Last year, @Zoë O'Connell and I went to the Southampton International Boat Show, only to find that it had been turned, by the organisers, into a “family day out to buy tat” show. Many exhibitors stayed away. Lots of stuff I wanted to see simply wasn’t there. Instead, you were made to walk through endless displays of crap patio furniture and other such tat, in slowly moving queues.

There used to be a boat show in London, and they killed it by turning it into a tat show too. Southampton was, until Covid, left alone to be a boat show, until last year. Even the RYA (Royal Yachting Association, the closest thing sailing has to a governing body in the UK) didn’t turn up.

Since then, the organisers have been bombarding us with email. After last year, I think a lot of people have decided to bot bother, and if we want to go to a boat show, go to Boot at Düsseldorf, the largest in Europe and an actual boat show.

The tone of the emails has been increasingly, “we get what we did wrong, we’re sorry! Look! We persuaded the RYA to come back.”

It was almost working … almost.

Then yesterday they sent me an email about the new highlight of the show: their live music stage.

You have no idea what you did wrong, do you?

RIP Southampton International Boat Show. Something sharing your name may continue for a while, but you are gone and missed.