Rolling out of bed at midday to find the sun was shining in Lancaster was a perfect start to a brilliant day. After spending 12 and a half hours on Friday making my dress with my housemates Mandy, Matt and Mel, there was some last minute preparations to take care of, including decorating mugs, the house and Mandy’s top with Ola Salo tributes. Laura and Laura arrived shortly before 4 and then we played some Spoons and on the Wii and started the drinking. Matt and Stephen spent an hour setting up the barbecue. And of course when it was made it started to rain. But we had some nice sausage-shaped charcoal.
Mark arrived soon after, as I made the sweepstake, and then arrived a ginormous congregation of variously-decorated guests: Charlotte, Karena (and the Waves), Siân, Mike, Caley and her sister Lana (who I called Lorna all night – sorry!), Cat, Hayley, Nikki, Cheryl and Andrew. The house was disturbingly full already as I set up the mattresses on the floor of the living room. The TV was switched on to watch the end of Joseph but disturbingly there was issues with the aerial, though sorted out in time to see the builder get booted out (not that I cared but my guests were interested!)
I put on my first outfit – Air Hostess – and welcomed Sally, Fenella and Water, who took up virtually all of the remaining space (not that they are fat – just that there was hardly any remaining space!) and then the TV started flickering. My housemates decamped to the kitchen as Ellie (Greek), Eleana and Marianna (Cypriots) arrived with Li and squeezed in too, and 2 more Social Bar staff members arrived, Abbey (who got the biggest cheer of the night) and Jordan.
Then the horror began (no not Bosnia-Herzegovina – and that is very apt) but with the rumblings of a room full of 20-odd people, the TV wire dislodged somewhere and remained like that throughout Bosnia, Spain, Belarus and most of Ireland, apart from the odd flicker as Matt Gray (Original Party Technological Expert) fiddled around at the back of the TV. I got more beer and my guests kept smiling and pretending everything was fine so I didn’t get tipped over the edge into insanity. I decided it was Eurovision night and I was gonna enjoy it – even if I only saw 1 second of each song! Matt managed to fix the TV enough so that there was a picture, but there were actually 2 pictures and every performer from Finland to Armenia was seen in double. On the bright side it meant seeing 4 lovely legs from Macedonia and 6 Russian girls dancing virtually on top of each other!
Part way through the show Andy and Jodie arrived, and a number of guests moved into the kitchen to watch on a television that worked. I stayed in the dodgy TV room in determination, except for Sweden, as I wanted to actually watch my favourite! Then Andy (Newly Crowned Party Technological Expert) got to work and fixed the TV in the lounge, so we saw the tail end of Moldova and the reprises at least.
As it was the interval and my Greek and Cypriot guests had to get going, I went upstairs with them and performed S’AGAPO (Greece’s brilliant 2002 entry). Hopefully Ellie can upload the video somehow…
And on with the show. After reassuring virtually everyone that their country will “probably win” the voting was actually entertaining, and with my bets on Russia, Hungary and Turkey I had a few countries to cheer for despite getting France in the sweepstake myself. Charlotte and Mike had entered the sweepstake jointly and drawn Serbia, though after watching it Charlotte decided it was crap and there was no chance. But ultimately they shared the quite significant pot. (Btw I found Jordan’s £2 in my pocket the next day, so I’ll have to pass that along in the Social).
But anyways, now that ESC was over, the real fun could begin!! I went upstairs and put on my specially bought silver thong, then Mandy helped me into my Gina G dress. I put my ginger wig into place and dashed down the stairs as ‘Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit’ began to play! I performed the song for my brave guests, and whilst doing so turned around to reveal that when we had found out after 12 and a half hours that my dress didn’t fit all the way around my body, we were too exhausted to bother extending it, so the whole room saw my bum.
Gina G performance: http://www.rogepost.com/n/3615949907
Then I heard someone (I still don’t know who – maybe it was the little voice in my head?) say “let’s rip his dress off”. Absolutely desperate to protect the pride and joy that had consumed half of Friday plus a whole load of blood, sweat and tears; I quickly dropped the dress and kicked it safely to one side, protecting it from harm. I was happy that even though I was standing resplendent in merely a silver thong, my dress was safe.
However, the night didn’t end there, as Matt, one of the few in the know, remembered that my thong was Velcro, and he decided to take it upon himself to recreate Bucks Fizz’s moves of 81. Despite getting naked however, I still kept more dignity than Cheryl Baker has ever had, with the aid of an inflatable Union Jack guitar, strategically placed.
Naked except for guitar performance: http://www.rogepost.com/n/2976730879
Then the party kinda descended into farce, as people started ripping down flags (I want them back btw!) wrestling and generally causing havoc. Someone even pushed naked me on top of a bunch of people – so apologies there to whoever I landed on! I eventually was persuaded to put some clothes back on, so I wore my air hostess outfit again, without the jeans this time.
And to round off the night, at about half 3 me and Charlotte met a guy called Stuart walking down the street where we were standing and we started chatting to him. He had been in a fight and there was blood all over his shirt and he had a cut lip, so we (being drunk) invited him in and gave him some vodka as we finished off the remaining drops of alcohol we could find. When all the alcohol (including some vodka that tasted suspiciously like lemonade) was gone, the night was over and we all retreated to our homes, the fun over for another year.
So to sum up I’d like to thank you all for coming, for keeping on smiling when the TV spontaneously combusted after 10 seconds of the first song, and for putting up with my nakedness without too much complaining. I hope the mental scarring will go away eventually ;) To Abbey, Andrew, Andy, Caley, Cat, Charlotte, Cheryl, Ellie, Eleana, Fenella, Hayley, Jodie, Jordan, Karena, Lana, Laura, Laura, Li, Lord, Mandy, Marianna, Mark, Matt, Mel, Mike, Nikki, Sally, Siân, Water…. It was a pleasure to spend the best night of my year with you! And if you didn’t come and are reading this, I hope this makes you realise how much you missed out!
For more photos, check out these links: The semi final:
http://lancs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20320&l=ef385&id=674175610
The Final:
http://lancs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20704&l=e98d0&id=674175610
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