So it looks like we won't be getting a referendum on Europe. Did anyone ever think we would? Gordon Brown has cast his lofty glass eye on his subjects and decided that as democratically elected leader of the country (must have missed THAT vote) our future lies with Europe whether we like it or not. Not the nasty Old Europe that would periodically trample through Belgium to have a bit of a barney, but a happy contented, prosperous and United Europe that is now expanding faster than a puddle of puppy pee on a sloping lino floor. This New Europe is now dividing and subdividing faster than an amoeba on amphetamines with a serious generation gap developing between the grumpy old farts in their tatty slippers to the west and the callow hoodies swapping illicit ciggies in their playground to the East.
Barely fresh from burning each other's tractors, shagging each other's goats and generally acting in a frightfully uncivilised manner these New Europeans have also taken with gusto to dissing their elders in that most sacred of European institutions - The Eurovision song contest. In golden times we had the risible Boom-a-bangs of the Germans, the skirt shedding, barefooted antics of the Britains, the game Norwegians who lost valiantly singing in their own language, the crafty Swedes who didn't and the The French whose nasal love ballads left everyone with a cold. A jolly camp time was had by all and we all got the last laugh on Terry Wogan by conspiring for Ireland to win so many times it practically bankrupted them.
Last year it was the ASBO's of Europe's turn and with a fine lack of regard for the hallowed traditions of Eurovision they swept all before them with an exuberant display of strategic, tactical, anarchic, wilful and downright incomprehensible voting.
The Old countries of Europe are now the parents of rowdy teenagers. We will still hand out the pocket money but tomorrow belongs to them.....
