a temporary passport and a cash advance etc. I was so impressed – however no such help for me from my bank or the South African embassy. Luckily being with Morten, he wanted some stuff like a shirt and shoes and I could buy them on my credit card in return for cash. Luckily at Eurovision, I seldom spent a lot of money. But I of course had to pay Morten my share of the hotel cost but he understood that I would refund him once I was back home.

I tried not to let this incident ruin my Eurovision experience. I was extremely impressed with the Serbian people, especially the younger generation – they were wonderful people and I mixed with several of them when I took a bus every morning to the venue. Near the hotel was a wonderful kebab place and this guy every afternoon saw me coming and had my kebab ready. He liked the entry of Montenegro so I got him a copy of the promo single ” Zauvijek volim te” by Stefan Filipovic. He was so happy – I guess he was Montenegrin, I did not ask.

I was also very impressed with the members of OGAE Serbia, such a bunch of nice and friendly people and they took me backstage to the room where they gathered. I brought them a bottle of wine from South Africa, but I had it in my hand luggage and right at that time, they were very strict and all liquids were taken off passengers. Luckily I could inform Nelius to bring another bottle but put it in his in his suitcase which is booked in so at least we had a bottle of wine to give to OGAE Serbia.

The OGAE fanstand was quite nice and big, but one floor up and in a very quiet place and I said the chances of anybody coming there is slim. So we moved the fan stand to in front of the entrance to the press conference room and it was the right decision – it was so busy, everybody voted.
I was also very impressed with the Belgrade volunteers – always friendly, always helpful and what was so nice is that often they would stand in a long line and clap and cheer when an artist was coming to the press conference room. Then they walked in a line (like in the army) to get their food, mostly pizza.

Belgrade was also the only Eurovision where there were several press working rooms, two big ones downstairs – one for people with own laptops and one for people who needed a computer. Then upstairs where was 3 smaller rooms where you could sit in peace and quiet. We got an very interesting note book.

The Euroclub in Belgrade was HUGE – one evening Nelius and I were the DJ’s. OGAE Serbia arranged for us to go back to our hotels with a taxi and they carried the cost. Morten was quite impressed with the music we played.

The venue was some distance from the press center but it was a nice walk and there were small little restaurants and shops around it – we ate something light there several times.

The OGAE meeting was hosted in the Euro fan cafe where there were computers for fans to do their e-mails etc. They also had people performing there. The Euro fan cafe was like half way from the press center to our hotel.

I cannot recall the welcome party but I did attend as I went with Morten and other Norwegian fans who stayed in our hotel by taxi. But it did not impress me like Istanbul or Kyiv, nor was it as bad as Athens and Helsinki.

Two countries debuted in Belgrade, namely San Marino with Miodio and their song “Complice” and Azerbaijan with Elnur & Samit and their song “Day after day”. It brought the total countries to 43 as Austria decided to stay home.

Interesting is that a newspaper was printed every day during Eurovision in Belgrade – this was like having a summary of the previous day’s events

Slovenia has a great selection song, MANDOLINE by Sasa Lendero which did not win the selection. We decided to cover it in Afrikaans and I bought some copies to Belgrade since Slovenia is also an ex Yugoslavia country and I wanted to give it to members of the delegation. The Afrikaans version is called “Parstyd” (which refers to the process when grapes are turned into wine). As Nelius wrote the Afrikaans lyrics, it seemed ideal to bring it as he was also in Belgrade. The song was recorded by Ruan Cowley who also recorded the Serbian winner of 2007 “Molitva” in Afrikaans.

Interesting about the Hungarian delegation – they went home after the individual country rehearsals and returned then some days later for the show rehearsals – they told me it was cheaper flying home than to stay in a hotel in Belgrade for the entire period. I liked their entry and one of the composers is Viktor Rakonczai who was part of the group V I P that sang for Hungary in 1997 – I did not recognize him. We discussed covering the song “Candlelight” in Afrikaans.

On the Tuesday of the second week, something awful happened but it also showed that luck is sometimes on your side. I was fairly tired that day and also it looked like it was going to rain, so I told Morten I would be going back to the hotel. He was still busy watching the family show of semi final 1 and blogging for NRK about it. I just reached the entrance of the hotel when the heavens opened – I had not seen that much rain before. I asked for the hotel room key at reception and went up to the room. I cannot remember on what floor our room was, but Morten says it was the 7th floor. As I unlocked the door to the room, I heard a huge bang – the geyser burst and suddenly water was coming out everywhere. I had such a shock. I started getting our stuff out of the bedroom and into the hallway – the water at that moment was just in the bathroom. I of course first SAVED the promo singles but I have never worked this hard to clear the room. By the time I had everything out, the water was knee deep also in the bedroom. I left everything in the hallway and ran down the stairs to reception to tell them what had happened. They reacted quickly, came up to the room and turned off the water and then gave us another room on the same floor but in another passage and helped me carry everything to this room. By that time I was totally exhausted and fell on one bed in the room. Meanwhile an hour later Morten came to the hotel. By that time the key for our old room was back at reception and there had been a chance of staff at reception and he got the key, thinking I had gone out to get something to eat since the rain had stopped. He got to the room, unlocked the door and saw just an empty room – by that time the cleaning people had dried up all the water. He thought we had been robbed – and he could not believe they even took our dirty underwear and he then ran down the stairs as fast as he could and once he got down at reception, someone informed him of what had happened and told him about our new room. We were so lucky, had I got felt tired and because of the storm coming back sooner, the water from the geyser would have flooded everything we had. The only damage was my shoes because of all the water walking in and out to carry our stuff to the passage. Now I always bring just one pair of shoes to Eurovision and so had to walk bare feet to go and buy a new pair of shoes.

By now I had two major incidents – the money thing and the burst geyser, so the Wednesday I just rested most of the day. But life goes on and the contest was on and I had a 10 out of 10 song, Latvia. The moment I heard this song “Wolves of the sea” by Pirates of the sea, I just fell in love with it. Many people looked in shock at me when I said this was my favourite and even one person said how could I even tell that – but taste is individual and I have never made a secret of which songs I like or hate – even if I am the ONLY one liking that.

Many fans were hysterical over the entry from Portugal, “Senhora do mar” by Vinia Fernandes. I remember during the voting at the fan stand, almost half the press voted for this while Latvia had almost no votes besides mine. And it then not only qualified but ended up higher on the night than Portugal. I love the Latvia song so much so when the Smurfs recorded it in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, I made sure I got all the these CD’s – under normal circumstances I would never have bought a Smurfs CD.

I had a disagreement with someone of the Latvian delegation – I was promised the promo CD almost instantly and this person was not willing to give it to me. Finally when some of the composers (who are Swedish) came, I got it, and there were two different singles – I guess one was the Latvian printing and the other the Swedish printing. I had the song also covered in South Africa by Willem Botha and this gave him a chance some years later, but more on that when we get to 2013.

Two press conferences stood out, IRELAND with Dusty the Turkey and “Irelandse douze pointe” – it was jam-packed. The other LITHUANIA with “Nomads in the night” by Jeronimas Milius, almost empty until of course people heard they were giving the promo CD out to those in attendance.

Serbia has a great promo single of their entry “Oro” by Jelena Tomasevic featuring Bora Dugic and they were fantastic, putting a copy into each person’s pigeonhole and also made sure the volunteers got a copy of their own entry. Besides the Serbian version, they had versions in Spanish, Portuguese and Greek.

 

I nearly lost the Finnish promo single “Missa miehet ratsastaa” by Terasbetoni. I found a black envelope in my pigeonhole with nothing on and thought it was just something stupid and threw it away. A little while later the Finnish head of press asked me if I got the promo single and I said no. She then said but she personally put it in my pigeonhole in a black envelope. I rushed to the rubbish bin and still found it there.

I really like the Andorra entry “Casanova” by Gisela and we covered that in Afrikaans as well.

Armenia brought a fantastic promo back with their entry “Qele qele” by Sirusho – some years later I heard some fan paid a fortune for this CD on Ebay.

The entry from Bosnia & Herzegovina was quite interesting with one of the people hanging clothes on a washing line – this has stuck in my memory.

I have to say that looking back at the various Eurovisions is about high lights and low lights and lowest light came in the form of the Spanish entry “Baila el chiki chiki” by Rodolfo Chikilicuatre. This song is pure horror and occupies the number one spot on my hate list of Eurovision. I could not believe the Spanish public picked this.

Croatia brought someone called 75 cents, a guy who was 75 years at the time – his age record did not last too long and quite soon artists even older came to Eurovision.

Georgia had “Peace will come” by Diana Gurtskaya, a blind singer. Cole van Dais loved this song and covered it with someone in 4 language – English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Spanish.

I really enjoyed the Malta entry “Vodka” by Morena but it should have rather been their entry the next year when we went to Moscow.

Iceland brought Euroband with “This is my life”, a very catchy song and what I like of their promo CD, is that it contains a couple of other Eurovision covers, among them Celine Dion’s 1988 winner in English.

We had a surprise for Maria of Norway. A local female singer Jennifer Zamudio covered “Hold on be strong” in Afrikaans and she brought it to me literally 2 hours before my plane departed for Belgrade.

Sweden had Charlotte returning, but now with a new surname Perrelli. Her song “Hero” was very good but it did not do well. She still remembered me from Jerusalem.

The 3 big Russian countries all had good entries. There was Belarus with Ruslan Alehno and “Hasta la vista”. I took him some fruit sticks which he loved and Belarus TV even recorded him eating some of them – he especially love the apricot flavour.

Ukraine had Ani Lorak with “Shady lady” with composers Philip Kirkorov and Karen Kavaleryan and the promo single also features a Russian version.

Lastly Russia had Dima Bilan returning with “Believe” and I knew when I saw the man ice skating during the show, this will do well. I did not expect it to win, but it did and so gave Russia its first victory.

I got a surprise in my pigeonhole – the CD single of “Viva la musica” by Man Meadow which was an entry in the Polish selection this year and composed by Thomas Gson. This is such a good song and it would have been wonderful if this had won in Poland. We covered this in Afrikaans to great success – keeping the title just with Afrikaans lyrics.

As usual I bought the double Eurovision compilation CD and like in Ukraine, the names of the countries were in the local language, Serbian.

I also took a compilation I had made of SOUTH AFRICAN covers of Euro songs and I really was surprised how much the delegations liked this, especially the composers as the South African market was a totally new market for them.

Going home, the 12 hour sit at the Athens airport was quite difficult but a 12 year old South African girl flew in from Belgrade with me – her parents got divorced and her father went to Serbia and worked there and she came to visit him – she was travelling alone and the airline staff sort of took care of the two of us and we each got 12 euro to buy something – but you could not buy a lot at an airport for 12 euro.

On my return, I had a 6 month battle with with bank over the traveler cheque issue which they refused to solve – the case went to the bank ombudsman who ruled in my favour and I got 100 euro compensation for pain and suffering – he said it could have been ten times more if I had been there alone, but I had Morten and other Eurovision friends and accommodation etc so I did not really was stranded on the street. I had to cash in the traveler’s cheques but as is common in South Africa, the rand always drops so I got less out than I had paid but the bank had to give me the same and also pay Morten my hotel cost and carry all the transaction costs. And the woman who sold the traveler’s cheques to me got a fine – her excuse was she never held a GUN to my head to force me to buy the traveler’s cheques but the Ombudsman ruled I went there for expert advice and they gave the wrong advice.

Through my travel insurance I was not able to claim for the shoes that I lost in the hotel water incident as you have a 50 euro first payment and the new shoes I bought was 45 euro. But luckily the promo CD’s were not damaged as NO money would have been able to replace that.

My favourites for 2008 are
Latvia – Wolves of the sea – Pirates of the sea
Andorra – Casanova by Gisela
Hungary – Candle light by Csezy
Iceland – This is my life – Euroband
Malta – Vodka – Morena
Russia – Believe – Dima Bilan
Sweden- Hero – Charlotte Perrelli

And the horrors are
Spain – Baila el chiki chiki – Rodolfo Chikilicuatre
Belgium – O Julissi – Ishtar
Estonia – Leto svet – Kreisiraadio
United Kingdom – Even if – Andy Abraham

The Greek visa was fairly easy and I could get it at the consulate in Johannesburg and did not have to go to the embassy in Pretoria. With many Greek people living here, the consulate is quite big, but also have fairly long queues. As always visa hours are strange like 2 hours in the morning to apply and then a week later 2 hours in the afternoon to collect.
For some strange reason, I was not on a direct flight to Athens from Johannesburg but because of that a portion of my ticket was discounted by the airline, so at least I saved some money. I cannot recall via which city we flew, but I think it was somewhere in the north of Africa.
I arrived early the morning on the Athens airport – it was the new airport build for the Olympics. I had been in Athens before but at the old airport. It was big and empty and I could not find a Eurovision counter or OGAE stand like at previous Eurovisions. I made my way out somehow and got a taxi taking me to the city center where our hotel was. Morten had already arrived together with several other OGAE Norway fans. I finally got to the hotel. Morten had bought underground tickets for the period since with the heavy traffic in Athens, if we traveled by Eurovision shuttles, it could takes ages before we got to the venue. With the underground it was fairly fast, yet still probably 30 minutes to get to the Olympic park where the venue was. It was also some walk from where we got off the underground to the press center.
Interesting of this hotel was the fact that many OGAE people stayed there, especially OGAE presidents – Rest of the world, Norway, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Denmark, etc.
Accreditation was once again not so easy. There were long queues and the people were not working that fast. Also I had to wait for the head of delegation from Iceland to sign my accreditation form. Morten missed at least the first rehearsal by the time he was helped and by the time I got to the press center, I think I had missed the first three rehearsals and the first press conference. On top of it, someone from South Africa came with me but was refused accreditation – and the EBU spoke to me and said it would be in my interest to cut ties with this person – which I did once I got back to South Africa. It was clear this person was using me to get into Eurovision and then do projects for financial gain.
I met up again with Graham and Mark, but only Mark was able to get accreditation and Graham had to be outside the press center. I would go out a few times a day to chat to him and took him something to eat from the press center.
I really liked the Greek press center. In the working area for journalists with P were little boxes where you could lock up your Eurovision bag, jacket, promo CD’s and lock it with your own key. This was fantastic so you did not have to walk around with tons of things or worry it could get stolen. The pigeonholes were a little problem – Greece of course decided to start at 1 to about 500 for Greek journalists and only after that the rest of the people got pigeonhole numbers.
Inside the press working area, often the artists walked through to get out of the building and if you sat close to where they came out, you always had a chance to chat to them first – that is how I managed to get hold of the Albanian singer, Luiz Ejlli, who only had home made CD’s and probably just 5 to 10 – they look like nothing, they were just white without a cover or print, but he signed each one and if I had not witness him signing mine, I would have never believed it was him signing it as it was impossible to make out his name as it was just a scribble.

It was the first time I met Carola. She was walking in the press center and I was surprised how short she is. I really like her song “Invincible” and was hoping she could do what Johnny Logan did, win a second time.

I did see Lordi but was not really interested in them at all. Little did I know they would win. I never for one moment considered them as winners. “Hard rock hallelujah” was okay but not a song I would play a lot.
There was an OGAE fan stand but it was outside the press center and on the way to the cafeteria. I never saw anybody working there or anybody visiting it.
Just like in 2005, there was again a Viking party organized by the Nordic countries. In 2005 they had Ireland joining them, but for 2006 it was again just the 5 Nordic countries.

Ralph Siegel was back again, this time for Switzerland with Six4One – I really love the song – “If we all give a little”. I also had a gift for Ralph – I had made two compilation CD’s, each one with 25 songs – covers of his songs from South Africa. We got both the CD single and the full CD – on this there are also individual songs by the 6 artists (Claudia D’Addio, Marco Matias, Liel, Andreas Lundstedt, Tinka and Keith Camilleri)

Athens was the first Eurovision I had never sat foot in the venue. I never went for a single rehearsal, I spent most of my time in the press center. It was also a very busy period for me, getting ready to pitch at the OGAE International meeting where they would vote on OGAE Rest of the world. We had a one year probation from Kiev and now it was time to vote whether we would be a fully functional OGAE club. There was one other club also in the same position, Andorra. I also had to work with the Armenian delegation as we got permission to entry the OGAE song contest with a song by them. If I remember correctly Armenia debuted in Athens with Andre and his song “Without your love”.

Andy did not attend Athens but he had several Russian speaking workers there who I met, one of them knew like 12 languages.
Near me in the press center was the president of OGAE Netherlands and other members of the Dutch board and they were very busy with the ticket packages. It was my first introduction to this part of OGAE work.
Fabrizio Faniello was back for Malta with a great song “I do”. With him was again Manfred Holz from Germany as the publisher of his song. Unfortunately, “I do” ended in last position to the surprise of many fans. In South Africa there was such demand from singers to cover this song, I had no less than 12 singers interested in it. Tobi Jooste made a special single of his covers of the song.

Germany brought a country song in the form of “No no never” by Texas lightning and there were high hopes among the German fans for a good placing, if not a win. The song is okay but I saw nothing special in it, although the single contains their cover of “Waterloo” which to me is nothing special.

Russia brought a big name Dima Bilan and he sang “Never let you go”. I predicted a top 3 position for this.

One afternoon I was working on preparations for the OGAE meeting – it was the first time I had worked with a memory stick. And it was not even my own. Towards the late afternoon, I was tired and I left to go back to the hotel. I took the underground and by the time I reached the hotel, I discovered I had left the memory stick in the computer in the press center and so I instantly caught a train back to the venue. I was so relieved when it was still in the computer. But I had a lot of stress for an hour or two, thinking what if someone took it and I lost all the work.
I had a very good friend in Athens, Isabella and we were learning each other’s language but after a year I was able to say just 5 words in Greek while she was mastering Afrikaans like a pro. She went with me to the welcome party. It was so crowded. The queues for food were so long, so we left early and went somewhere else, if I remember a party for Anna Vissi, who was the artist for Greece with “Everything” and for a few moments I thought Greece could record back-to-back victories.

A big favourite with the fans was Kate Ryan who was there for Belgium with the song “Je t’adore”. I like it and also thought it would do well so it was a huge shock when she failed to qualify for the final.

Both Denmark and Estonia brought great songs (according to my taste). Sidsel Ben Semmane with “Twist of love” and Sandra Oxenryd with “Through my window” are songs right for the South African market and both were covered here in Afrikaans by Hi 5.

The United Kingdom had a fairly catchy song in the form of “Teenage life” by Daz Sampson and several UK fans (including the then OGAE UK president) dressed up one day in school uniforms.

Poland brough Ich Troje back and although I do like “Follow my heart” it was not as catchy as their 2003 entry.

Lithuania brought a full CD with a variety of artists on it. It is called Pavasaris.lt. There are 8 songs on it, one for example by the group B’avarija who tried several times to win the Lithuanian selection. It is quite an interesting cross selection of Lithuanian talent at the time.

The promo single of Turkey is very special. It contains a DVD, a CD with audio and a CD Rom with photographs. The song is called “Superstar” and sung by Sibel Tuzun. If I remember correctly, she had a group of British male dancers with her on stage. It was well performed but the song itself lacked something to make it memorable.

My favourite from 2005 is Ireland with “Every song is a cry for love” by Brian Kennedy. He has a perfect voice, the song itself has everything I want in a good song and I was hoping for it to win although I was not that keen on going back to Dublin for Eurovision.

Romania brought Mihai Traistariu and the song “Tornero”. Many people also had this high on their list for possible victory.

The entry from Ukraine was by someone called Tina Karol who sang “Show me your love”. I was lucky to get the full CD as well where she sings “Silent night” in the Ukraine language.

Greece had the OGAE meeting somewhere in a nice area. Morten and I went there together as he knew more or less where it was located. It was really nice and they had lots of food there for us to eat – but I was too nervous to eat anything. The voting was quite difficult for me as two clubs Netherlands and United Kingdom VOTED against Rest of the world and also 7 clubs abstained. But to my surprise we got wonderful support from Serbia, Poland and Norway in particular. Finally the vote went in our favour and I could not keep back the tears. Months of hard work finally paid off.
Due to the strange flight times of the airline, I had to go to the airport even before the final started. Actually half way through the flight to Johannesburg the captain announced that Finland had won the Eurovision song contest. It was a real surprise to me, I had in no way thinking Finland with Lordi would win.

A few weeks before Eurovision I had met Amanda Reynecke who wanted her son to record Eurovision songs and she especially was interested in many of the 2006 entries. We finally did a CD with her son, Dominec with no less than 15 Eurovision songs – of 15 different countries, most of them 2006 songs. Nobody else has ever done a CD with so many Euro covers and from so many different countries. In return for my help, she made a compilation CD with various Eurovision covers and so the first such compilation was born.The title of the full CD is “Dans ons op splinter glas” (Dancing on shattered glass) and it is the cover of the Russian entry of Dina Bilan 2006. All 15 tracks are also on promo singles.

Musically I had quite a lot of favourites
Ireland – Every song is a cry for love – Brian Kennedy
Sweden – Invincible – Carola
Denmark – Twist of love – Sidsel Ben Semmane
Estonia – Through my window – Sandra Oxenryd
Belgium – Kate Ryan – Je t’adore
Malta – Fabrizio Faniello – I do
Poland – Follow my heart – Ich Troje
Russia – Never let you go – Dima Bilan
Switzerland – If we all give a little – Six4one
Greece – Everything – Anna Vissi
2006 really also had a lot of horrors
Netherlands – Amanbanda – Treble
Latvia – I hear your heart – Vocal group Cosmos
Lithuania – We are the winners – Lt. united
Iceland – Congratulations – Silvia Night
Belarus – Mum – Polina Smolova