Lalala land

With the signs of spring our minds, whether we like it or not, turn to the Eurovision Song Contest. It was a great achievement of Sir Terry Wogan, who died this week, to have established that the Emperor had no clothes – in other words that the acts performed to adulatory audiences throughout Europe (and now as far as Australia) were often pretty rum and sometimes undeniably ludicrous. Now the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language has exploded with august impatience because Spain’s entry for 2016 is in English. The “moral and cultural obligation” is to sing in Spanish, one member declared. It is true that Spain’s offering Say Yay, goes: “Lalalala! Hurray! / Say yay, yay, yay!” This is not Spanish. But it is hardly English either. Yet in 1968, when Spain last won, it beat Congratulations by Cliff Richard with a song called La, la, la. It went: “La lalala lalala lalala / La lalala lalala lala…” You get the idea. That may not be English, but it is not really the Spanish of Cervantes. Later this month, Britain decides on its own entry. What are the odds on it containing quite a few lalalas too?