Ho, ho, ho. This, I mean, that's how I begin everything now. It's me and see ya. That's just what we do.

Welcome to a new little thing we're putting together for Christmas for the festive season.

We're going to find out which comedians were actually happy in 2025.

Now I say that out loud, it sort of seems a bit like a sort like a cruel challenge of this year's 25 guests.

I feel like now we're going to pit them against each other for which is happiest.

We'll crown the Comedians, comedian podcast, King or Queen or Monarch of Happiness.

That isn't what we're doing. We're just going to look back at some of the brilliant answers that we've had. This question always gets just fascinating answers. At the time of recording this, the Sophie Duker episode hasn't gone out yet, and that is an all-timer. But let's think about this. So this year, let's look back on who we had. I'm not going to pretend. I'm not reading some of this, or at least looking at notes. We had this year

returning favourites like Russell Howard and Nick Muhammad and Josie Long. We had first

timers like Lucy Pairman and Mary Elaine Robertson, some of them very long overdue, like Adam

Riches, not overdue in the sense that

he should have bloody got round to it, but more in the sense that he's just someone I thought's brilliant for years. So, think of this as a quick glimpse into each episode, whether you're brand new and catching up, and to be honest, if you're brand new and catching up and you've made it through this. What is it now? A minute and 28? Who's got time for that? Or if you're a long-term listener, far more likely, but new people welcome to, wanting to revisit the catalogue. So first, we're going to hear from Ian Sterling, as he explains why he isn't more successful and why he's okay with that. Here's Ian. You're very successful. Why aren't you

even more successful? Oh wow. Why am I even? I think probably my, I'm happy to put my personal

life before my work life is one of the big reasons.

I'll not, you know, if I've got something in with my family and something else comes up,

I'm doing the family thing to, again, I'm trying to be, I'm being overjudgmental of myself

here if it's a fair caveat to put, because again again I don't want to make myself out to be like

I'm just a fantastic family man but don't worry no but you know what I mean I'm trying to get

that balance of am I being hypercritical or is this a relevant caveat to put in yeah um so I think

I've not got that I I definitely got to a stage

in my success and fame where I was like,

I am doing the job I love, I have a family I love,

and I have enough spare time to spend that time with my family,

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