Early in May I wrote that Finland would have two entries in the Eurovision Song Contest this year, as the entry from Sweden was also performed by a Finnish band, KAJ. The grand final of the show was held in Basel, Switzerland a week ago on Saturday, May 17. 🇦🇹 Austria won with JJ’s song called Wasted Love (watch it), and in a sense this was a victory for Finland too, as the stage show of Austria was created and rehearsed in Finland (paywalled source). 😄

I don’t care too much about the Austrian song, but at least it beat the 🇮🇱 Israeli one. Israel had orchestrated a huge advertising campaign for its song, essentially buying a huge number of votes for it, but it finished second (source).

I do like the 🇪🇪 Estonian song that finished third: Espresso Macchiato by Tommy Cash (watch it). Some people got offended by that song in advance because it plays with stereotypes about Italians – as if Italians wouldn’t be perfectly capable of defending themselves if they felt the need for it. Curiously, nobody seems to have asked what they actually thought about the song in Italy, and indeed the Italian jury gave the song ten points! 😛

🇸🇪 Sweden placed 4th and 🇫🇮 Finland 11th, not too bad for either one. Other countries that I would’ve liked to see get more votes were 🇩🇪 Germany with Baller (watch it) (15/26), 🇱🇺 Luxembourg with La poupée monte le son (watch it) (22/26), and 🇸🇲 San Marino with Tutta l’Italia (watch it) (26/26).

Eurovisionworld has extensive statistics on the points each country received from each other.

Finally, here’s an interesting behind the scenes video of what’s happening on the stage while each new artist is being introduced on the so-called postcard, and the TV audience is watching that.

And finally finally, someone made all the artists in LEGO.