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9:43am on Sunday, 15th May, 2022:
Anecdote
Last year, we booked a hot-air balloon flight only to have it cancelled because the wind speed was forecast to be too high.
I waited patiently, and rebooked it for yesterday evening. I didn't have any particular reason to choose 14th May, but it was the only date with free slots. The reason it had free slots was, I suspect, because the flight clashed with the finals of the FA Cup Final and the Eurovision Song Contest.
The weather yesterday was glorious. The sky was cloudless, the humidity was low and a sea-to-shore breeze was forecast in the evening that would bring gusts of wind at low altitude.
From this post's lack of breathtaking images taken from a balloon basket high above the Essex countryside, you will probably have deduced that low-altitude gusts of wind make it hard for a hot-air balloon to take off. I called the balloon line at 2pm and the flight was cancelled.
Still, at least this meant I got to watch the FA Cup and Eurovision Song Contest finals.
The FA Cup final was on ITV. I declared that this meant it would be nil-nil after 90 minutes and would either go to penalties or end with a scrappy, disputed goal in extra time. It duly went to penalties, but at least the best team won.
For some weeks, I'd been saying that Eurovision was going to be won by Ukraine for reasons nothing to do with their song (which wasn't even their first-choice entry) and that whichever country came second could consider that a win. Astonishingly, the UK came second, scoring 466 points more than we got last year. Our song was sufficiently good that it even got votes from Eire. Regional voting blocs that are prevalent elsewhere in Eurovision work the opposite way for us, with countries that speak English as a first language apparently not wishing to bbe perceived as showing bias (we got zero from the Australian jury; Cyprus gave Greece its customary 12).
Whether we all go to Kyiv next year or not depends in part on Putin, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the UK hosted Eurovision as back-up. It's difficult to see how Putin will spin this public vote as being false news, a rigged vote, the result of duping 200,000,000 viewers or anything else, but I'm sure he'll find a way.
Coming second in Eurovision is less gut-wrenching than coming second in the FA Cup, but on the whole I'd have preferred the balloon flight.
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