Go Scooch

There aren’t too many cultural thingamajigs that Britain does better than anybody else these days. The Americans write meatier novels, the Spanish make more ridiculous modern buildings, the French more pretentious food and the Germans have the classical music business sewn up.

But there are a few, such as costume dramas, stand-up comedy and, especially, pop music.

And so we come to the Eurovision Song Contest, that bizarre, bloated, camp cultural dinosaur that just refuses to die, despite our best efforts to kill it every year by offering as our entry not one of the myriad super-talented young musicians that pack bills in our smoky city venues every night of the week, but rather a steaming turd – this time in the crapulent shape of a bimbo/poofta quartet dressed as airhostesses.

There are perfectly valid reasons for this. It shows a healthy and commendable contempt for the continent, and we’d lose whoever we sent, since the voting is shamelessly rigged as nervous New Europe countries vote for each other, and Old Europe hates us for being in the Iraq war.

Fortunately, no Gallic sneer could ever be as offensive as selecting Scooch to represent us while hundreds of premier league quality Brit guitar bands clog up the European charts with storming pop music.

To pick one at random, The Fratellis song Chelsea Dagger alone, for example (below), has at least three catchy tunes each of which will be far more glorious than whichever particular Euroturd eventually triumphs tonight. Still, it's all fun.