Eurovisioncrazed

So yes, as many of you Icelandophiles will already know, Sylvía Nótt took home the trophy in the Eurovision preliminaries last night. No big surprises, although there was one song that did for a short while cause a little bit of uncertainty as to the hands-down aspect. The selection was conducted via televote and – believe it or not – over 100,000 votes were cast by this nation with a population of 300,000.* Are the Icelanders Eurovision fanatics? Nah – whatever gave you that idea?

Eurovision parties abounded – those are always fun as most of the evening is taken up with opining about the contestants [which, this being Eurovision, mostly means slagging them off]. EPI’s sister invited the extended family over for soup and bread [and wine and coffee and dessert] ostensibly because it was Benni’s fourth birthday celebration, but obviously it turned into a Eurovision-preliminaries celebration once the birthday bit was out of the way. [If that sounds callous, it’s not meant to be, because Benni is one of the cutest, most sweet-natured kids to walk this earth ever and deserves the best birthday celebration imaginable.] And everybody opined like crazy about the various different songs and voted like crazy when it was over, and acted not surprised when Sylvía Nótt won, and then watched Spaugstofan and laughed uncontrollably [well at least YT did] and then said thankyouverymuchforthisprogramme and went home.

So anyway, getting back to Iceland’s sexiest woman** Sylvía Nótt – in her acceptance speech she thanked all the warm-up acts for coming out to support her [ouch!] and said that after she wins Eurovision she’s planning a goodwill tour of Africa to distribute her CD, because she will not evade the responsibility of ‘showing sympathy’ for those less fortunate than she. Meanwhile, RÚV tried unsuccessfully to get a comment from her for the midday news, but got only her voice mail which stated that now that she’s so ridiculously famous she’s clearly going to have to get an unlisted number, and that she has no time to answer questions because she’s busy learning European. You gotta love the girl, you really do.

Incidentally, there's a lot of discussion now as to whether people outside of Iceland will actually 'get' Sylvía Nótt - most people seem to think not, that her special brand of humour is too local to translate. I beg to differ - and turn the question over to you, friends in Blogland. Will Sylvía earn little more than bemused stares from the general Eurovision audience - or does she have a shot at the finals? To aid you in your assessment, here’s a link to last night’s winning turn, inadvertently provided by Robyn [takk!]. Accompanying her are her two back-up dancers Hommi [English transl: Gay - Sylvía: 'It's OK to call him that because he doesn't speak Icelandic'] and Nammi [English: Candy. Ostensibly her 'boyfriend'.]*** Watch and weep.

AND OUR SUPERDUPER WEATHER ON THIS WOMAN’S DAY?
Is very fine. Very fine indeed. Sunny spells, very moderate winds, mild, temps of 6°C. And yes, it is woman’s day, Iceland’s equivalent to Valentine’s Day, only for women exclusively. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some pampering to subject myself to. Sunrise 09.10, sunset 18.14.

* Mind you, you were allowed to vote five times from the same phone number.
** Sylvía Nótt was voted Iceland’s sexiest woman last Friday. The woman behind the character, Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, ended in fourth place.
*** Hommi and Nammi are actually two Icelandic actors.