Thank goodness there are some people, high up within our entertainment industry, whose years of boozing, whoring and snorting cocaine off bald dwarves’ heads have not, as yet, dimmed their pragmatism when it comes to the British weather. For while we, the public, dizzied by two days of sunshine and the rare sighting of our own ankles in the mirror, plan a summer full of picnics, champagne on the terrace, diaphanous dresses and Magnums for breakfast, the entertainment industry knows otherwise. The entertainment industry knows it’s going to rain from here to September — with a two-day spell of 98-degree heat, just in time for you to get heatstroke when you creosote the fence.

The entertainment industry knows this because, at the end of the day, the entertainment industry has to know. It’s the entertainment industry, not you, that is risking putting £1 million of backline equipment and Dame Shirley Bassey out in the elements, and once you’ve had one instance of mopping down £1 million of backline equipment and Dame Shirley Bassey with towels, you tend not to put yourself in that situation again. You become very realistic, very quickly, about our climate — for Dame Shirley, I think we can all fairly safely surmise, does not like getting an impromptu rub-down with a bath-sheet while her frocks drip-dry over a chair. Dame Shirley did not move from Tiger Bay to Monaco for nothing. If the song MacArthur Park were about someone leaving Dame Shirley out in the rain, instead of a cake, then the verses would, in all likelihood, be Richard Harris running through a list of injuries inflicted by a furious damp diva in a bathrobe.

So that is why, on scanning this week’s schedules, one notes the true harbingers of summer: big concerts; huge musical events that one can watch indoors, on telly, without risk of dampness or deluge.

First, the mighty Eurovision Song Contest — the perennial lighthearted drinking fixture of May; seasonal gates through which we all must pass, to reach midsummer on the other side. There’s no change with the gargantuan ’vision — no modish makeover here; no flashy gimmicks, or public interaction, or gesture towards making the event last any less than five hours. Eurovision frankly doesn’t give a stuff what we think. We can all shove our X Factor-style texts up our backsides. It’s four days long whether you like it or not, with a result decided on the whim of what appear to be local newsreaders from Finland and Luxembourg. It’s as implacable and stodgy and old-fashioned and moreish as potato salad. One made with salad cream, and tinned sweetcorn, like you get at bad weddings.

Personally, I always find the Big EV inspires an unexpected burst of reverie. For while the tournament worships, as holy sacrament, sequins and Scandinavian cod-reggae and the bared midriff and the gay-looking Italian balladeer — all the major signifiers of modern Western culture — the underlying redolence of Eurovision lies on a much greater scale. As you embark on the first of your nine days in front of the television — “amusing” home-made scorecard in hand, like some manner of postmodern amulet, to ward off profundity — you start to feel Eurovision’s true trade-winds: the hangover from the dissolution of the Soviet empire that haunts the Lithuanian entry (We are the Winners); the centuries-long consequences of the fall of Ancient Greek civilisation — cultural exhaustion, post-facto rationalisation of having “invented” homosexuality, the subsequent ferocious misogyny — the end result of which is Greek women bleaching their hair seven shades lighter than their faces.

And always, always the rubbishness of the British entry. Why are we rubbish at Eurovision? Frankly, it’s because we’re not European. Our pop is a mucky, clever-clever, complex, local thing — even when it’s the Beatles. The good British stuff isn’t something a newsreader from Latvia is necessarily going to go all out to give 12 points to. And the bad British stuff? Well, that’s what we send over.

Still, watch out for Lordi, the deathmetal band from Finland. They dress like orcs from The Lord of the Rings and have, in their back-catalogue, songs called Fire in the Hole — yes, that hole — Night of the Loving Dead — and Wake the Snake. Yowsa! Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales is attempting a Eurovision of his own. The Prince’s Trust 30th Birthday Live comes live from the Tower of London — presumably so everyone can nip into the dungeons in the event of rain — and offers viewers the dubious benefit of being able to watch in 3-D, should they so wish. I don’t know about you, but the idea of being able to watch Ozzy Osbourne, Sugababes and Annie Lennox in 3-D seems like a slight left-turn for the forces of logic. Surely these are artists with venerable repertoires easily capable of holding the attention of the masses? They don’t need the option for the home audience to squint, slip the first two inches of their fingers behind the artist’s three-dimensional heads while screaming, “Look! I’m stirring Lionel Richie’s brain!” And then, BBC Young Musician of the Year, one of the biggest events in the classical music calendar; the BBC’s sterling contribution towards finding the exceptional classical music talent of tomorrow; a bright new dawn for the deserving winner. And, to most of us, like a big posh school concert, but without the thrill of seeing Mark Miller’s never-seen, workaholic mum turn up halfway through and then weep uncontrollably when he moos two notes out of his bassoon. Still — gotta keep those 21st century viola players coming.

• The Eurovision Song Contest 2006, Sat, BBC One, 8pm; The Prince’s Trust 30th Birthday Live, Sat, ITV1, 6.55pm (highlights Sun, ITV1, 11.15pm); BBC Young Musician of the Year, Sat, BBC Two, 5.20pm