"I Would Willingly Give Five Hundred" [REIG]

by Scott Monty March 31, 2011

500. That's a nice round number. Or half-round if you consider the Roman numeral (D).

It also happens to be the number of entries we've posted on this site. This is our 500th posting since we opened for business in August 2005 with this little entry. Over the course of the last five years, we've had busy months as well as times of relative drought (mostly related to work duties that kept us otherwise occupied). Now that we have a system in place for contributors, we're confident that we can keep a steady stream of Sherlockian / Holmesian news on its way for you.

We recently heard from one of our email subscribers that he wasn't aware that he could click in the email. Every time we present a link - whether it's the headline in the email or a hyperlinked bit of text in the entry on the site - it's meant to provide you, dear reader, with more information and context to help bring the article to life. Please feel free to click through.

"My old favourite" [3GAR]
In keeping with the notion of clicking through, we thought we would provide a Baker's [Street] Dozen of our favorite posts from the first 500, in chronological order.

1. "The Second Morning After Christmas" [BLUE] - 29 December 2006: the first installment of our annual Christmas greeting.
2. "It Is a Hobby of Mine to Have an Exact Knowledge of London" [REDH] - 18 May 2006: a great collection of resources for the Sherlock Holmes fan visiting London.
3. "Rejoicing in the Music..." [SOLI] - 1 October 2006: music is a passion of ours, and this entry is a look at three soundtracks for Sherlockian works, including stage, screen and television.
4. "Odd, Watson - Very Odd!" [SOLI] - 14 February 2007: the discovery of Ernie Gilbert's (an animator for The Fairly Odd Parents on Nickelodeon) sketches of Sherlock Holmes and the integration of the finished artwork into this site's branding.
5. "There Is the Long Row..." [VEIL] - 1 April 2007: the date should have given it away, but this April Fools Day "news" item was picked up by a handful of entertainment blogs who didn't think to click on the final embedded link in the article.
6. "I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere" [GREE] - 18 June 2007: the premiere of "the first podcast for Sherlock Holmes devotees, where it's always 1895."
7. "Date, July 7. Hum!" [SIGN] - 7 July 2007: an auspicious day that involved the number 7 and some interesting facts about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fact that we were able to find a Canonical quote with the date in question was even better.
8. "We Nearly Passed Over a Little Ford" [LAST] - 19 June 2008: a more personal one that noted our transition to working for the global company that made one of two automobiles mentioned in the Canon.
9. "Perfectly Fresh" [SPEC] - 31 May 2010: the historic transition of the Baker Street Journal to a new printer with a new format.
10. "More To Me Than the Twitter" [ILLU] - 25 October 2010: the first use of Twitter as part of a collective viewing experience of a Sherlock Holmes item. In this case, PBS Masterpiece Mystery asked us to host a chat on Twitter while the BBC series "Sherlock" aired. It was an unrivaled success.
11. "Where All Gossip Is Welcome" [VALL] - 31 January 2011: the official start of our integration of Peter Blau's "Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press," in which we provide a visual of the newsletter as well as links to the sites mentioned within it.
12. "The Little Village of Meiringen" [FINA] - 27 February 2011: Sherlockian travel comes of age when Michael Meer, BSI ("The Englisher Hof") creates an interactive Google Map with points of interest for Sherlockians visiting the Meiringen/Interlaken area of Switzerland.
13. "The Intelligence of Your Correspondent" [VALL] - 6 March 2011: the announcement that our site would be collectively authored by anyone who presents appropriate credentials. This was supported with the appearance of the About page at the top of the site, as well as New Here? and Resources.

We're sure there are many more, but these are just the first few that came to mind. But what about you? Is there a past entry here that you particularly enjoyed? If you can't think of one off the top of your head, you can always browse through the Archives section ("File It in Our Archives") over in the right column of the site, or click on the Random button in the toolbar the bottom of your screen, or simply click through some of the boxes at the end of each article captioned "You might also like..."

Let us know what you've enjoyed so far or what you'd like to see more of in the future by leaving a comment below. Thank you for being part of this amazing journey with us!

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