You no doubt won’t have missed the fact that The Eurovision Song Contest is going ahead in Sweden this evening and as a true Eurovision fan* I am obviously preparing for the big night already. The Swedish flag is out, my semlor are baked ready for the snaps-accompanied-feast and I’m keeping up with all the Eurovision news flowing in. Now only score cards are needed before we can commence the festivities. Yes, I am that stereotypically Swedish.
What makes tonight extra interesting is that we’ll find out if Finland’s publicity stunt has paid off. Krista Sigefrids claims she’s ending her anti-feminist entry “Marry Me”, filled with promises of “skipping dinner to get thinner” and remaining her fiance’s slave, with a lesbian kiss in order to highlight gay rights. And sure, it does spark a healthy debate as Turkey has threatened not to broadcast the show because of the kiss but I can’t help but dislike the whole thing. Why kiss a girl when you’re begging your boyfriend of eight years to marry you? To get votes.
Either way you can sign All Out’s petition to keep the kiss in the show but is this gay for all the wrong reasons? I say maybe.
My vote goes to Norway’s Maragret Berger who with “Feed You My Love” will hopefully redeem the country after their terrible defeat last year.
Whatever happens, I bet you it’ll be a female win. Unless it’s Romania. That opera singing Dracula figure could just win it too.
*I sang Waterloo live on the radio. I think that counts for something.
Don’t worry, it was early. Catch it on BBC iPlayer here (about 90 minutes in) and hear me celebrating Eurovision Swedish style – singing Waterloo and all…
Today Sweden was boiling with rage at The Swedish Democrats (the far right wing party holding 20 seats in the Swedish parliament) after a video was revealed showing the party’s Economic spokesperson behaving like, and there’s no other way of saying it, an absolute prick.
How this party can hold any democratic power is beyond me and I do hope that people will start realising how much of a danger to Sweden and its liberal values this party really is.
And how amazing to, after a day of such hatred, see Zlatan Ibrahimovic (someone I’m sure the SD guys too would call “osvensk” or “non-Swedish”) score four goals at the brand new Friends arena tonight, saving Sweden from even more public humiliation.
It’s rare that I get my Swedish flag out. I think this picture was taken before the World Cup or possibly (probably) before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Earlier this year my friend (and award winning photographer) Viktor Wallström went on a pilgrimage to the other side of the planet. Today he uploaded a video capturing glimpses of his fantastic experience, including lots of cute (and angry) animals. Have a look and prepare to be inspired.
Today is Midsommardagen, Midsummer’s Day in Sweden. It is the highlight of Swedish holidays, celebrating the fact that the sun is at its highest point, meaning the sun hardly goes down and it is light throughout the night. Enduring long, dark winters, us Swedes are known to worship the light, be it with girls wearing candle lit crowns in December, Thailand trips in January or skinnydipping in July.
Traditionally Swedes party the day before today, on Midsommarafton, eating cold herring and potatoes, dancing around a may pole and drinking home made snaps. Seeing as the UK does not acknowledge Midsommar as a Bank Holiday, I am making up for missed out partying today and in attempt to replicate this traditional celebration in the UK, I too made snaps.
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Supermarket value priced vodka spiced with lemon and honey, fresh chili fruit and Swedish salty liquorice. Yum! Now to get practising the frog dance… I’ll tell you about that one another time.
Tonight Sweden and Swedish music is polarised between Gothenburg and Metaltown in the East and Stockholm and Summerburst in the West.
Some will say Summerburst is for brats wearing pink shirts and backslick hair, paying a fortune to see a guy play a bunch of pre-recorded CDs, whilst others will say Metaltown is for long haired goths in black clothes and corpse paint watching men scream about Mordor on stage. Both ideas are of course wrong but you get the picture. What truly unites the two otherwise very different events is the love for music, and I am sorry to be negative here, the lack of women on stage.
ICONA POP are a rare exception at Summerburst (we got Ida Engberg too) and I think Within Temptation’s Sharon del Adel may be the only woman on stage at Metaltown. Where are all the women? (Other than in the snapshots we get from the Summerburst broadcast where girls are dancing in bikinis? How empowering.)
It didn’t help that the magazine I edit was given three free press tickets to Metaltown instead of the four we have been given previous year. The one left without a ticket was of course me, or the only female out of the four who applied and one of very few girls in the industry at all. Apparently it was unintentional.
I feel Sweden, a country that loves identifying itself with words like “equality”, “freedom” and “inclusion”, as well as a country that is widely known for its music export, has one or two things to rethink.
Because nights like these are meant for all – off, and on, stage. Demand it, ladies!
Tonight it is time. Sweden versus England. Football. The European Championships 2012. Guess who I am cheering for?
Statistically, Sweden hasn’t lost against England in 43 years – unless you count a blip in 2011 – so things are looking good for us Swedes. I am almost sad to say that I won’t be in England in a pub, with my flag held high, but then again I think it might be a pretty frightening experience too (I know what you English lot can be like, haha!). Instead I will be watching the game with my family in the South of Sweden and hopefully I’ll manage to pick up some Internet access too – it wouldn’t be the same without a good amount of Twitter abuse. (Send it my way here: @bellaqvist)
Now to enjoy a day of driving through Sweden, getting ready for the game tonight. The best of luck to both teams, may the best one win. I.e. Sweden.
…also, please don’t rub it too much in my face if we do lose. It’s not like I would ever do it to you
In case you missed it: we did it. SWEDEN WON THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST!!
I’m not much for competing in sports but music competitions are right up my street. Loreen winning the Eurovision Song Contest was the best birthday present I could have wished for and I am still floating around on Cloud Nine, high on Loreen’s voice, moves and pure magical beauty…
Let’s take it from start. This whole historic day was perfect; it began with friends, food and a sunny picnic in Weston Park.
After a wonderful meal prepared by my wonderful girlfriend, a bit of cheeky bubbly and a bunch of super cute prezzies I got into my Loreen trousers, gathered friends around a TV and got the good ol’ score cards out.
Spirits were as high as my pulse when the votes were revealed and whilst my phone ran out of battery due to the sheer amount of Eurovision related text messages, Sweden at last, finally, after so many (13) years of struggle, won the Eurovision Song Contest.
For the first time I understood how football fans feel when their team finally does really well. I couldn’t believe it was happening!
The night continued with a trip down to Sheffield’s finest gay bar establishment, Dempseys, where we once again got to hear the winning song and I got to display my fine crab dancing skills in true Loreen style. I was the happiest girl alive.
Next year, ladies and gentlemen, I shall see you in Sweden. Book 18 May off work, that’s when we do Eurovision Swedish style. Boom!
If you are as big a fan of Loreen as me, keep watching this space. I may have a treat or two up my sleeve.
Today’s post continues on the topic of gangsters and goes on to deal with racist cake.
We’ll start with this.
HOW COOL IS THIS:
Looks like someone’s been watching Star Trek.
What will this mean for the future of live performances? Would you go to see a hologram of an artist perform? And if you could “wake up” an artist from the dead to see them “perform” like this, who would you choose? The questions, as well as the possibilities, are endless.
Now onto a less cool thing.
Tupac and Snoop are big fans of the n-word. In Sweden a big racism debate has been sparked after the Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn, as part of a performance cut into the supposed genital area of a cake in the shape of a stereotypical African tribes woman. The blood red sponge cake’s creator, Makode Linde, was posing as its blacked up head, screaming each time it was cut.
The piece, a birthday cake to the Swedish Artists’ National Organisation celebrating its 75th anniversary at Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, was part of Linde’s art series that, according to himself, deals with racism in Sweden. The theme of the event itself was freedom of expression and the cake was there to provoke and challenge what art can do and say.
In yesterday’s The Guardian, National Afro Swede Association demanded the Minister’s resignation, naming this incident as only one piece of evidence of how racist Sweden actually is. “Racist is becoming the norm in Sweden,” Jallow Momodou said. Read the whole thing here.
Ideas that, together with the current trial in neighbouring country Norway as well as recent films like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo bringing up right wing extremists, paint a rather different picture of the Scandinavian country many Brits still associate with ABBA and flatpacked furniture.
Since the news of the racist cake, Adelsohn yesterday explained herself with this letter.
The very fact that her actions have been interpreted as racist, she says is highly regrettable, adding they were intended to have the exact opposite effect. Momodou however, claims racism is becoming a joke in Sweden.
Now that even the European Network Against Racism has stepped in and asked the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt to distance himself from the incident, it will be hard for him, or any Swede, to just shake the whole thing off with a laugh.
As a Swede myself I find the whole thing shocking, disturbing and utterly confusing. I am all for art being free and I agree that it should be allowed to provoke and make its viewers feel uncomfortable in order to make them think. But when it makes the Minister of Culture take part in a performance where she laughingly mutilates a black woman, be it a cake or not, I must say I get a very foul taste in my mouth. Had I been made to taste, I’m pretty sure I would have spat the whole thing out.
See the New York Time’s interview with artist Linde here:
SpectraSpeaks (@spectraspeaks) said a clever thing on Twitter today:
“Too many people spend time criticizing art for being provocative, when we really should be discussing the feelings provoked.”
