I didn't see it coming. I was taken aback by Norway's win at Eurovision on Saturday. In between the recently robust practices of diasporic and bloc voting at Eurovision, it seemed inconceivable to me that Norway's entry could win. Yet it did, and quite handily.
Across the board in this year's Eurovision results, it's clear that the re-introduction of juries into the voting calculus has forced a leveling off of the power of bloc and diaspora voting. Those trends are still present in the results, but they appear to have had vastly reduced significance this year. (I do realize that this conclusion may be complicated by the fact that only two countries from the former Yugoslavia made it through to the final while all five Nordic countries did so. It will take time to analyze more thoroughly.)
I watched the final at a spirited screening party at Hibernia Irish Bar and Grill in midtown Manhattan. A boisterous contigent of Norwegians arrived early and took up a great deal of space. Among their numbers, it so turns out, was Hanne Krogh, one half of Bobbysocks, the act that won Eurovision in 1985 for Norway. It was so cool in the nerdiest Eurovision fan way to stand a few feet from Krogh at the close of the transmission while she lipsynched to "La det swinge" in front of an ecstatic audience.
Thanks to Anthony Cowlam for organizing the delightful screening party at Hibernia.
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