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It's safe to say 2021 has been an eventful one for the economy and personal finance – and This Is Money has covered it all. Georgie Frost takes a look back at some of the best bits of the show starring Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce, Tanya Jefferies and Helen Crane. We talk about investing mistakes and what you can learn from them. How much a lifetime will cost? And what is behind the inflation surge that emerged in the last few months of the year? There is a bit about house prices – naturally – and we chat over our £1bn underpaid state pension victory. And we have a Dragon in the house. Simon catches up with new Dragons' Den star Steven Bartlett, who has a hugely successful podcast of his own. He talks through his views on the traditional route to success and why it is outdated. Happy New Year!

James Cameron-Wilson looks back at the cinema year, giving us his top ten of 2021, with Tick Tick Boom! taking top spot. He sums up the current thinking on those films that could win the top awards, with a surprising contender a favourite for Best Film Oscar. He also looks ahead to 2022, giving us a run-down of the big blockbuster films heading to cinema screens in the new year.

Steve Caplin, Share Radio's technology editor, looks back over some of the best and weirdest tech from 2021. Listen again to tales of a Tesla hearse, pigs playing computer games, the first-ever Tweet selling for $2.5m, transparent wood, fluorescent potatoes, the Tesla bot (or not), cosmic concrete, latrine-trained cows, Dog TV, a face mask using Ostrich extract to detect Covid and a ribald Polish-singing cactus.

Jonathan Davis, editor of the Investment Trusts Handbook, tells Simon Rose what makes investment trusts special and why investors should consider their merits. He explains the differences to other types of funds, including the premium and discount. He discusses the yields on alternative assets (including renewable energy and even music royalties) and how trusts can continue paying dividends even in bad years. The handbook, from Harriman House, is available in hardbook or free as an ebook (https://tinyurl.com/mt69fc24).

At the end of 2021, we feature some of the topics covered during the year by Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University. In conversation with Simon Rose, Tim discussed the tensions in eastern Europe and why Germany is so beholden to Putin's Russia, the death of the Californian Dream, Ed Balls' examination of the crisis in the UK care system, science's Replication Crisis and why Lord Frank Field was ahead of his time in his ideas on unemployment benefit.

It’s the last episode of Answers (but don’t worry, we’re just moving to Motley Fool Money every Tuesday). We’ll reminisce on our biggest lessons learned over the last seven years and answer your questions, some financial, some festive.

Join Georgie Frost, Simon Lambert and Lee Boyce to help you cope with the trials and tribulations of a Christmas where little is certain. What happens to your money if your show bookings are cancelled? Plus, they discuss fine wines and what kind of Christmas spread your pension pot might buy. Also - is there a role for wealth taxes?

This hymn has a special resonance at the time of Christmas: this instrumental version is performed by musicians from the band Iona

James Cameron-Wilson looks at the latest state of UK cinema where Spider-Man: No Way Home is shattering box office records, with a US take of $253m. It's Tom Holland's 6th outing as the webslinger. He was engaged rather than stirred but loved The Electrical Life of Louis Wain w. Benedict Cumberbatch, out on New Year's Day. He found Swan Song, a futuristic domestic drama wonderful and very intelligent.

Share Radio's tech whizz Steve Caplin looks at the virtual property boom where an online plot of land sold for $2.4m, at non-fungible token trainers, eye drops to improve vision, biodegradable single-use batteries, a space factory, facial recognition software in the Co-op, reviving wooly mammoths by gene-editing Asian elephants and a rather unlikely Which? Product of the Year.