Måns Zelmerlöw at Stockholm Pride

The first time I saw Måns Zelmerlöw perform live was at Stockholm Pride in 2008. At the time, I think he really only had one hit song, “Cara Mia”. Eight years later, he was back at Stockholm Pride, and performed that song again. Last night he also sang another previous hit, (and Eurovision/Melodifestivalen entry) “Hope […]

Eurovision 2015

There was a moment about half way through the voting when it looked like Russia was going to win. For what it’s worth, I’d taken a break from watching the contest to take the garbage out and had missed their entry, so I had no idea what the fuss was all about. In the Green […]

Melodifestivalen 2015 #4

As the opening beats from “Don’t Say No” by Midnight Boy came from the speakers of my television, for just a brief moment, I was transported back to the 80s and to Brisbane’s (in)famous nightclub, The Beat. Back in those days, Joh Bjelke-Peterson was still the Premier of Queensland, and I was a young man […]

Melodifestivalen 2015 #1

The “car crash” that was last year’s Melodifestivalen (the Swedish competition which chooses an entrant for Eurovision) hasn’t, so far, been repeated this year. Although the songs last year were reasonably okay, the hosts were terrible. The biggest problem with last year is the hosts seemed to have been under the impression (or were told) […]

Äntligen! Äntligen!

Gosh, I love the internet. You can lie on your couch in Sydney (as the rain intensifies) and via your television set, be transported across the other side of the world to Sweden and watch the announcement of this year’s host of the Eurovision Song Contest. Sweden’s hosting this year, by the way, after Loreen […]

I Made The Headlines

Newspapers can be a wonderful reminder of the place you have been, as they can include both the major news events happening at the time, as well as the smaller details, such as the weather and what’s on television. I’ve still got a copy of The London Times from when I first visited Europe in […]

Schlager Sunday

I spent a few minutes today going through a book I bought last year in Sweden called, “Schlagerbog”. At its very core, it’s a book about modern gay life in Sweden. The title, however, says it all. Schlager is a type of Swedish pop song. Bog is a poof. In Australia, you would call the […]

Schlager Night at Stockholm Pride

You know how I mentioned yesterday the drag queens at Europride made a very funny joke about Eurovision. Two drag queens dressed in full-length berkas came on stage and were announced as this year’s winners of the song contest. In essence, it was about the changing face of the Eurovision Song Contest due to the […]