Morten Thomassen from Norway decided to write about some of his memories of Eurovision and the Norwegian Eurovision selection. ESC Covers again will publish it after google translating it from Norwegian to English.

I have sometimes said that I have the world’s most democratic way of choosing some of my holiday destinations, I let the whole of Europe decide and they have sometimes chosen destinations that I would never really want to go to and that’s what I’m like afterwards happy for.

This time we are going back to the year 2005 and the year before Ukraine had already won on its second attempt and it was with a certain excitement that you went to this country, after all there had been a lot of nonsense in the preparations for the competition and the EBU must have been quite disappointed that everything went slowly and, if I remember correctly, they almost had to threaten to move the whole event before the Ukrainians got up to speed.

Norway sent the rock boys in Wig Wam and they made a splash in just about everything they did, everyone obviously likes cool rockers and there was no doubt who was the most buzzed about at the opening party, “all” the other artists wanted to take a picture with them.

I also remember that at the press conference after the semi-final where only 10 out of 25 countries made it to the final, Glam led a joint sing-along to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and that we in the GP club received boxes of promo material which we gave out to people who stood outside the Euro club which was inside an atrium that you could see into, but had to have accreditation to enter.

This promotion probably cost a few kroner, but was nowhere near what the Belarusian artist Angelica Agurbash spent, luckily for her she was married to a billionaire and he was generous enough to let her spend approximately 25 million Norwegian kroner to secure herself a final place, money it would turn out was pretty much wasted.

Before everyone turned their noses at Kyiv, the lady we are talking about had been on a promo visit to all the other participating countries and she probably didn’t get as much attention in all the countries she visited, has a vague memory of having seen a picture of herself with Glam outside the Holmenkollen Park Hotel in an advertisement in VG.

But, shame on the one who gives up, once in Kyiv nothing was to be spared, of course we got promo material about the lady so it lasted, we were also asked to up to several parties organized by Angelica.

One was on a luxurious boat that lay on the river bank, the river Dnipro runs through the city as is well known and the special thing about the party was that it was organized on several levels so to speak, the least fortunate were only allowed to stand on the quay and did not have the opportunity to to get on board the boat, but they were still served both food and drink.

Of the unknown group, we who were from the MGP club in Norway managed to rise in the ranks, not only did we get on board the boat and be on the lower deck which a lucky few got, for even more unknown reasons we got to get on the top deck and there were nice people there.

None other than Alla Pugacheva with her then husband Philip Kirkorov had come and honored the Belarusian participant with their support and I had a little chat with Philip who at that time still loved Norway dearly for giving him 10 points in 1995.

A few days after this incident I was sitting with what looked like a Ukrainian version of Se og Hør and then I noticed that several of the others who were on the upper deck were pictured there, so obviously a celebrity-heavy upper deck we got access to and another in our group could tell that when he was on a necessary honor in the toilet there were gold taps and an aquarium with small sharks that he got to experience there.

The festivities did not end there, because Mrs. Agurbash’s birthday was on the 17th of May itself and she had a new party where she greeted all the guests and I remember I gave her a kiss on the hand, you have learned some manners.

Unfortunately or fortunately as you see it, you can’t always buy success in our beloved competition, because when the semi-final was held two days after Angelica Anatolyevna Yalinska turned 37, she didn’t get a final place as a gift from the European public, too bad for her , but she was not slow-witted, because the day after the semi-final, all the press received no less than 2 full CDs from her, a generous lady in other words.

I also have  some very goods memories from Eurovision 2005 in Kyiv, the best was our accommodation – a hotel in the same complex as the venue. After each press conference when I got a promo  CD, I took it to my hotel room and was back for the next press conference.

Food wise was a little tricky as the breakfast was not a buffet but you were serviced food and most items were dairy related which I did not eat. The chef then met with me and asked what did I want and we agreed that every morning I would get chicken and chips with tomato salad.

There are so many police and  security men and the higher your rank, the bigger hat of fur you wore. I love that – had not seen it before and I complimented them on this and ran my hands through the fur. They were all taken my surprise as clearly they did not like these fur hats on their heads and was so surprised that someone did find it so special.

Of course like Morten already pointed out, ANGELICA was so special and I came home with tons of gifts, especially CD’s, DVD’s and boxes of chocolates. I was shocked that Europe did not reward her with a spot in the final.

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