Welcome to the Posh and Specs Hogmanay Special Edition, where New Year’s Eve becomes New Year’s honesty, Scottish tradition collides with English scepticism, and one innocent wee dram very quickly proves it has opinions of its own.

This is not your polished, goal-setting, vision-board New Year episode. This is the one recorded slightly off-balance, post-Christmas, mid-whisky, and with absolutely no intention of pretending that “New Year, New Me” has ever worked for anyone with a functioning nervous system.

James and Hannah come together for a quick but chaotic special edition, recorded in the strange, liminal days between Christmas and New Year, when everyone is full, tired, reflective, and quietly wondering whether they should be a different person by midnight. Spoiler alert: most people think it’s a lot of rubbish.

From the very start, it’s clear this is not a normal episode. Masks appear for reasons that are never fully justified. Hannah realises far too late that this is a special edition and wonders aloud whether she should be wearing her wedding dress. James, meanwhile, has committed fully, arriving dressed like he’s about to host the Edinburgh Street Party itself and accidentally triggering a tartan identity crisis that spirals into accusations of clan fraud.

What follows is a deeply British, mildly Scottish, and increasingly whisky-influenced conversation about what New Year actually means. Hannah explains why Hogmanay is not just a night but a three-day cultural event, why “the bells” are a thing, and why New Year will always feel inherently Scottish to her. James, representing England, admits he has simply been calling it “midnight” his entire life and is visibly shaken by the revelation.

As the whisky flows, so do the confessions. Christmas dinners are reviewed with forensic seriousness. Potatoes are discussed at length. Honey-roasted pigs in blankets make an appearance. Madeira cake is described with such passion that James blurts out “yum yum yum” mid-sentence, sounding sarcastic but actually just being honest and slightly drunk.

The episode then turns reflective. Both hosts look back on a year that, surprisingly, has been one of the best of their lives. Reality TV secrets, weddings, new homes, career highs, financial relief, and the unexpected launch of this very podcast all get unpacked in real time. There is gratitude, pride, and just enough fear that next year might not live up to the hype.

Naturally, this leads to the great New Year debate: can you really change your life at midnight? Should you even try? James and Hannah take to the streets of London to ask real people what they think about “New Year, New Me”, only to discover that almost everyone has quietly opted out. Gym memberships are mocked, meal prep is exposed as a fantasy, and one poor man named Jason becomes the accidental poster child for setting expectations far too high.

Instead of preaching reinvention, this episode gently dismantles the pressure we put on ourselves every January. It questions why we treat self-improvement like a personality transplant rather than a gradual process. It celebrates small wins, lower bars, and the radical idea that it might be fine to stay exactly who you are, just with slightly better snacks and fewer unrealistic promises.

This Hogmanay Special Edition is messy, funny, warm, culturally revealing, and refreshingly honest. It is what happens when two people sit down after a very full year, pour a whisky, and decide to talk properly about endings, beginnings, and why subscribing to the platinum package of life would be quite nice actually.

If you are tired of resolutions, allergic to hustle culture, curious about Scottish traditions, or simply want to hear two friends gently unravel under the influence of Arran whisky, this one is for you.

Happy Hogmanay. Happy New Year. And no pressure to change a thing.

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