World Cup in London: Denmark

Or: Fodbold! Football with London's Danish fans!

I went to London's Danish Church near Regents Park yesterday to watch Denmark -v- Cameroon.

Small Danish flags dotted the building, with the fans gathered in the church's adjoining hall donning t-shirts, flags, and hats.

10 minutes in, though, Cameroon scored. "Oh Jesus Christ!", one woman exclaimed. Well, it was a church, after all.

Feeling the need to defend his nation, a Danish man said to his Italian friends, "We came fourth in Eurovision this year! Where were you?" Good point. He also tried to get them to chant "We are red, we are white, we are Danish dynamite", but they weren't playing ball.

Happily, the Danish team were and soon equalised to the roars and cheers of all present. One man donned a Viking helmet. Hurrah!

Half time coincided with the Dane's celebration of midsummer, which meant hotdogs, a bonfire, a man giving a speech and a sing-song. Sadly no sign of Tommy Seebach or Birthe Kjær, but the speech did seem to link X Factor and radical politics. Impressive.

More cheers and merriment followed when the Dane's took the lead, with the remaining half of the match a tense and exciting affair. I'm sure they were all saying their prayers after the final whistle, thankful for a very good result for Denmark. I was too, especially for a much more interesting time than my last foray with the Danes.

Fodbold! Football with London's Danish fans.

I went last night to Zoo Bar, venue of the Scandinavian Party, to watch two matches: Denmark -v- Hungary & Sweden -v- Albania.

Sweden & Denmark - how would I tell them apart?! It turned out to be easy. The Danes stood, while the Swedes sat. I'm not sure this is any great socio-geographical finding, but that's what happened. So I decided to stand amongst the Danish fans.

Nobody had any flags, which is always a shame. Some Danish men wore the football strip, whilst others had red t-shirts. One man had a red suit jacket. Hurrah for him.

Denmark have already qualified for the World Cup, so when Denmark had lost the lead, the fans looked more bored than bothered.

I got the impression the bar was made for more exciting encounters. A Danish man sullenly leaned on a pole atop a podium.

As the game went on, things were getting more important. The Danes didn't want to be beaten, after all. There was cheering, there was some shouting. A big cheer went up when the Danish number 10 came off. I couldn't tell if they liked him or not.

In the end, Denmark lost and the Danish fans shuffled away. But I'll be back to watch more with them next year.

Hey, Mr DJ

I'm DJing tonight, at London Media Gays in barcode. Should be an ace evening of retro and nu-pop! My last foray at DJing was playing foreign pop at the long-gone Club Contact, and I'm hoping to revive the foreign pop tradition tonight by playing lots of - now v trendy - ace Swedish pop, such as:

Velvet - Chemistry

Alcazar - Burning



Maybe Infernal - Redefinition

and, of course, Agnes Carlsson - Release Me

As In Rebecca Maria - live review

Last night, I went to see As In Rebekka Maria. Her real name is Rebekka Maria, so I'm not sure what the 'As In' is about. Maybe it's because she's Scandinavian. As in from Sweden or Denmark (I'm not quite sure where).

She's following trailblazers Robyn, Lykke Li and others with her very own crazy dark electropop. She's at her best when she sticks to the Scandinavian music plan: catchy vocal melodies over repetitive squilchy, squelchy, twisty, wooshy, fizzy, whizzy, beepy, tweety electropop beats.

She slinked fabulously on stage with a purple scarf draped over her head which was subsequently draped over her shoulders and arms. Halfway through, it was discarded and never bothered with again.

Two songs stood out for me:

• Yours Truly has a skittering synthy beat which rattles along nicely overlaid with a montage of laidback, melodic vocals
• Army of Foxy with an ace beat which gets darker as the song goes on, and a catchy playground taunt: "We're the army of foxy little ladies... we're the oh oh ohs, we're the ho ho hos, we're the no no nos, we're the joe joe joes"

Check her out: Rebekka Maria on Myspace // Rebekka Maria homepage

7 songs of spring-summer

My blog tends to live in its own little world, so I'm pleasantly surprised when linked by another blog. Boz recently challenged me to a meme.

I like the word meme - it's all about me(me), and also the French for same (même), so finding our similarities.

The task is: "List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs."

So. Click to hear a muxtape of these seven songs, and read on.

Infernal - Self Control
A cover of the Laura Brannigan song, but with added europop-ness. I've just finished my PhD thesis. When I was studying, I listened to this lots. Firstly, the song themes are similar to my research... what people think of themselves and others when out drinking and socialising. And secondly, I was able to bop along to it in my library seat.

Kylie Minogue - Your Disco Needs You
For the past few weeks, my office has become obsessed with this - we play it whenever we need excitement or a little motivation. I recently found out it was written with Robbie Williams, and there are versions where Kylie does 'the French bit' in German and Spanish. I've included the German one here, for novelty.

Ani Lorak - Shady Lady
My absolute favourite from this year's Eurovision - I listen, and I strut. A little camp, very strong, very diva - and the most enthralling performance. It's just a shame it didn't win! I've included the Russian version.

Bodies without Organs - Last flight to San Francisco
My favourite song from their last album. I love a song with a placename in it, and any song that evokes travel wins with me.

Hannes Schöner - Nun sag schon adieu
I'm soon going to start learning German, so I've been listening to German songs to get used to the language. This song comes from a German eurovision preselection in the 80s... and led to one of those moments when my boyfriend recognises a song from his childhood that I'm thoroughly enjoying.

Katri Helena - Äiti kuin äidinäiti
When I first listened to this, I thought "what the heck is Katri Helena doing in the second verse? What's that noise?" I asked a Finish friend, and happily now I know. But - what do you think? Answers in comments please. Ones that tickle me will win some prize or other.

An Pierle - Il Est Cinq Heures Paris S'Eveille
A vintage chanson given a modern touch - I love the energy of this. I play this when I need to think of life and be inspired. I listen to this and think that living in a city is a fantastic stimulating rollercoaster ride.

Now I'll pick some folk to meme. So: Chig, ItinerantLondoner, Karinski & GayPop, Poplicious! and Fabtastic!

Maps with borders, by Katharina and Jaan

My project to collect a map of every European country drawn by a citizen of that country is ongoing.

I recently asked Katharina from Denmark & Jann from Estonia to draw their countries.

Both their efforts are interesting, as they differ from what comes before.

Whereas other maps have shown just the country in question, Katharina and Jann's place their countries in context. Thus, Katharina's map shows Germany and Jann's shows Finland, Latvia, Lithuania.

All countries are placed in their bordered contexts, but Jann & Katharina's inclusion of these highlights how those before them had not done this.

They Must Strut!

Some pictures have emerged about the Eurovision stage for Helsinki. This is one of those pictures, thank you oikotimes who took it from YLE / EBU.

It's quite minimal in a Finnish chic way, and this is good.

There is a catwalk, and this is good.

The catwalk is only to be used for the opening and interval acts, and camera-people. Not the performers. And this is bad.

Guri Schanke needs to strut! Scooch need to have the aisle light up in the case of an emergency landing! Edsilia = strutting! Evridiki = strutting! Serebro = coordinated girl band strutting! DQ = strutting! We need the strutting space.

YLE! Rectify this! The Catwalk Campaign starts here. Sign the petition and Save Our Strutting!

EuroRevision: Europe squared.

I want to collect a map for every country in Europe. Get in touch if you want to help.

On conventional world maps, each country is shown with reference to their size.

EuroRevision changes this view by re-positioning each country's map on a 10cm x 10cm piece of paper.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer