England is going to host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest - Just announced.

The UK joined the EEC in 1973. The song contest has ALWAYS had non-members of the EEC and, later EU. Norway and Switzerland were never members. These days, even Azerbaijan sends songs and artists to sing them. Ukraine, which won this past contest, was never an EU member. Non-members of the EEC (which originally had only six member countries, don't forget), and, later, the EU have ALWAYS participated in the Eurovision contest.

So what is this all about?

but still want to be in Europe.

It was deliberately kept separate, although this year, Putin managed to step over even that line.

Brexit was about politics and economics. It was never about geography or music, and it's place on the map never changed.

By the same token, I always find it amusing when ignorant people in the USA tell me they "speak American." I tell them, "no, you don't, you speak European." After the inevitable "whaddya mean by that?" I explain that England is in Europe. Spain is in Europe, too. If you speak Spanish, you also speak European. Same goes for French and Portuguese. If you tell me you speak "American," then you speak Navajo, Hopi, Seminole, Tlingit, Lakota, Nahuatl, or one of whatever languages are indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. Republicans don't like to hear that, of course.

The paperwork required for touring, now that the UK is no longer in the club, is hobbling them. So, the geography and music are now entwined with the politics.