heywoodu

Rest of the World voting, which was supposed to start over 9 hours ago, was postponed by 2 hours at first and now still hasn't opened, by the way. Looks more and more like this is definitely not just about Joost, but about the big picture.

I do hope he was not saying he 'just wanted to talk to Joost'? Because he was definitely, as one could say, poking with a knife under the belt to try and provoke. This, the Swedish photographer thing, the thing about IRL/NED/ESP being intimidated by ISR etc are still all just rumours... EBU is definitely creating a lovely course in crisis management and how not to do it, because they've failed miserably no matter what happened.

That does sort of describe one of the main problems with the televoting though Whether it's political voting, diaspora voting or ethnic voting, it's a certain set of votes which one can basically already fill in beforehand no matter how horrible or amazing the song is. Although I didn't check recent voting results, so I do sort of assume it wasn't actually a 12-point exchange between Cyprus and Greece all the time in reality?

Apologies, Dov Gil-Har is the harrassing Israeli, a 'journalist', not someone from the Eden Golan team, I assume.

One of the many, many rumours, yes Although the same rumour is that some Israeli delegate person joked about his dead dad, and then Joost made it...physical. Not a fan of violence at all, but make fun at someone's dead parents and I hope the punch was a nice one. But again, this too is just a rumour, it's still entirely unclear what has happened and which countries have all been involved.

Except for tomorrow, because it seems quite likely that Israel will win

Less than an hour until the jury show, EBU have still not said a word about what's going to happen. Spanish TV has published a statement demanding Eurovision to respect freedom of press and opinion (which, according to the rumours, is pointed at certain behaviour from people around the Israeli delegation).

What a massive shitshow this day has been, probably the most insane Eurovision afternoon ever and now, 1,5 hour before the jury show, still nothing is known Rumours are going from Joost Klein having had an altercation with a Swedish TV person to delegations of the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain all having been intimidated/harrassed by Israel (about the Netherlands that is clear, there's a video of some Israeli delegation guy being rather annoying). But still, nothing is actually known, not even about tonight's jury show. Press conferences of other participants have been cancelled (the big 5 + Sweden), delegations from several countries looked 'shaken up' according to journalists present, and so on. What a total mess

Protests? Did someone working at Starbucks look at a plate of pasta slightly the wrong way at a non-allowed time of day for that specific dish or something?

That's the part I meant, it looked deserted, but if it's simply closed due to rebuilding, that explains it, thanks Hopefully they'll be this strong again next year and have the full stadium open

Does Atalanta not have fans? Or why was the stadium so empty?

With more first-half than second-half winners in the past decade or so, I wonder if it might backfire

But just apart from that (because yes, Hamas could and should release hostages, but also yes, Israel is being an absolute monster that very badly needs to be stopped), how is booing this one young singer going to help? Let her be and protest out on the street or something, instead of during her performance.

Booing some 20-year old singer who is just performing is just pathetic. Real fans, whether it's sports fans or Eurovision, don't boo people who didn't do anything wrong themselves.

Whoops, RAI... Edit: late, sorry

Joost with a sign with Käärijä on it

Usually the super obviously practiced jokes are so super lame, but this interval act is a rarely fun one

Which is? Edit: at least it's the delegation that decides what goes in the recap.

How the fuck did they choose the only non-catchy and non-energetic part, the quiet closing part, of the Dutch song for the recap? That's like putting Lordi's Hard Rock Hallelujah in the recap with just the two quiet sentences....wtf. Should be fine now, but in the final that can cost someone the win.

Other than Croatia there is no song I find more fun, but in terms of live singing it's..not good But I don't remember ever sitting here watching with my parents (and my girlfriend) and everyone having a big smile on their faces because it was just so fun to finally see this live

Never heard this before, but this was fun

This was not meant sarcastic, no. The first part was fine (not quite my thing, but fine), but at the end, when he went louder and stronger, it felt like he totally lost control of his voice...

So far not a single threat for Croatia's win has been in action tonight, I think. My opinion, of course

Oh wow, I hope for France that Slimane manages to catch/fix his voice Saturday in the final, I guess he's been having a cold or something?