Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra Wins Eurovision Song Contest 2022

What was genuinely unexpected was the UK coming second. I thought our entry was, at best, mediocre. I was hoping somebody would like it enough to secure us a few points, and yes I was expecting the popular vote in particular would be heavily for Ukraine (it looks like most countries gave maximum points to Ukraise in the popular vote) which was, depending on your tastes, one of the better entries even disregarding the political situation.

After we got points in the first expert vote, I though that's nice, we can take that, and then they just kept coming.

The real irony now would be if Ukraine decides next year that the Russians are still blowing up bits of their country and so it's unsafe to hold the Content in say, Kyiv, and... they ask the UK to proxy. See, it's often considered especially good to come second because the winner hosts and hosting is expensive. But if a winning country can't host for practical reasons (and Russians blowing up your country seems like a reason to me) they can ask somebody else to proxy, and seems like we'd be as good a choice as anybody...

Sarcasm?

UK radios discussed that this past week, I didn't even know the event was happening until I heard it was probable that Ukraine was going to win, and Russia was banned

Eurovision has historical been mostly about political statements