In Britain, the world's largest broadcast song celebration is universally seen as a farce.  Indeed, despite the apparent views of the rest of the 500 million members of EU states, it is only ever presnted in the UK as a ridiculous parade of mediocracy and occasional insanity in popular music.  Paul Barnes, celebrated BBC music presenter with a passion for big band, jazz and related music, emailed me today with this message:  "What hope is there for our music when the Daily Telegraph, an allegedly 'serious' newspaper, devotes today's main feature page to a consideration of Saturday night's pan-European drivel-fest?"

And, I was so irritated by the waste and pointlessness of this annual event that my reply to him went something like this:  The Eurovision song contest is such a farce, no longer even amusing.  It is a disgraceful waste of money that could be put into new and creative popular music of any sort but surely not the sort of stuff that bloody 'Europeans' would vote for: why do we never use credible musicians to produce credible music of quality and stuff the damn verdict.  I have no problem in our  coming last as that should be an indication of how far ahead of the rest we are but the truth is that we come last, first, because we try to create Eurovision crap and we are not even very good at that and, second, the rest of Europe are largely envious of a nation that has any real credibility. 

The main reason for this is something that even the politicians have not worked out and that is there are no Europeans; they do not exist.  There are Germans, Latvians, French, Italians, Spanish, Greeks etc etc in Europe and they all prefer to be German, Latvian, French, Italian, Spanish, Greeks etc etc.  Only Euro-loons claim to be European before their own nationality.  It will be  centuries before people think of themselves as Europeans, just  as it was before the Americans began to think of themselves as Americans and they had far, far more in common than the many nations and cultures of Europe. 

Is it not curious that everyone in the popular music industry in Europe would say that the UK is the pacemaker but this is not reflected in the only European celebration of popular music?  Imagine if the Cannes film festival was like that about film, or Booker Prize about literature, or the Montreux Jazz Festival about jazz? 

Also, our masters who run the EU think that the Eurovision song contest is wonderful - a demonstration of European unity that brings us together ... and both of these factors are  patently untrue.

Xenophobia or what?

And how about the Sunday Times that in its Culture section record reviews (CULTURE!?) bundles pop, rock  and jazz into the same category with hardly ever any jazz.  Also they rarely review jazz performances, despite the fact that this music attracts a bigger audience than chamber music, choral, opera or ballet.  Journalists and broadcasters seem to think jazz has a minority audience and that may be true in the papers and on radio and television but more people are out on any night at jazz events than they are at chamber music, choral, opera or ballet combined.  These are 'elite' forms that survive because that are seen to be cultured and are heavily subsidised and promoted.

Here endeth the rant today .............................................  I am so impassioned about this that I am putting it on my blog.

Roger Haywood is a leading media commentator on issues.  He is the only person to have chaired both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  He also helped form and chaired the world's largest network of independent business communications consultancies.

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