No contest

I was rocked to my foundations to learn that Bristol was not on the shortlist of British cities to host next year’s Eurovision song contest. As soon as our mayor, Marvin Rees, announced our candidature, I figured it would be a mere formality. How wrong could I have been?

The venue wouldn’t have been a problem. Bristol is rammed with major venues, like the Fleece, the Louisiana and the 02 academy. Granted it might have been a little tight inside the Fleece but anything’s possible nowadays.

We even have an arena, sort of. The former Brabazon hangar at Filton, where Concorde used to live, is being transformed as we speak into a 17,000 seater arena. Although the building is still basically an unused aircraft hangar nowhere near anything and there’s no transport infrastructure in place, there’s nothing that couldn’t be done with a few temporary seats and a pop up bar. We could have been a contender. Sadly, the organisers prefer something that’s already been built and has tons of infrastructure already in place. What a bunch of spoilsports they are.

In all seriousness, what on Earth was Bristol thinking about when it applied to host the contest? Yes, I know it would bring in a shed load of visitors and money but also it would show up the city’s embarrassing lack of public transport. And even if they could get the hangar ready in time, everything around it currently looks like a bombsite whilst the airfield is being dug up and a vast housing estate is created. I suppose if nothing else it might make the Ukrainian delegation feel more at home. (I’m sorry to use a ‘joke’ like that, but I couldn’t think of another way to make my point.)

At least Bristol was knocked out of the competition before it started. It would have been awful if we’d survived into the competition real and been laughed out of town for the sheer brass neck of it.

As for Mayor Rees, I’ll just add that I am looking forward to the day when Bristol no longer has a mayor. He’s not been very good, but then neither was his predecessor, the red-trousered over-inflated ego of George Ferguson. What they have both shown is that the mayoral model didn’t work for Bristol and didn’t achieve a thing. The only way it could have been worse had Bristol elected a Tory.