How was '05 for...

... Oliver Double Lecturer in stand-up comedy at Kent University

What did you make of government policy? It's not so much individual bits of policy, it's more the general direction that goes back to the previous Government: students accruing more debt; knowledge served up as bite-sized chunks; and lots of bureaucratic hoops to jump through that involve using phrases such as "sharing excellence".

I'm not crazy about having an Education Secretary who belongs to a bizarre, hair-shirt-wearing Catholic sect, either.

Personal highlight: The publication of my book, Ge tting the Joke: the Inner Workings of Stand-Up Comedy . (Does that count as a shameless plug?) Lowlight: The constant drip-drip of e-mails into my intray.

Biggest impact on working life: E-mail. It can be useful, but it never stops coming in and it's a constant source of stress. Hitting "reply all" when you want to reply to one person should be an imprisonable offence.

Biggest challenge for 2006: Keeping up with my e-mail.