"...Eurovision residential football language ..."
For a few years now my mum, Kristin, has rung me up around August time and said, “how do you feel about sending one of your songs in to the Eurovision song contest?” She did the same this year, except I think she said, “I’m going to send one of your songs into the Eurovision song contest.” I had nothing against that and signed the papers. About three weeks ago, I got a phone call from Linda at RUV (the Icelandic equivalent of the BBC). She informed me that my song had been chosen to enter the Icelandic song contest to select the song that will represent Iceland in Eurovision.
The way the competition works is that RUV gets 9 well-known songwriters to write 3 songs each. That’s 27 songs entered. Then they choose 6 songs from the unknowns (like myself) and enter them in the competition. Mine was one of those 6, chosen from 146 entries. I’m quite proud of that.
Unfortunately, as I am not living in Iceland and have just started a new job, I won’t be able to perform the song myself. Instead, I have hired the amazing ‘Menn Arsins’ (Men of the Year) which is the band I was in when we were living in Iceland. They will record and perform the song and I can’t wait to hear what they do with the arrangement. Halli, the pianist in the band, has had copious amounts of emails from me and is probably sick of me already ;-)
So, this is your mission … if you choose to accept it …
On Saturday November the 24th 2007, everyone I know in Iceland needs to sit down in front of their television and watch the song being performed by these amazing musicians. They then need to pick up their phones and vote! Thank you for your co-operation, this message will self-destruct in five seconds … Stick that date in your diary!
As I mentioned above I started my new job this week and I am loving it. It’s great and fun and the people are good and I’m the boss-ish and it’s cool and I look forward to going to work in the mornings!
Joanna was on residential training this week. That means that she was away from Tuesday until Thursday … well that was the plan. But the residential was actually at a hotel in the next village so she spent the Tuesday night here with her boys but stayed over on the Wednesday. We really missed her and she missed us. She has another residential, this time in York, in just over a week’s time. Hmmm … should I start getting worried … ;-) We’ll miss her again and she’ll miss us … She’s enjoying her role although, as you would expect in such a demanding job, there are days when she comes home shattered and fed up. It’s because she works so hard that darling!
Jolyon is enjoying his football. In a very short space of time he has worked his way up from being in the third team to being a first team sub, which usually means he plays at least half the game. This is purely down to his enthousiasm and hard work. He struggles with his organisation and academics at school but when it comes to sport, he excels!
Elijah is starting to realise that he is learning two different languages. A typical conversation:
Elijah: “what is breakfast?”
Daddy: “Breakfast is morgunmatur.”
Elijah: “Mummy say breakfast, daddy say morgunmatur?”
Daddy: “Yes, well done.”
Elijah: “What does Elijah say?”
Daddy: “Elijah can say breakfast or morgunmatur.”
Nine times out of ten he’ll choose the english word for himself, which is normal as he is growing up in an English speaking environment. But I am now using every oportunity to teach him that he has a choice. He knows that amma and afi say like daddy and grandmum and pops say like mummy. Sometimes, like with car (bill) he’ll choose to use the english word but will use the Icelandic word when speaking to daddy. I guess it’s more important than ever for me to stick to speaking Icelandic with him and I admit, I am not as good at this as I should be but I do try.
So the sentence of they day is ‘Eurovision residential football language’ … and that is that …
The way the competition works is that RUV gets 9 well-known songwriters to write 3 songs each. That’s 27 songs entered. Then they choose 6 songs from the unknowns (like myself) and enter them in the competition. Mine was one of those 6, chosen from 146 entries. I’m quite proud of that.
Unfortunately, as I am not living in Iceland and have just started a new job, I won’t be able to perform the song myself. Instead, I have hired the amazing ‘Menn Arsins’ (Men of the Year) which is the band I was in when we were living in Iceland. They will record and perform the song and I can’t wait to hear what they do with the arrangement. Halli, the pianist in the band, has had copious amounts of emails from me and is probably sick of me already ;-)
So, this is your mission … if you choose to accept it …
On Saturday November the 24th 2007, everyone I know in Iceland needs to sit down in front of their television and watch the song being performed by these amazing musicians. They then need to pick up their phones and vote! Thank you for your co-operation, this message will self-destruct in five seconds … Stick that date in your diary!
As I mentioned above I started my new job this week and I am loving it. It’s great and fun and the people are good and I’m the boss-ish and it’s cool and I look forward to going to work in the mornings!
Joanna was on residential training this week. That means that she was away from Tuesday until Thursday … well that was the plan. But the residential was actually at a hotel in the next village so she spent the Tuesday night here with her boys but stayed over on the Wednesday. We really missed her and she missed us. She has another residential, this time in York, in just over a week’s time. Hmmm … should I start getting worried … ;-) We’ll miss her again and she’ll miss us … She’s enjoying her role although, as you would expect in such a demanding job, there are days when she comes home shattered and fed up. It’s because she works so hard that darling!
Jolyon is enjoying his football. In a very short space of time he has worked his way up from being in the third team to being a first team sub, which usually means he plays at least half the game. This is purely down to his enthousiasm and hard work. He struggles with his organisation and academics at school but when it comes to sport, he excels!
Elijah is starting to realise that he is learning two different languages. A typical conversation:
Elijah: “what is breakfast?”
Daddy: “Breakfast is morgunmatur.”
Elijah: “Mummy say breakfast, daddy say morgunmatur?”
Daddy: “Yes, well done.”
Elijah: “What does Elijah say?”
Daddy: “Elijah can say breakfast or morgunmatur.”
Nine times out of ten he’ll choose the english word for himself, which is normal as he is growing up in an English speaking environment. But I am now using every oportunity to teach him that he has a choice. He knows that amma and afi say like daddy and grandmum and pops say like mummy. Sometimes, like with car (bill) he’ll choose to use the english word but will use the Icelandic word when speaking to daddy. I guess it’s more important than ever for me to stick to speaking Icelandic with him and I admit, I am not as good at this as I should be but I do try.
So the sentence of they day is ‘Eurovision residential football language’ … and that is that …
posted by J, T, J&E at
8:51 pm
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