Euro-Schmeuro: Time To Go

Today the sun for sorrow dares not show its head; rain is thrown down in skyfulls upon the grateful green and ungrateful populace of this grassy isle, and I am through with Eurovision.

Even Terry Wogan is wondering if he's through with it, and that's got to be a sign.

It is time to say something about Eastern Europe, and here it is; we have had nothing in common with them for the last millennium, and now it is time to Cut Them Loose. There are people in the UK from abroad with whom we have much in common - in particular a history of colonisation -and to these people our loyalties are due. But Eastern Europe - land of snow, pogroms and heavy embroidery - has very little common history with the UK. As its Eurovision voting shows.

I found the whole fiasco this year almost creepily all-white and largely all-shite. Apart from Bjorn giving the votes from Sweden - barely legal, nervous as a Herbert Lom in a Fritz Lang classic and blatantly liquored up, giggling "yes it's true" after delivering himself of the "dix points" score - I didn't enjoy much of it, although the French entry fascinated me. We come in for a lot of stick on the continent (apparently) for Not Taking It Seriously. Well, if having four female backing singers in false beards and taches and a singer arriving in a tiny car sucking helium out of a globe beach ball is taking it seriously we certainly have some way to go. AND YET the French got a good deal more than 14 points.

We came - for anybody who doesn't know - joint bottom with Poland and Germany, each with 14 points out of a possible 2494. We should have a Little Chat with Germany. When there are about 50 countries in a competition and we (Germany, France, Spain and the UK) pay 40% of the cost, we should be looking into whether we can get better value for money out of withdrawing and spending the money elsewhere, because paying through the nose for the Barefoot Russian narcissist is not a good return on any investment. (He's cross-eyed for crying out loud. What is it with cross-eyed men that in the first place they consider themselves sexy and in the second anybody agrees? Nobody thought Bjorn Borg was sexy. The world was a lot more sensible in the seventies.)

So - time to turn the whole thing over to Simon Cowell. Let us put Eurovision off onto some oblique rubbishy channel and invite our mates whom we fight with (ie our Euro-neighbours) to put forth their best for Westeuro Idol or The EU's Got Talent. The important thing is A Local Squabble for Local People. The French, Germans, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese all have hideously embarrassing colonial histories and a corresponding tolerance of different coloured skin and cultural diversity as part of their emergent new-world identities. Eastern Europe have the bitching of the Balkans and the Coalition of CUBR (Countries that Used to Be Russia); we should have our own CUBE (Countries that Used to Be Empires) because damn we are different.

Sod it, we should have A Song for the Western Europe and its Ex-Colonies (Russia does - and we pay for it) - think how funky that would be - it is time to line up with who we actually have something in common with.