(Bloomberg) -- As the year comes to a close it can be tempting to settle into the holiday season’s warm wave of nostalgia, let bygones be bygones and look forward to starting the new year with a clean slate. Not so for our journalists, who prefer a bracing appraisal of what they got wrong in a year that kept on throwing curve balls.

The Readout’s Allegra Stratton reflected on the year’s biggest surprises. From Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter to the carousel of UK prime ministers, here’s how our predictions unraveled.

Housing Market

“My timing this year was all wrong. With the kids getting bigger, we sold our flat and bought a house - completing in May and loading up on debt just as interest rates hit 1%. The move more-or-less coincided with the end of the house price bubble, ensuring that I bake in a capital loss as the market tanks next year.”- Philip AldrickUK economics editor

“One of the biggest surprises for 2022 is how long the housing market held up in the face of interest rate increases. Prices rose strongly through the first half of the year while the Bank of England cranked its benchmark lending rate higher. It took the panic in financial markets following the September fiscal statement to put a stop to that, and prices have declined for three months now.”- Reed LandbergU.K. Economy Team Leader

Covid

“Cast your mind back to last summer, when people were still cautiously figuring out how to re-enter society post lockdown. What's the last thing you would anticipate they would do in 2022? Answer: Stick their hands on a communal board spread with greasy butter. Even months later, when most people have eased up on pandemic precautions, the concept of a butter board - especially one topped with items that have no business combining with butter, like strawberries - as an appetizing, never mind hygenic, snacking situation is hard to contemplate.”- Kate KraderFood editor

Technology

“I was wrong to write that Elon Musk “may never buy Twitter.” In my defense, for at least three months of the year I think he thought that, too.”- Conrad Quility-HarperUK digital editor

Politics

“I was convinced that after the carnival years of Boris Johnson the Tory party would back the managerial qualities of Rishi Sunak over the fundamentalism of Liz Truss. After all, they'd plumped for John Major after Margaret Thatcher, and that worked out pretty well all things considered. Turns out I'd seriously underestimated the appetite for destruction of all those superannuated white men out in the shires. Of course, the party did get there in the end, but not before Truss had wreaked billions of pounds worth of damage on the UK public finances and tory grandee Graham Brady had been forced to engineer the old white men out of the process.”- Ben SillsManaging Editor for European Economy and Government

“In a year that started with Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, few news events that followed could really surprise. Ukraine’s resilience in fighting back, and the way Europe and the US have by in large stuck together to support Kyiv while deeply sanctioning Russia are both developments few may have predicted in February. Beyond the rhetoric, the support Moscow has received from friends such as China has not match widespread concerns and the fact the G-20 were able to agree a joint statement condemning the war was telling in that regard.”- Alberto NardelliCorrespondent-at-large for Europe

“Boris Johnson was already on the ropes at the start of 2022, with the Partygate scandal beginning to snowball. But who could have predicted that the Conservatives would end up getting rid of not just him, but also a second prime minister within 10 months? Liz Truss's 7-week tenure will endure not just as the answer to pub quiz questions but also as a salutary lesson that politicians ignore the financial markets at their peril.”- Alex MoralesUK politics editor

“By the middle of February I was convinced Boris Johnson's administration had just days left to run. The prime minister was finding it impossible to move past allegations of pandemic rule-breaking parties, his popularity was plummeting and his misjudgments were making him a liability to the Conservative Party. But then Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and suddenly Tory MPs had a distraction. He ultimately resigned under severe pressure in July, then stayed in Downing Street until September — an extraordinarily long postponement of the inevitable.”- Stuart BiggsUK politics editor“Predicting that UK politics would settle down, in the moments after Boris Johnson delivered his resignation speech... Nope.”- Neil BrennanUK social editor

“I didn't expect that Liz Truss would either become prime minister, or that she would then resign so quickly. If Truss winning the Tory leadership was a surprise, the manner of her ousting – after doing exactly what she said she would do during her campaign - was even more unusual. Away from the UK, I did not anticipate that protests in Iran over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini would still be raging at the end of the year. With such turmoil in the UK, it was too easy to look at Iran and assume that the anger of its women would quickly burn out, or be suppressed. Quite the opposite.”- Adam BlenfordSenior editor“I didn’t predict the straw that broke the back of Boris Johnson’s premiership would be a drunken night out from his party’s deputy chief whip. The fallout from Chris Pincher’s June bender ended Johnson’s time in office.”- Kitty DonaldsonUK politics editor“I didn't expect Liz Truss to become prime minister. I thought she didn't have enough support among her own MPs – as it was, she only just snuck onto the final ballot before winning among the party grassroots. That said, the very lack of MP support was a factor in her rapid downfall.”- Joe MayesUK politics reporter

Economy

“Of the countless things I got wrong this year, my biggest misjudgment was the pound's reaction to Liz Truss becoming prime minister and slashing taxes (or at least trying to). I thought the cuts would support sterling by forcing the Bank of England to hike interest rates more aggressively. Turns out, investors were more focused on the government's debt load.In my defence, though, sterling did start to recover even before Truss and former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng backtracked on the cuts.”- Joe EastonUK stocks editor

“ The newsletter only launched in mid-October so I haven't had much time to get things wrong yet, but if you come back next year I'm sure I'll have a list as long as your arm...!”- John StepekSenior reporter, Money Distilled newsletter

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