WB 24th May - Eurovision

On Saturday, Italy won this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam, with France coming second and Switzerland third.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a annual international competition, which is watched by millions of people around the world. Countries from all over Europe - and a few from outside Europe - send a song and performers to sing in the contest.
The first ever Eurovision Song Contest took place on 24 May 1956, when just seven countries took part. Now there can be as many as 43 countries! The idea for the contest was put forward by a man called Marcel Bezencon who worked for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and was designed to test what could be done with early live TV technology. It is one of the most watched non-sporting television programmes attracting between 100 and 600 million viewers.

The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is decided by all of the countries involved, with each nation getting to award points to the other countries that they want to win.

Half of the votes come from the viewer phone-in voting in each participating country, and the other 50 percent of votes will come from a group of five music experts from each of the 39 countries taking part.

Here are my highlights from this year’s Grand Final.

My overall favourite: Lithuania

Find out more about The Roop’s creative process and how they made their song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeMedWMJc4A
 

My second favourite: Iceland

My family’s overall favourite: Russia

My family’s second favourite: Germany

My sweepstake pick: Netherlands

Jeangu Macrooy included a linguistic first in the Contest’s 65-year history when he sang a section of his song in the language Sranan Tongo. It’s spoken by approximately half a million people in Suriname. Jeangu, who co-composed the song, included the phrase ‘Yu no man broko mi/Mi na afu sensi’ to mark his Surinamese roots. It translates as ‘You can’t break me, I’m half a cent’ and is inspired by a saying from his childhood. Jeangu moved from Suriname to the Netherlands when he was 20 to study and perform music.