Eurovision 2008:How the West has won

Herlad Sun
by Andrew Bolt

HOW bizarre. Russia thinks its win in last month's Eurovision song contest is a national triumph.

Even weirder is that Britain is still moaning over its assumed humiliation.

Just this week, Labour MPs even tabled a motion in the House of Commons demanding the BBC quit screening this "farcical event" after singing dustman Andy Abraham, a TV talent quest runner-up, came last, putting Britain once more in the basement with most of the rest of the West Europeans.

But steady, my tone-deaf friends. Eurovision produced the very opposite results to the ones you imagine.

Eurovision, of course, is not the most precise indicator of cultural power.

It may be the world's most popular song contest, but the acts that 100 million viewers switch on to watch each year are almost all of spectacular mediocrity. They're like pre-chewed food - tomorrow's "easy listening" music today.

Yet touchy Russia has still spent the past week and a half swaggering as if it had actually beaten Napoleon again - rather than been conquered by yet another Golden Horde. Its Dima Bilan was the first Russian in the competition's history to win first prize, leading to celebrations so mad that a Moscow News headline blared: "Russia in Ecstasy over Eurovision Win."

President Dmitry Medvedev publicly rang Bilan to congratulate him, while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent a telegram declaring this was "One more important triumph for all of Russia".

Except it wasn't. Bilan won not because he was being Russian, but because he was being Western. He sang in English a number inspired by Australian self-help guru Rhonda Byrne and produced by America's Timbaland which sounded, sadly, much like all that man's stuff.

It was no different with the two runners up: both the Ukrainian and Greek songs were typically Western genre songs sung in English. In fact, 17 of the 25 finalists sang in English, including even the French.

The ceremony, too, hosted in Belgrade, was conducted almost entirely in English.

So if the English had any sense of cultural history they'd take pride, not offence. Here is a tiny island nation whose language now provides the lyrics of international music, with 23 of Eurovision's 53 winning songs having been in English.

If top Western artists competed in Eurovision as top Eastern ones such as Bilan do, there'd be more trophies to take home, too, but when a Russian bear sings in English, you know the West has still won.