So we haven't made an episode all year, so what? Here's a little Sherlock Holmes story to get you in to the Yuletide spirit; read, as always, on the fly and messily by John and Holly. Plus as a sneaky bonus for those that make it through the story, there's a lil' surprise literary effort from John at the end...

John and Holly bring you a little self-contained ESW episode - a reading of a Poirot short story, mon amis. 

There’s literally so many digressions in this one, good luck keeping track of the story.

We made it! It's the last ep, and I'm not going to give away any spoilers.

Thanks so much for listening, we hope you've enjoyed it. We'll hopefully release some one-off eps over the next few months, but for now that's all from dad and me (and Papa Poirot). 

In this episode, the penultimate episode of the season, we get a fake denouement, and Hastings receives a letter from his crush.

This is easily the loosest episode we’ve ever recorded, but we figure if you’ve come this far, you’re sticking it out until the end. If you're here for the banter as much as the story, there's a cheeky bit of chitter chatter after the end credits. 

In this episode, Hastings realises that by shielding a potential murderer he could get an innocent person convicted of murder, which has little to no effect on his course of action. Poirot and Hastings return to Merlinville, have a cordial chat with the magistrate Hastings, a barbed exchange with Monsieur Giraud, a mild discussion with Gabriel Stonor, and an embarrassingly earnest conversation with Marthe Daubreuil. 

Listening back to this episode, I realised I was at clinical levels of fatigue due to some health issues that I thought at the time were ‘nbd’, so the energy level from me on this one is ‘extra gentle’. John struggles with a rogue fly. 

In this episode, we got a healthy dose of Poirot exposition, and Hastings really stooges it up.

Listening back, it's clear Holly wasn't having a 'good mental health time' but John does a good job holding it all together, what a pro.

In this episode, Hastings gives the deducing game a red hot go before Poirot swoops in for the win.

In other news, when we recorded this episode, it was The Most Important Day of the Year.

Links re ableist language that I may have already posted:

https://pwd.org.au/resources/disability-info/language-guide/ableist-language/

https://access2arts.org.au/10-answers-to-common-questions-people-ask-when-being-called-out-for-using-ableist-language/ 

In this episode, Hastings and Poirot discuss the infamous Beroldy case and its ties to The Murder on the Links, Jack and Marthe are predictably anxious, pale and pretty, and that smug jerk Giraud ‘acts’.

John and Holly get sidetracked a lot in this one so if you don’t like that, have your little 30-second-skipper button at the ready. 

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apaches_(subculture)

http://www.jazzageclub.com/the-apache/728/

https://bit.ly/3kfDVef

Poirot literally flaws us in this episode with both his detecting abilities, and unfathomable reasoning for clearly having figured out the case halfway through book and presumably withholding this information for approximately 12 more chapters.

In other news, we have no other news.

In this episode literally so much stuff happens, you'll have to listen to find out.

Also there's the sneakiest bit of dad+daughter bonus content at the end if you like that sort of thing.

Links:

"The Turk in English Renaissance Literature": https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/article_982jsp/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_(term_for_Muslims)

Brief Etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/turk