Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I want to tell you why I love podcasting.

Hi, my name's Tommy Dixon, and I make podcasts for the BBC.

I'm a big fan of stories, always loved a good book.

But when I started commuting for my first job, I discovered podcasts.

I was blown away by how a creative idea and the right mixture of sounds could take you into

a whole new world full of incredible stories. You know, the type that make you go, wow. And that kind of inspired me to

give it a go myself, which to cut a long story short led to a BBC training scheme and a whole

new career giving other people that exact same feeling. So if you want to hear amazing stories

that make you go wow like I did, they're just a tap or click away on BBC

Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello and welcome to the official news quiz decommissioning of the year 2021.

In this, the News quiz review of the year.

I am Andy Zaltzman, and that is one of the few things of which I'm still relatively sure in this confusing world.

2021 has been a year that has seen this much criticised decade recover from its difficult first year,

with a marginally less abominable difficult second year.

But there have been definite signs of improvement, like there are definite signs of improvement on your second attempt at riding a horse. If the first one ended up with the horse

flicking you over its head and volleying you into a sewage tank full of porcupines,

and the second one merely involves the horse unseating you into a wheelie bin full of hedgehogs,

then you're going to think, I'm learning. So very slightly onwards and imperceptibly upwards we

have gone. Ever since the early episodes of the News Quiz Year were dominated by news from the

United States of America, where someone was not very happy about the employment boot being on

...