Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thanks for tuning in in this, the last one before Christmas.

And so we're going to do something different as we all get ready to drink wine and

champagne or whatever everyone in the Rock and Roll Politics Cooperative does over these days.

I know some of you will be cooking the most brilliant food because you do that whilst

listening to the podcast and some of you will be

outrunning whilst listening all brilliant brilliant things to do at the end of this very long year.

So anyway, what we're going to do is this.

We're going to bring you the last rock and roll politics live show of the year.

We don't usually record the live shows,

but this was the last one of the year and this is our Christmas podcast. So we're going to do it.

I must have done 30 live shows in 2024, including the 14 in the Edinburgh Festival.

Each one is different.

Literally, we take a kind of different themes every time.

And this one being the last one of 2024 live at King's Place,

we're kind of reflecting on the year,

and we did things slightly differently.

It's funny as well with live shows how the mood can change and is different each time,

even though many of you kindly come along to all of them.

It's something that fascinates me.

The unpredictable mood at live events, so different from being in a broadcast studio where you don't

see an audience or indeed writing a book or columns where you don't see anyone.

...