THE SUN AINT GONNA SHINE ANY MORE ?...

To grab a line from the Walker Brothers, who also opined that "Loneliness is a cloak you wear.  A deep shade of blue is always there."   Or words to that effect.

Anyway, a confession before my rant begins.   I did not watch any part of the Eurovision Song Contest last weekend - it`s an event that I avoid like the plague;  too political, duff music, bizarre bands, singers, what have you, the annoying Graham Norton who trousers far too much money from us elderly compulsory licence fee payers struggling to survive on fixed incomes in trying times, so it`s all a bit rubbish really.

Except for the fact that I`m told by an inside source that to enter the contest costs the BBC something like £300,000.   Now for that money, time and effort I think we are entitled to a fair hearing but it seems that the rest of Europe think otherwise - the results shown above speak for themselves.  It makes one wonder whether it`s all worth the effort.  Perhaps if we were to enter into the competition with our big guns blazing - after all we as a country are acknowledged as one of if not the leading light in the world of popular music - and had people like Led Zeppelin, Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney, Elton John, (there`s a long list) conjuring up a song or two then maybe we might stand a chance.   

But even then somehow I doubt it.  Seems like the EU and its family gathering are not going to forgive us for leaving them and this result looks like yet another in a growing line of snubs which have nothing to do with open and fair competition and more to do with sour grapes. Or maybe they`re just jealous.

And yet there must surely be some smug satisfaction for us in receiving absolutely no points whatsoever and coming bottom of the pile once more.  I`m feeling a kind of inverse triumph here - of all the competitions to come last in, it surely must be this one.  This is one occasion when, again with due respect to the Walker Brothers, there is comfort and smugness in the cloak of loneliness that we are wearing on this side of the channel but maybe not with the deep shade of blue that` always there.  And for us on this bountiful May morning, the sun is shining once more.  So there.