Eurovision comes with its challenges. You could win, but you could also finish propping up the leaderboard. Over the years, some countries become more adept at this than others. In some ways, it can be really skilful to ensure you score no points, as you could be eleventh in every vote. More skilful than actually winning.
With this thought in mind, we travel back to 1981, when the contest only had 20 participants and it didn’t last 18 hours with various ad breaks and [insert global superstar name here] wasn’t one of the interval acts. Propping up the table was today’s birthday boy Finn Kalvik – yes, two Norwegians on consecutive days – so he could have been eleventh with every jury. Or he could have been 20th. we’ll probably never know. But Finn was in good company: three other Norwegians finished a contest with no points.
Finn is 76 today.
Gratulerer med dagen, Finn!