Guess the Eurovision vote competition!

The annual festival of Eurovision is nearly upon us - with the first semi-final tonight, the second semi-final on Thursday and le grand finale on Saturday.

So, to celebrate, dear reader, you have a chance to win a wonderful pair of Sennheiser Wireless Headphones.

All you have to do in this competition is pick a number: the number of points you think the winning song will receive. 

Feel free also, if you like, to predict which country will win, but the competition is just on the numbers. 

The person with the nearest amount wins the lovely prize, which is supplied to me by the nice people at VoucherCodes.co.uk 

For some help on your number crunching, the highest amount a song can get is 38 x 12 = 456 and the winning points from the last few years were: 

2009 - Norway - 387

2008 - Russia - 272

2007 - Serbia - 268

2006 - Finland - 292

2005 - Greece - 230

So come on, come all and have a guess. Leave a comment here or on facebook. Entries close by 7.30 PM (UK time) on Saturday.

Good luck! I'll let you know the winner on Monday next. And, for the record, I really don't know who'll win this year. My heart says Germany, my head says Azerbaijan, my bets say Romania and I have a sneaky suspicion Sweden will do well too.

But who knows? The mystery and suspense is what makes this year's show from Oslo so exciting.

Norway's National Day Parade at Southwark Park

Today is Norway's National Day - an occasion for the whole nation of Norway. People throng the streets and have parades with music, song and celebration.



London is no different, with its Norwegian community holding a parade in Southwark Park, close by to the Norwegian church at Rotherhithe where I watched Norway play football.



I went along today, expecting quite a small parade - I was pleasantly surprised to see a long parade snake its way around the park. Leading the charge were flag bearers, ladies and gents in traditional costume and some young people playing musical instruments.



Having circuited the park once, the parade settled in to a central area with a bandstand. While people ate hotdogs and ice-creams, and waved their Norwegian flags, a woman sang the national anthem. Sadly, I had to leave soon after, while some kids sung a series of jaunty tunes - and surely a Eurovision song couldn't have been far off.

Let's all speak Norwegian.

There are only two weeks to go to Eurovision. How exciting! I've decided to embrace all things Norwegian. So for the next few weeks, I'll be tweeting a lovely Norwegian word every day (stealing an idea from the wonderful World of Chig's Serbian countdown), and compiling them all here.

tausheten
meaning the silence
fjellet
meaning mountain 
jubileum
meaning anniversary
strømme
meaning flow
sønninger
meaning waves
strålende
meaning brilliant
lykkerus
meaning drunk with happiness
skog
meaning forest

kjekk
meaning handsome
solstreif
meaning sunlight
moteriktig
meaning fashionable

kjærlighet

meaning love

ballongen
meaning balloon