Hello, you might be expecting an edition of the briefing room here,

but I thought you might prefer to listen to me, Johnny Diamond,

with the news review of the year.

The world has changed.

None of us can go back.

All we can do is our best.

And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.

And that's what we are doing on the news review of the year. Starting over at the end, looking back at the beginning, doing our best to make sense of a very changed world. With thanks to Avengers endgame there. Not only my favourite film of the year, but the favourite film of all time when it comes to gross earnings,

$2.8 billion so far for the story of how the Avengers reacted to Thanos' use of the

infinity gauntlet to kill half the universe. Joining me, Johnny Diamond, on this epic quest to understand

and explain the recent past, is a truly heroic gathering in no particular order, Jennifer Williams, the award-winning political and investigations editor of the Manchester Evening News,

here in a nod to the discovery of a place called The North by the Conservative Party.

Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman of the advertising agency Ogilvy, author, commentator and sometime cravat wearer, and Helen Lewis,

staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine, and author of the soon-to-be-published, Difficult Women,

A History of Feminism in 11 fights. Talking of fights, seconds out round one. Which of you saw Avengers

Endgame? Helen. I did. I did see Avengers Endgame. All of it.

I mean, I may have drifted off through the second, third and fourth hours.

But I think it's a brilliant metaphor for this year in politics, actually,

which is that it went on for an incredibly long time.

There were lots of characters I'd vaguely forgotten made a reappearance.

And then the end was slightly disappointing.

Okay. Rory, did you see Avengers Endgame?

...