I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

Happy 221B Day

<h4 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
"apply 221B" [NAVA] </h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vgm8383/3287091355/in/set-72157604928782321/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-tt76KUPJdkzWQOhyfo80Y2qPdjeaZRpawOeQbwxpyBtgEmxvc883fZkGVIk5uQ-8ON7Xl9vcUdIIl9YiRtMtKkhoRHLk10DqPjsCbtiJPs_dI0wVFmPvD5Q3vs1YkLq2hSxC9vKY8jb/s640/towerbridge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
As you no doubt have noticed today is 2/21 (as in 221B - get it?). As such, we thought it was an apt time to take a look back at a January 2010 entry in  <i>Smithsonian</i>: "<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Sherlock-Holmes-London.html">Sherlock Holmes' London</a>."<br />
<br />
The piece opens with a description of a 30 year-old Arthur Conan Doyle heading into London from his Southsea home to attend a dinner with the publisher of <i>Lippincott's</i> with none other than Oscar Wilde in attendance. The dinner was auspicious in that it resulted in two commissions: Wilde's <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-Gray-Three-Stories/dp/1936594625?ie=UTF8&tag=thebakerstree-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Picture of Dorian Gray</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thebakerstree-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1936594625" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i></b> and Conan Doyle's <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sign-Four-Sherlock-Holmes-Mystery/dp/1451562462?ie=UTF8&tag=thebakerstree-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Sign of Four</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thebakerstree-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1451562462" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></i></b>. But for the purpose of the article, it was even more significant that it took place at the Langham Hotel, which itself turned up in no fewer than three Sherlock Holmes stories (Quick! Which three? Comments below, please.).<br />
<br />
The article covers a bit about Conan Doyle's life and the ongoing life that has sprung from his most famous creation, but then also covers another character in his stories - one that plays a constant supporting, if transparent, role: the city itself. Conan Doyle's mastery of the language in order to effectively set the scene is readily observed in this passage from The Sign of Four - that novel born from the very dinner at the Langham:<br />
<blockquote>
It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light, which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light - sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more.</blockquote>
And while those ghostly gas-lamps no longer fail at 20 feet, the piece takes us through London past and present, through the Holmes stories and Conan Doyle's life. Naturally, there's a stop at 221B. And even helpful commentary from longtime reader and <a href="http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/">Sherlock Holmes Society of London</a> member Roger Johnson. We highly recommend you <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Sherlock-Holmes-London.html">check out the article</a> - especially if you're planning a pilgrimage to London and wish to visit some of the highlights.<br />
<br />
Accompanying <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sherlock-holmes-london-10998186/">the article</a> is a quick video called "The Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes," with a look at Holmes of the stage and screen over the years, from Gillette to Norwood, Wontner to Owen, Rathbone to Neville, and Moore, Neville, Plummer, Rowe and Caine and even including Wilder.<br />
<br />
<center>
<script height="338px" src="http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=MGQxZGQ1N2VlMDRjNGJmNmFmN2QwY2U2&ec=F4cmUzMTrG3GTelEy1pikv2_5l6l-bl-" width="600px"></script></center>
<br />
<br />
Whew! We're glad they didn't stoop quite so low as <a href="http://www.shadowlocked.com/201102141482/lists/a-study-in-error-the-ten-worst-sherlock-holmes.html">the comprehensiveness of this list</a><a href="http://www.shadowlocked.com/201102141482/lists/a-study-in-error-the-ten-worst-sherlock-holmes.html">, titled "A Study in Errors</a>."<br />
<br />
Do you have a favorite site or a favorite Holmes? Please feel free to share it with us as a comment. And while we have you here, what better way to celebrate this important date than to get yourself your very own 221B oval sticker? For your car, your laptop, your refrigerator - or anywhere you like.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Bj1EEsApKPhxsQflSP22wz05kxcYDuhTaEFuCahd3qqZaoZzltWe7Rytjt2T0yigKdWKqsSJQFxMYDhuG1MW1kc3p084krfvgzT9oIqV0bKLM6luUqPmTw0wUmDTHWveqabkFP2vYNzy/s1600/221B+Sticker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1600" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Bj1EEsApKPhxsQflSP22wz05kxcYDuhTaEFuCahd3qqZaoZzltWe7Rytjt2T0yigKdWKqsSJQFxMYDhuG1MW1kc3p084krfvgzT9oIqV0bKLM6luUqPmTw0wUmDTHWveqabkFP2vYNzy/s400/221B+Sticker.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<center>
<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></center>
<br />
<i>Tower Bridge image credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vgm8383/3287091355/in/set-72157604928782321/">vgm8383 (Flickr)</a></i><br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />

Happy 221B Day

"apply 221B" [NAVA] As you no doubt have noticed today is 2/21 (as in 221B - get it?). As such, we thought it was an apt tim...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Sherlock Holmes

<h4>
"this insignificant-looking man inspired me" [GREE]</h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfqk09NFgB1qejn8mo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfqk09NFgB1qejn8mo1_500.jpg" width="414" /></a></div>
<br />
[<i>Editor's note: we're pleased to welcome another contributor to our site. "Athenae" shares her own insights and opinions on Sherlock Holmes at <a href="http://findingsherlock.tumblr.com/">Finding Sherlock</a>. If you would like a chance to be considered as a contributor, please see our <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/p/aboutcontribute.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Who We Are</a> page above.</i>]<br />
<br />
Sherlock Holmes is a myth, a demi-god; a fictitious, heartless, blindly  intelligent, insightful and confident Übermensch. Everything we want and need to be  in a rapidly changing technologically-driven world. He could never be real.<br />
<br />
Or  could he?<br />
<br />
When Conan Doyle was attending the University of  Edinburgh as a medical student he attended a class with Dr. Joseph Bell.  According to Doyle’s 1892 Interview with <i>The Bookman</i>:<br />
<blockquote>
[Bell]  would sit in the patients’ waiting-room with a face like a Red Indian  and diagnose the people as they came in, before even they had opened  their mouths. He would tell them their symptoms, he would give them  details of their lives and he would hardly ever make a mistake…His great  faculty of deduction was at times highly dramatic. ‘Ah!’ he would say  to another man, ‘you are a soldier, a non-commissioned officer, and you  have served in Bermuda. Now how did I know that, gentlemen? He came into  the room without taking his hat off, as he would go into an orderly  room. He was a soldier. A slight authoritative air, combined with his  age, shows that we was an N.C.O. A slight rash on the forehead tells me  he was in Bermuda, and subject to a certain rash known only there.’ So  I got the idea for Sherlock Holmes.</blockquote>
<br />
Bell was well known for more than just being the original Sherlock Holmes.  He was also considered to be an expert witness, who often took the stand at some of the more sensational murder trials during the latter half of the century.<br />
<br />
<i>For more information on the Bookman and the origins of Holmes, see our recommended reading below. - Ed.</i><br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEd8HsRZo44vv7B0yeDXiF4utXJyTp614fnFT6Zqq-Y_xA7WUPBSCXJFAg83l7255717N4Lr_uyGu19TSPd-zfzqCnUmT-cpMar70y_18qwoW4uVOsZKLMpr67XWuZS10_UED6LDkNw0dJ/s1600/bookman350.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEd8HsRZo44vv7B0yeDXiF4utXJyTp614fnFT6Zqq-Y_xA7WUPBSCXJFAg83l7255717N4Lr_uyGu19TSPd-zfzqCnUmT-cpMar70y_18qwoW4uVOsZKLMpr67XWuZS10_UED6LDkNw0dJ/s1600/bookman350.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Available from<br />
<a href="http://wessexpress.com/html/bookman.html">Wessex Press</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>

The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Sherlock Holmes

"this insignificant-looking man inspired me" [GREE] [ Editor's note: we're pleased to welcome another contributor to ...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

"Really, Watson, You Excel Yourself" [HOUN]

<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.someecards.com/flirting-cards/ibm-computer-watson-jeopardy-ken-jennings-brad-rutter-funny-ecard"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFV-2uUN9gFHioic69GrIuwyJXungACT3JEMcvrOztkDGs0tc5r6f66oAjoW5QNMrrX7UtC6wyNUM9SqxE_Yzx-7wqERHvzavu5ucxbGTM1tK7PvhTD4YIBbZeskYP3czBD3a_0_vxBuZO/s320/Watson.png" width="320" /></a></div>Earlier this week, an IBM computer named Watson <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy-watson.html">beat two humans in a showdown on Jeopardy!</a> amid a wave of publicity.<br /><br />This was a huge step in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and the ability for a computer to understand conversational language. The bonus is that it shared the same name as Sherlock Holmes's Boswell. In reality, it was named for T.J. Watson, the founder of of IBM, but it had more of the quality of Holmes, of whom Stamford said in <i>A Study in Scarlet</i>: "You seem to be a walking calendar of crime."<br /><br />The future of this technology, appropriately enough, seems to lie partly in the field of medicine, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17jeopardy-watson.html">IBM said</a> it will "collaborate with Columbia University and the University of Maryland to create a physician’s assistant service that will allow doctors to query a cybernetic assistant."<br /><br />We wonder how Watson would have fared at the Battle of Maiwand, had his orderly Murray been an electronic assistant...<br /><br /><i>Please consider visiting our sponsors (in the right column and footer of the site) from time to time. It helps defray the costs associated with running this site.</i> <br />--

"Really, Watson, You Excel Yourself" [HOUN]

Earlier this week, an IBM computer named Watson beat two humans in a showdown on Jeopardy! amid a wave of publicity. This was a huge step i...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

New From Frogwares — The Testament of Sherlock Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"with my hands on the Testament" [IDEN]</h4>
For those interested in the intersection of the worlds of <a href="http://www.bakerstreetblog.com/search/label/games">gaming and Sherlock Holmes</a>, the latest news is bound to be welcome.<br />
<br />
Frogwares Game Development Studio just announced the release of a new game for <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-3-160-GB/dp/B003VUO6H4?ie=UTF8&tag=thebakerstree-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Playstation</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thebakerstree-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B003VUO6H4" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b> and <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-250GB-Console-Kinect/dp/B003O6JLZ2?ie=UTF8&tag=thebakerstree-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">XBox</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thebakerstree-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B003O6JLZ2" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b>: <b><i>The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Testament of Sherlock</i></b>, to be released in the fall of 2011. The announcement on the <a href="http://www.frogwares.com/">Frogwares site outlines the plot</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
A mainstay genre of computer games, this new Holmes game is playable with a gamepad in a third person view, with revamped controls that suit the console. <i>The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> will immerse gamers in 1898 London as they conduct an incredible investigation. All the evidence suggests our hero is the main suspect in a case involving theft, fraud and double-crossings. Unable to prove his own innocence, Holmes is rapidly losing London's trust as doubt spreads through the city like wildfire. Even Doctor Watson's faith in his friend begins to waver, as the famous detective flees Scotland Yard and raises further suspicion; prowling around at night, destruction of evidence... would Holmes go so far as to commit murder?</blockquote>
Sounds intriguing to us! Below are some early screenshots of the game.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ9Z1i67VHgs7XdOoVGsYyUhOEPDvDaD0MWux9fqBzCtn3MBtDq2FotOeLH2xCVBfPPxyiFHH25uqxBuilOfx2_JeokbDhVlsM85L9zL9vhX3wou0phS8_238clNPNNj91Jes2RmCyaSTm/s1600/171459_10150093118256247_180258201246_6453798_5909248_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ9Z1i67VHgs7XdOoVGsYyUhOEPDvDaD0MWux9fqBzCtn3MBtDq2FotOeLH2xCVBfPPxyiFHH25uqxBuilOfx2_JeokbDhVlsM85L9zL9vhX3wou0phS8_238clNPNNj91Jes2RmCyaSTm/s200/171459_10150093118256247_180258201246_6453798_5909248_o.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVh0nAc5MgVrnDNBZxy4wgTeIQzWoQ22p0a7mvWvngALjoVCULEAFYu-0hmyNvKM3uGRmTSKuoFQRzUryAl0a7EORXWgSP08dSQizQ5kPkjG4ndGM3eiGIv2DiUxgksJRhEzSjem1OGjWO/s1600/175147_10150093118171247_180258201246_6453797_5417759_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVh0nAc5MgVrnDNBZxy4wgTeIQzWoQ22p0a7mvWvngALjoVCULEAFYu-0hmyNvKM3uGRmTSKuoFQRzUryAl0a7EORXWgSP08dSQizQ5kPkjG4ndGM3eiGIv2DiUxgksJRhEzSjem1OGjWO/s200/175147_10150093118171247_180258201246_6453797_5417759_o.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBd75rbnAE5Tv_5YExfl0f5OSsnqP_6Ay_xXEKVbyVTGDlVzpxTUZlFdkKrAiz9A9A6Cm6UOa2dKXh8DjOYbNl9_e_CvassWsBwoQdmk80K-RSQRLdPTp_hyGB8u4ruN0Bc1_0KQQQjKX/s1600/185635_10150093118106247_180258201246_6453796_1098293_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBd75rbnAE5Tv_5YExfl0f5OSsnqP_6Ay_xXEKVbyVTGDlVzpxTUZlFdkKrAiz9A9A6Cm6UOa2dKXh8DjOYbNl9_e_CvassWsBwoQdmk80K-RSQRLdPTp_hyGB8u4ruN0Bc1_0KQQQjKX/s200/185635_10150093118106247_180258201246_6453796_1098293_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
We'll be interested to see how the game turns out when it's finally released to the public. Are you a Sherlockian who also happens to be a gamer? Let us know if you'd be interested in becoming a game reviewer for our site by <a href="http://www.bakerstreetblog.com/p/about-me.html">filling out the form on the About page</a>.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
--