Episode 72: The Sherlockian Tannenbaum

"the compliments of the season" [BLUE]

As you know, December 27 marks "the second day after Christmas," the day on which Dr. Watson called up on Mr. Sherlock Holmes to wish him "the compliments of the season"in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."

We've long celebrated that particular story on this date with a poem of our own - even opting for reading it on an unnumbered special episode in 2007. But rather than simply rehash the tried and true, we thought we'd mix things up a bit this year and bring in a guest.

Peter Blau, 2s., BSI ("Black Peter") has been with us previously (on Episode 6 and Episode 7), so we'll spare the full introduction. We asked Peter on as our very special guest in order to tell the story behind his very unusual Sherlockian decoration: a Sherlock Holmes-themed set of ornaments - each inspired by one of the original 60 stories. He regales us with the challenges involved in trying to identify these ornaments without a copy of the Canon handy.

Each year at his tree-trimming party, Peter challenges newcomers to identify each and every ornament - and we can attest that many are head scratchers. Here we have images of a handful of the ornaments, as well as the tree:

If you'd like to see additional ornaments, you'll find them on the the IHOSE apps for Android, iOS, or Windows.

Peter also tells us about his paper written some 40 years ago in which he describes the true story behind how a cropless animal such as a goose could have a carbuncle hidden in its crop.TL;DR: it comes down to a typo - an 'o' substituted for an 'a.'

We close this episode with an audio Gas-Lamp: inspiration taken from our interview with Bert Coules (Episode 68 and Episode 69): a clip from the BBC Radio version of "The Blue Carbuncle" that hits at the core of the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

Links:

• BSI Trust
• Letter from Christopher Morley to Edgar W. Smith, Christmas 1949 with the poem "Te Deum Laudanum."

Many more links are available in our Flipboard magazine and Scoop.it page, as well as on the The Sherlock Holmes Community on Google+ (with over 2,100 members), as well as through our accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. And of course, are nice collections of links, articles and images.

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