Eurovision Song Contest 2012 results

Soooooooooooo, Sweden won the 57th Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night. For the first time in about 6 years I was unable to watch it live, so Jms recorded it and we watched it on Sunday morning instead. I had to be sure to turn off my phone and not go on the internet all of Saturday night and Sunday morning, for fear of finding out the result before watching it. We invited some peeps over, got some food in, made some tiny flags with cocktail sticks and labels, decorated gingerbread men in European flags, prepared score sheets for the entries, and put up European flag bunting and a little banner in anticipation.

The show lasted just over 3 hours, and in that time much food was consumed, much jollity was had and many arguments persisted about the quality of certain entries. I still maintain Norway was the best show of the night, despite finishing 26th (out of 26).

As well as watching (and arguing) we all had score sheets to fill in for every act - luckily we had decided when designing them to include a disclaimer just in case anyone was unnecessarily cruel about Norway - and as well as points for the quality of the song and the overall performance, there were also an extra two columns for people to choose how they wanted to grade the performers. We had such varied categories as dancing, funkiness and costumes to amount of spangles, narrative content and emotional impact. One of Susie's categories was "number of boats" for which, obviously, Turkey's entry scored 10/10.

After every country had performed and our score sheets were completed, we revealed our personal results. That alone wasn't good enough, and Jms decided to tot up all the scores from all of the score sheets and work out an overall top 3. I'm not sure how we got it so wrong, but we had decided that Turkey should finish in top place (they actually came 7th), followed by Russia (who did come 2nd, woo!) and Romania (who finished 12th). And our lowest rated songs included Serbia, who ended up in 3rd place. I'm not sure quite how that happened.

Sweden won with no real difficulty, and by about half way through it was impossible for anyone to catch up with their score. There's already a wiki page about Eurovision 2013, which will be held in Sweden, though whether it will be in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö hasn't yet been decided. Obvs I'll let you know as soon as I know. I've not been to Sweden, so I'm very much looking forward to going there next year!

In preparation for my ongoing year of Sweden Excitement, here's a nice Swedish-themed outfit which I would wear if I could... I might just have to go with blue trousers and a yellow top instead, which just isn't as dedicated, is it?

{shrug // East} {shoes // Carvela} {nail colour // FACE Stockholm}

{tights // Forever 21} {dress // A/wear} {necklace // EA Burns}

{bow // Bow Fabulous} {bag // Friis & Company} {belt // Lodis}

Did you watch it? What did you think of the result? Have you ever been to Sweden?