Flag it up

I’m not normally the kind of person to plan my clothing in advance. In fact, ten minutes before going out is probably the norm, even on Big Nights Out. Today, however, I can tell you what I’ll be wearing in 66 days’ time. “Mais, pourquoi, Monsieur Le Chig?”, I hear you cry. Well, last week, those lovely, lovely people at the BBC confirmed that they have given me media accreditation for the whole of Eurovision week in Tallinn, and then the lovely, lovely people at Estonian Television sent me an e-mail confirming this. Consequently, I have had the perfect excuse to go out and buy one of the Union Jack shirts currently filling the shops (yes, they are!) This is partly because the flag is the main theme of Lambretta clothing’s very nice ‘mod’ influenced garments this season. Normally, I would consider this to be a bit nobby (along the lines of Union Jack boxer shorts being worn by fat, sunburnt British blokes in Ibiza), but I’m quite proud to be one of only 25 representatives of the UK media with the BBC in Tallinn, and I’ll be proud to visibly support the UK song. The international competition at Eurovisions, judging from the two I’ve attended before, is very good-natured, and just good fun. And it all helps to reclaim the flag from the fascist right too. Besides, I AM proud of being British, goddammit, AND I like our song. If Surf’n’Turf had won the UK’s A Song For Europe, I probably wouldn’t have bought the shirt.


Fact: Union Jack shirts make you look thinner.

There is another, slightly more mercenary reason for this purchase. I plan this year to push myself a bit with the media crews in Tallinn who will be looking for people to interview on a regular basis, and it won’t hurt to have a Union Jack shirt handy! In 1998, my post-Dana International interview was shown five times on L!ve TV’s news, sadly to an audience of one granny and her cat in Edgbaston. But I cherish the video of the interview, if only as a warning against the over-use of fake tan. I looked more orange than Dale Winton. At Eurovision 2000, I was interviewed by a German TV crew outside Globen, asking me what I thought of the German entry. (I was speaking in English. Mein Deutsch is nicht so gut fu:r die Fernsehen.) I have no idea whether it was ever shown. More of this kind of thing would be fun. If I’m lucky, maybe someone will even want to pay for my opinion. No, maybe not.

The setting for Eurovision 2002; Tallinn's Saku Suurhall


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