Hello everyone and welcome to this month’s Happy Puzzle competition! For those of you who are new to this, for 14 weeks over lockdown we had an absolute blast creating weekly puzzles which were being received by well over 50,000 people each week. We had thousands of entries and each week a winner was drawn at random from the correct entries. As the weeks passed by, the puzzles were getting more and more ambitious and in the end, Gavin had to concede that he did not have the time to produce a new one every week. So we decided to make it a monthly thing, with the puzzle coming out at 7pm on the first Tuesday of each month. Here we go then! Here is the 81st PUZZLE and there is a £25 Happy Puzzle voucher up for grabs. Around The World! Below are 36 flags from around the world. 32 of the 36 flags are flags that were once in existence, but are no longer in use, perhaps because the country as it was once known, no longer exists. The remaining four flags are real flags that are still in use today. The first thing you need to work out is which four of the flags are still in use today. That will give you four countries. Next we have 10 anagrams of capital cities. All you need to do here is to unscramble each city and you will be able to work out the 10 countries they fall in. Brace Ran Mail Non Old Is Rap Alt Valet Bonus Easier Ice My Toxic Debit Wrong Raw Was Avail Brats Up next we have six bank notes from 6 countries. You need to work out the six countries. Finally you have ten riddles. Solve each riddle and get the name of a country. 1 - I’m a country where kangaroos hop; my name starts with A. What am I? 2 - My flag is red with a white cross, and I’m known for chocolate. What country am I? 3- I’m a big country in South America with the Amazon River. What am I? 4 - I’m an island nation with sushi and samurai. What’s my name? 5 - I have pyramids and a long river called the Nile. Who am I? 6 - My capital is Paris, and I’m famous for croissants. What country am I? 7 - I’m a country in Africa with lions and zebras. My name starts with K. What am I? 8 - I’m a small country with a dragon on my flag. Who am I? 9 - My flag has stars and stripes, and I’m called the land of the free. What am I? 10 - I’m a country with a Great Wall that’s very long. What’s my name? To win the £25 Happy Puzzle voucher, once you have worked out all the countries above, you need to tell me which of them currently has the lowest population. You can use this link to help you find the populations ... HERE! Please send your answer to me at josh@happypuzzle.co.uk, ensuring that you put JANUARY 2026 PUZZLE in the subject line. The competition closes at 11.59pm on Saturday 31st January 2026. Both the answers and the winner will then be drawn at random and revealed in next month’s puzzle on Tuesday 3rd February 2026! My decision will be final! Now back to December’s competition! We had lots of really good guesses and many correct answers. For those of you who didn't manage to work it out, the correct answer to Santa's favourite game was Chess. The reason... if you had answered every clue correctly, and plotted the locations on a map and drew a line between each location, it would have spelt the word. The winner of this competition and the £25 voucher is Janet Matthews. That’s it! Enjoy the competition. Joshua Miller General Manager Happy Puzzle