Proms, Flags

 It's that time of year again. Summer has elided into autumn, and that sure calendrical marker, the Last Night of the Proms, has been and gone. Watching it on television, I found this year's event rather underwhelming – too many musical 'lollipops' with little of substance to balance them, efficient but uninspired conducting, and rather too much downright silliness  (the spectacle of the BBC's finest musicians performing a classicised version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with straight faces will not be easily forgotten). Still, Alison Balsom delivered a typically brilliant farewell performance, the soprano Louise Alder showed real star quality, and I fancy Rachel Portman's 'The Gathering Tree' will be a big choral hit. The traditional finale could hardly fail, but I felt it could have done with rather more oomph. And of course the flags were waving. There were plenty of union jacks, especially towards the front, this being one of the few occasions on which waving the national flag is considered safe, not a step on the slippery slope to racism, ultranationalism and fascism (in contrast to the intolerably vulgar shows of patriotism at the 'far right' rally in London earlier the same day, sniff sniff). There were also large numbers of EU flags, and even EU hats, designed to be seen from above; indeed, I got the impression that the EU flags were more numerous than last year, and actually outnumbered the union jacks – will the Remainers never give up? I suppose, to take a charitable view, they are making the fatal error of mistaking the EU for that wondrous thing, Europe – and hence European civilisation, European music, etc. English classical music, except at its folky fringes, certainly belongs in the European tradition, just as English popular music belongs in the American tradition. But all that, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the EU.