The Eurovision fortnight can be a long two weeks if they don’t quite go your way. You turn up in the host city a long time before the big Grand Final, and you have to hang in there till the end. Hopefully.
It can all go a bit awry. You could be the ‘lucky’ act who performs first in the first semi-final on the Tuesday night. Can you make it to Saturday, or will (at least) 10 songs score more points than you. If you don’t make it, then there’s a very long wait till we discover a winner. In 2016, song one, semi-final one was performed by today’s birthday girl Sandhja Kuivalainen. She wore a nice fetching Finnish pale blue to celebrate her country. She scored more from the juries than the televote. But it wasn’t enough. This meant, as with all non-qualifiers, they could eat, drink and party until the Sunday morning without a care in the world.
Sandhja is 30 today.
Hyvää syntymäpäivää, Sandhja!