<\/p>\n
W<\/span>hat is to be done about Britain\u2019s lowly standing in the Eurovision song contest? It\u2019s a question to which the obvious answer is: who cares? We\u2019re led to believe millions across the UK are rendered livid on an annual basis by our poor showing \u2013 we\u2019ve made the top 10 in the final once in the last 16 years \u2013 but you somehow never actually meet anyone who gives a monkey\u2019s, despite the BBC\u2019s Stakhanovite efforts to convince us that Eurovision is the musical event of the year. In 2023, Radio 2\u2019s coverage involved broadcasting not merely the final itself, but a documentary, a Eurovision after-party show, both semi-finals, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing non-stop Eurovision winners, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing tunes from Eurovision celebrities, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing Eurovision runners-up and an all-request Eurovision party: it is unrecorded if the latter was deluged with requests to make it stop.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tempting to suggest that ranks of people who don\u2019t care much about Eurovision either way includes those responsible for deciding Britain\u2019s entry. Our solitary success in recent years was Sam Ryder coming second in 2022, a feat pulled off via the cunning new approach of equipping our entrant with a relatively memorable song, a well-written Elton\/Bowie pastiche called Spaceman. You might have thought there was a lesson in there, but no. Normal service was resumed the following year. Try humming the chorus of Mae Muller\u2019s vaguely Dua Lipa-ish Wrote A Song<\/a> (2023), or Olly Alexander\u2019s Dizzy<\/a> (2024), or Remember Monday\u2019s country-hued What The Hell Just Happened <\/a>(2025), the latter pair scoring zero in the public vote. You can\u2019t, can you?<\/p>\n