Bulgarian airports have seen less hysteria since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, as Eurovision champion Dara touched down in Sofia to a chorus of shrieking fans. The scene was a biblical spectacle: weeping devotees, a man in a bear costume waving a tricolour, and at least three faintings that were almost certainly staged for the cameras. Meanwhile, back in Blighty, a collective smugness settled over the land, like a particularly self-satisfied fog.
The narrative that British cultural influence is on the wane has been mercilessly torpedoed by this victory, but our Home Counties pundits remain stubbornly determined to ignore it. They’d rather mourn the loss of their empire than celebrate a pop star being mobbed in a country they couldn’t locate on a map without assistance from a guide dog. The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast.
Dara, a vision in sequins and barely concealed exhaustion, waved gamely at the crowd, her smile a rictus of politeness. The fans, many of whom had camped out for days, were not to be denied. They thrust flowers, stuffed animals, and in one case a block of cheese at their heroine.
The cheese was later confiscated by security, who cited ‘biochemical concerns’. It was an incident that perfectly encapsulates our age: a celebration of art, undermined by a fear of dairy products. But let us not be churlish.
This is a victory for the United Kingdom, a nation that has spent the last decade apologising for its own existence. We are a people who produce globally adored pop stars, world-beating musicians, and an alarming amount of reality television. Yet we insist on running ourselves down, as if success is an embarrassment.
The Bulgarian reception should be a wake-up call. It should be a reminder that we are not the culturally irrelevant backwater that the naysayers would have you believe. Instead, it will be met with a perfunctory mention on the BBC Ten O’Clock News, followed by a report on a pothole in Bedfordshire.
The Eurovision victory itself was a masterclass in hormonal pop and theatricality, a genre in which we excel. The UK’s entry, a piece of synthetic joy that could have been written by a committee of AI and teenage girls, captured the continental imagination. Dara’s performance was a storm of glitter, wind machines, and carefully choreographed dance moves that suggested a fusion of ABBA and a particularly enthusiastic aerobics class.
It was magnificent. It was also, crucially, insincere in all the right ways. The Bulgarians, a people not known for their reserve, responded with ecstatic abandon.
They screamed. They wept. They attempted to ascend her car like it was a chariot to heaven.
The security detail, a group of men with the expression of those who have seen too much, formed a human wall. One fan, a young woman named Elena, told your correspondent, ‘Dara is my life. I have a shrine to her in my bedroom.
My mother is worried. But I don’t care. Dara is love.
’ Such devotion. Such misplaced priorities. But then, isn’t that the point?
The UK’s cultural influence is not measured in think-tank reports or diplomatic cables. It is measured in the tears of a Bulgarian teenager who has spent her pocket money on a sequinned top and a tube of glitter glue. So let the critics moan.
Let the politicians wring their hands over the state of the arts. The truth is that we are a nation of dreamers, and sometimes, just sometimes, we export those dreams to a receptive audience. The sound of screaming fans in Sofia is the sound of British culture still punching above its weight.
It is a glorious, deafening noise. It is the sound of a country that, against all odds, continues to matter. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a gin.
The cheese incident has left me shaken.
