Talking about ABBA and Waterloo, two English comedians living in Sweden once commented in a show that ten years later Sweden won again with a masterpiece called Diggi-loo, diggi-ley. As we all know(?) loo is an English slang word for lavatory, which all goes to show that we Swedes like to sing songs about toilets.
Did you know that Sahlene (the Swede representing Estonia) played in a movie based on an Astrid Lindgren book? I was blissfully unaware of this, but a friend of mine pointed it out to me. I know we have the movie somewhere around the house, but have been unable to locate it. Damn.
Of course, this might just be a rumor, spread around by someone keen to demonstrate the spiraling career of Anna Sahlin… 
I’m embarrassed to admit that I know this one. ABBA sang in Swedish during the competition itself, but after they’d won they sang the reprise version in English. Obviously the English-language version was going to be more commercial and they didn’t want to waste the promotional opportunity.
The organisers must have dropped the home language restriction recently, 'cause lots of this year’s entries were sung in English.
BTW, in my little world the Maltese lady was definitely nekkid as a jay bird under that lace catsuit. I couldn’t make my mind up whether I preferred her, the Corr-look-a-likey from Croatia or the Swedish lady singing for Estonia, but I’d certainly have enjoyed that particular Neopolitan ice creammmmm ;).
Oh well done, *everton ! Maximum points from the London jury.
<Are you there, Oslo…>
I read in TV-Maailma (it’s a Finnish TV magazine…) that originally, there were no language restrictions to the Eurovision song contests… let me find the magazine somewhere.
Ah. Not quite. It seems that originally, there were language restrictions i.e. each country’s song has to be in that country’s language. However, in the 70’s, they abandoned the language restrictions for a while. For example, in 1974, when Abba sang “Waterloo” in Swedish, Finland’s song was Keep Me Warm, sung in English. The language restrictions were returned in the late 70’s/early 80’s, but were abandoned again in 1999, which was also the year in which a live orchestra was replaced with a back-up tape.
Damn, I need to find a site with more on Eurovision history…