Carol the Dabbler

Thanks, Bev! That doesn't sound like any spoilers to me -- more like just setting the scene.

Thanks for the info, Bev. Could you give us a brief idea of what the show's about?

My stew is based on Mom's beef stew (minus the beef), heavily influenced by Sam's wish-list in "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" (minus the rabbit): "... a few bay leaves, some thyme and sage, ... turnips and carrots, and taters too, ... onions," with contributions from other hobbit lore, namely Bilbo's tomatoes* and of course lots of mushrooms! * His "prize-taker" tomatoes were not entirely Jackson's invention. In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gandalf asks Bilbo for "cold chicken and tomatoes," which was amended to "cold chicken and pickles" in the second edition. A lot of people claim the change was prompted by Tolkien's realization that tomatoes are a New World crop. (The same people claim that Sam's "taters" weren't actually potatoes -- even though he attempts to clarify the term to Gollum as "po-ta-toes".) But others (including me) have pointed out that "An Unexpected Party" explicitly takes place in late April, and since Hobbiton is clearly** located somewhere in the North Temperate Zone, then (unless Bilbo has a hothouse that's never mentioned) there could not be any ripe tomatoes till high summer. ** Tolkien himself stated several times that Middle Earth is our Earth, but about 6,000 years in our past. It's established over the first few chapters of The Hobbit that April comes before summer (so not the Southern Hemisphere), and there is ice and snow in winter (so neither the tropics nor the subtropics).

Oh, good heavens, I totally forgot to make mushroom stew and seed cakes! (Seriously, I sometimes do.)

If these were the BBC Sherlock and John, I would have thought that they were at least a little more familiar with their own kitchen. But I assume it's ACD's Holmes and Watson (who apparently had no kitchen of their own). Sounds delightful!

You're not misremembering. I just checked and the first dwarf had a blue beard and a green hood. Please bear in mind that humans can have hair that's more or less black, brown, yellow, red, gray, or white (to say nothing of little old ladies with blue hair) -- so I suppose members of a different (albeit related) species could have other colors. But yeah, it strikes me as a bit silly too. I'm generally pretty slow to put names together with faces, which is what I was talking about. I could probably list the names all of the dwarves (including Gloin, of course), but as for matching the names with the faces, not so much. I'm trying to remember -- he certainly didn't get nearly as much screen time as Kili! Mostly, I think, he was part of their double act -- e.g., those matching big grins and "At your service!" And I do not remember him ever being grumpy or stern or macho, etc., like most of the others. So I'm left with the overall impression that he was charming. Come to think of it, it's not just little old ladies who are sometimes described as having blue hair -- shiny black hair is sometime described as "blue," apparently because of the reflections. Now I'll read that article. OK, they mostly make similar points to what I did in my prior post. They don't mention shiny black being referred to as "blue," but their portrait of Dwalin kinda looks like such a case.

I had never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, Kili's "Miami Vice beard" strikes me as a blatant ploy to make him "the pretty one." However I've never much cared for the "oops, I forgot to shave" look, so Fili and Kili (movie versions) strike me as about equally "pretty." Plus they're both really charming -- especially in contrast to the other dwarves! In the book, they also wore different-color hoods, though I never did remember which was which. If their beards were different colors too, I forgot that completely! I suspect that Tolkien color-coded them in an effort to make them easier to tell apart, though all I remembered was Thorin (the bossy one) and Bombur (the fat one). In the movie, of course, the dwarves all look different, because they're played by different actors. I still can't remember most of their names -- just Thorin (the bossy one), Bombur (the fat one), and Fili & Kili (the pretty ones) -- I'm always lousy at remembering names. But at least I can tell them apart!

Welcome back, Artie -- we missed you! Judging by your post on another thread, you've been dealing with covid. I hope your autumn will minimally be an improvement over your summer!

Nicely said.

It doesn't. What it does do is help protect you from germs that were on surfaces you touched, which helps keep you from catching something, which hopefully makes one less person who could spread the illness.

Oh, for sure! When we were there, people were apparently coming from all over the world (e.g., Indiana!) to have their picture taken at Sherlock's front door. Understandable. And good luck! (I guess you already know that it's actually North Gower Street?)

That all sounds accurate to me, Herlock. Though I sure hope it doesn't go to Netflix, because Alex and I would have a heck of a time trying to watch it (with our medium-speed internet service), plus Netflix doesn't always make DVDs available, and we'd want "hard copy" to keep, even if we were able to watch it on streaming. Back in the day, the tabloids made them out to have been best buddies, and more recently the tabloids have claimed that there's some sort of bad blood between them, but I've seen absolutely no evidence of either situation. I did see one interview where the reporter blatantly misquoted one of them to the other, who apparently took the misquote at face value and responded a bit testily, but that's surely been cleared up by now, perhaps by a friend to had read both the original quote and the response to the misquote. Freeman has frequently said that he likes a good bit of variety in his work. But he's also said he might be willing to do more Sherlock every now and then. The only hint along those lines that I can think of is the title of the most recent episode, "The Final Problem" -- but of course Moftiss are well aware that ACD was persuaded to come back after using that title! There have been some rather vague comments from Moftiss regarding the possibility of another something (don't recall that they were terribly specific). And yes, one or both actors have said they might do another "special" -- though they appeared to be speaking only for themselves, rather than quoting Moftiss. I kinda hope they don't. I don't think Moftiss or Hartswood or the BBC have much if any experience doing theatrical movies, so they'd presumably need to get a movie studio into the mix, and the studio would probably want to "improve" things. Could you swing by 187 North Gower Street and see if Speedy's is still there and if Chris still owns it? About a year ago he said the business was for sale but they were not closing -- last time I checked there didn't seem to have been any updates. If you can go there in the morning or very early afternoon (i.e., when they're open, not on Sundays), you could grab a bite and maybe ask someone for the latest news.

... whereas if you speak Spanish, "Tía María" simply means "Aunt Mary." (Kinda takes away the mystique!)

Sorry, Bev, I should have said "analogous" -- since my point was that neither the oath nor the coronation is what makes the person a president or a monarch. But I'm still a bit puzzled by your strong objection to the monarchy, perhaps because I'm not all that well versed in what a modern British King can and cannot do. My impression is that (other than his clout within the Royal Family itself) his role is mostly ceremonial -- e.g., waving at people and dubbing the occasional knight -- and the "kingdom" is actually ruled by Parliament, mostly the House of Commons. Which brings up a related issue: What is the current role of the House of Lords, do they still have any power to speak of, and do you object to them as well?

Thanks for posting that, BBally1981. I know very little about any of that, but am amused by the clever name "discotek"!