Radio 2 Eurovision (Radio 2) | iPlayer
The Invention of Brazil (Radio 4) | iPlayer
Oh crikey, what is all this fuss about Eurovision? How has a daft singing competition only celebrated by grannies and those who love a Saturday-night dress-up twink party turned into an all-out BBC funathon, a join-in-daddio-don't-be-a-dishcloth never-ending terror party? Someone, somewhere, in the Beeb decreed that last week should be devoted to Eurovision, that it should be spread across Radio 2 and BBC 1 as thickly as orange foundation over a 1970s presenter's face. If I ever meet that particular commissioning editor I'm going to force-feed them their hilarious Abba flares and make them wash them down with Ironic Fun Water (urine). How can anyone believe that the Eurovision song contest is worth its own separate digital radio station for five whole days?
The BBC does these big cross-platform events because it believes its job is to unite the nation, because it wants its various channels and producers to work more effectively together, and because such enormo-occasions get more press. But not everything is the Olympics. There just aren't that many cultural or sporting events that are interesting enough for such relentless analysis and promotion. The Facebook pages, the archive clips, the live blogs, the special versions of regular programmes, the videos of famous people singing along to old hits end up battering the joy out of a subject, squeezing out the last blood-drop of emotional significance before leaving it to twitch and die. It reminds me of hen and stag parties. Once, they involved a few friends getting hammered in the pub before leaving with their underwear on their heads. Now, they're planned a year in advance, cost two months' rent and demand you eat your face off at Sonus festival in Croatia for a week, before a cupcake-and-massage binge in a spa retreat in the Cotswolds. Fun? What is that alien spontaneous concept?
Being told you have to enjoy yourself for a long time in an organised manner makes everyone resentful. It's a turn-off. Just check the number of YouTube views for the "hilarious" video of Radio 2 presenters singing Making Your Mind Up. On Friday, at 10.30am, the clip had racked up a grand total of 268.
So, join me, why don't you, on a smaller promotional tour? The great Misha Glenny has made a three-part Radio 4 series called The Invention of Brazil (the fourth after The Invention of Germany, Italy and Spain). The hook is, of course, the World Cup, which will be sweeping into your home on a wave of multi-platformed, Panini-stickered, digital-stationed enthusiasm sometime in June. As the competition hasn't actually started, we're not worn out yet, so come on down Misha, please.
Actually, even if the football-fest had begun, this programme would be worth listening to. Glenny is living in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, as he's writing a book, and his get-stuck-in attitude was evident throughout the programme. Not in a macho explorer way, as with so many TV programmes, but in the way Glenny got involved, how he talked to people. His expertise worn lightly, his curiosity evident. Fact after interesting fact emerged: Rio has the largest slum in South America; Brazil has the largest number of people of African descent outside Africa because of its shockingly enormous slave trade; the Brazilian passport is the most valuable you can have – the country is so racially diverse, you can look like anything and pass as a Brazilian.
More: children born of the Portuguese colonial invaders and local women were not segregated, as they were in British colonies, but assimilated. The Portuguese are still regarded as a bit of a joke by Brazilians. When the slaves arrived in Brazil, they were scared that the white people were going to eat them. All this emerged from Glenny's conversations, with academics, experts, locals, interspersed with his wonderful descriptions of the cities, the favelas, the beaches. What a lovely programme. And not a single mention of the F word. Football, I mean. I imagine it might pop up later.
