This week: two referendums and some dodgy criminal reforms. We're talking about Swiss voters' decision to treat themselves to bigger pensions, and Slovakia's battle to stop cronyism under populist prime minister Robert Fico. And ahead of Ireland's vote on International Women's Day, the historian Caitríona Beaumont joins us to ask: why, according to the Irish constitution, is a woman's place still in the home?

In the winter of 2020, deep into the misery of the global pandemic, Richy Craven lit up the internet with a tale about working at Christmas in a fancy department store in Dublin. His story went viral and we loved it so much that we asked our friend, the writer and podcaster Darach Ó Séaghdha, to read it for us. Producer Katz Laszlo added some audio magic, and a classic episode of The Europeans was born. As a little early Christmas present, here it is again.