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Following the tradition of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III presents his first Christmas broadcast at 3 pm on 25th December 2022. image source: Wikipedia

Professor Tim Evans looks back at the challenging year that was 2022, taking us through learning to live with Covid, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US mid-terms and the Trump revelations, the passing of the Queen, the rapid turnover of Prime Ministers and the cost-of-living crisis. Looking ahead, he wonders how China will cope with Covid, wonders if the current industrial unrest might rebound on Labour and wonders what will become of Russia as the war grinds on.

James Cameron-Wilson looks back at the cinematic year, taking us through the top 10 films at the UK box office of 2022, with Top Gun Maverick ending up the biggest grosser with £83m. But a very different list is James's own list of his 10 favourite films, with the Netflix remake of All Quiet on the Western Front his personal #1. With Avatar 2 just out, he recaps on the most expensive movies of all time, with Way of Water only making it to #4.

James Cameron-Wilson gives his last box office round-up of 2022 where Avatar: The Way of Water is steamrollering everything before it with an £11.2m first weekend take. Although it looks amazing, James says it's violent, disappointingly one-dimensional and he couldn't wait for its three-hour-plus running time to end. On Netflix, there's a new Lady Chatterley's Lover with The Crown's Emma Corrin but James couldn't suspend his disbelief. On Apple+ is Will Smith's hope for redemption, the slave drama Emancipation from Antoine Fuqua. Trying too hard to be a masterpiece, James was occasionally reminded of Rambo!

Steve Caplin looks at a solution to the killing of bats by wind turbines, how space colonies might exist on asteroids, how New Zealand plans ridding the country of smokers, at a possible answer to foggy glasses, Channel 4's AI-written, robot-delivered Christmas message, at Westminster Council's solution to street urination and at a licence-free plane, which you have to build yourself.

Does travel anxiety, particularly on public transport, undermine your normally highly resourceful state? Adam Cox helps control those unpredictable feelings and raised emotions in this short episode: a useful contribution in today's disrupted travel environment, whether caused by strikes or weather.

There's a value approach to Barron's annual list, and we've got some thoughts. Jason Moser discusses the case for traditional value stocks like Bank of America and Berkshire-Hathaway, inclusion of Big Tech companies like Alphabet and Amazon, and why attractive valuation isn't enough to get us interested in Madison Square Garden Sports. Plus 12 minutes in, Jason and Matt Frankel review some bold predictions they made last year and share some predictions about mortgage rates, inflation, and stocks in the year ahead. Stocks mentioned: AA, GOOG, GOOGL, AMZN, BAC, BRK.A, BRK.B, CMCSA, DAL, DIS, MSGS, MDT, TSLA, TOL. Holiday Music: 8 Days (of Hanukkah) by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Host - Chris Hill; Guests - Jason Moser, Matt Frankel

What's the downside to using public filings to mirror Berkshire-Hathaway's investments? Jim Gillies discusses the strength of Berkshire-Hathaway's underlying businesses, Warren Buffett's less-than-perfect investing track record, and how investors cannot get the exact same price as the Berkshire-Hathaway investment managers. Plus, 10 minutes in, Dylan Lewis and Ricky Mulvey engage in a bull vs. bear debate over e-commerce platform Etsy. Stocks mentioned: BRK.A, BRK.B, ETSY, EBAY. Holiday Music: Merry, Merry Christmas by Keb’ Mo’. Host - Chris Hill; Guests - Jim Gillies, Dylan Lewis

First we had the great resignation and now we may be seeing a new trend emerge 'unretirement'. Amid the turmoil of the pandemic, Britain's economy threw up the puzzle of a dramatic rise in economic inactivity - as about 565,000 people dropped out of the workforce to a position where they were neither working nor looking for work. These missing workers aren't claiming unemployment benefits but are somehow getting by under their own steam. The phenonomen is great enough that the ONS and Bank of England have looked into it and an inquiry by a House of Lords committee says that early retirement among those aged 50 to 64 may be the main driver of the trend. But there are also tentative signs of some of these people 'unretiring', so what is going on? Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert delve into the issue. Why do people want to take early retirement, why may some now be returning to work — and what would tempt more back to boost productivity and the economy? Plus, the team look at the stock market winners and losers of 2022 — and why the FTSE 100 managed to keep its head while other major markets suffered. Also on the agenda are log burners: can they really be cheaper than your central heating or are they just a feature for the home? And finally, used car prices have continued to defy the usual way of things and rise again this year, is that now coming to an end and what were the models that rose the most in value over 2022?

Liz Truss and Kwazi Kwarteng could have done with the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report 'Where have all the workers gone?' to supplement our commentary on 26th September 'Workforce Capacity is the Missing Link'. It was, however, published a couple of working days before Christmas, and it prompted us to consider again what's happened to the more than half a million people who are not employed and not claiming benefits. So, supported with evidence from the excellent Oldie magazine, we offer a few thoughts on a wide variety of enterprising activity that these older folk could be doing — and we round off this episode with a further suggestion for entrepreneurial activity which the Government might support in due course. Background music: '64 Sundays' by Twin Musicom, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/