HerlockSholmes

I might be being a bit dense here Carol but...you can m0ve the digits but not change the order? By moving the digits you are surely changing the order? I’m missing something here. Does that make sense to you Carol?

You have

I’ve just seen this Sherlock riddle online: Sherlock breaks into a crime scene. The victim is the owner who is slumped in a chair with a bullet in his head. There’s a gun on the floor and a tape recorder on the table. Sherlock presses the play button and hears the message. ‘ I have committed sins in my life so I offer my soul to the Lord,’ followed by the sound of a gunshot. Sherlock informs the police that it’s murder. How does he know?

Thanks Arcadia. I’ve re-read it and can’t see any other possible answer but these kind of questions often have an unseen twist that I may have missed.

Is this one a trick question? Is it Friday? Which means Today, Tomorrow, Tuesday and Thursday?

I’m not good at this kind of thing but I’ll have a go. John says “er do we?” - if he didn’t want coffee then there would be no need for the answer that he gave because ‘logically’ he’d have known that ‘we’ didnt ‘all’ want coffee. So John wanted coffee. Sherlock says ‘I don’t know.’ - ‘logically’ he’d have deduced that John wanted coffee. If he didn’t want coffee himself he would have just said ‘no, we don’t all want coffee.’ If he did want coffee he still wouldn’t have been able to answer the waiters question properly because he hadn’t heard Mycroft’s answer yet. So Sherlock wanted coffee. Mycroft said ‘no.’ - he would have deduced, by the reasoning above, that both John and Sherlock wanted coffee. So by saying ‘no’ ie that they didn’t ‘all’ want coffee, he’s saying that he didn’t want coffee. So my answer, which is probably completely wrong, is that only John and Sherlock wanted coffee.

Hi, I got the name from a book that I have called ‘The Complete Casebook Of Herlock Sholmes.’ It’s a book of parodies by Charles Hamilton, the creator of Billy Bunter. The name Herlock Sholmes was also, as you probably know, used by Maurice Leblanc. He wanted to pit his character Arsene Lupin against Sherlock Holmes but couldn’t get permission from Doyle so he used the name Herlock Sholmes in two stories. If memory serves I think he also did some stories involving a Homlock Shears too.

Another great book on Doyle/Holmes. The Life And Death Of Sherlock Holmes by Matthias Bostrom. It's a fairly large book at 497 pages but it's well worth it (in my opinion.) It begins with Doyle's life, focusing as you would expect, on his creation and development of the Holmes stories. Then it moves to after Doyle's death in 1930 and the issues of the control of the estate/property rights etc. Finally it moves to representations of Holmes in movies and on radio (from Gillette and Norwood in the silent era, through Brook, Wontner, Rathbone, Wilmer, Cushing, Livanov and Brett with others in between. It finishes with Sherlock/Elementary and the Downey Jnr versions.) There's also some interesting stuff (well, interesting to me anyway

Thanks for that Carol. If he'd have been alive today he'd have been 84 years old!

To be honest Carol, I can't really recall ever watching it. I recall it being on tv here though. I haven't seen the Brett clip. I agree it's good to see actors in unfamiliar roles. Especially when they are younger and not famous. Jude Law in 'Shoscombe Old Place' is a good example.

I admire your commitment Pamela. There can be few biggest fans of Brett (as Holmes) than me but I doubt that I'd have the endurance to sit through an entire episode of The Love Boat

You've all just given me the mental image of Rathbone and Bruce looking after a baby! Can anyone picture Basil Rathbone doing all that 'Coochie-coo' stuff?

I've just thought of a slight 'moan' from me. It's been 20 years since the Brett series. An incredibly hard act to follow. Now with the success of Sherlock I'm wondering if anyone will ever do another Holmes series based on the canon in my lifetime? Mixed feelings about that for me. I want more Sherlock but I'd also like to see another bash at the canon. Who knows?

I haven't gotten my head around a female Dr Who yet but a female Holmes! You'll have ACD spinning in his grave

AA's delivery has a lot to do with it I agree. It just threw John completely. Brilliant stuff. In the originals, apart from in The Sign Of Four where she's the 'victim,' Mary is virtually non-existant except for when she gave us the 'James' mystery. I understand you having slightly mixed feelings about her role though. To paraphrase her: 'I liked her.'

By the way, talking of 'subverting the original stories' you can't get much different to the originals that Watsons reaction to Holmes 'reappearance.' In Sherlock its rage and trauma. In The Empty House its fainting and euphoria! You can't imagine any of the great 'traditional' Watsons like Hardwick, Burke or Morell reacting in that way. Moving Holmes forward to the present day definately worked. What about a suggestion for Moftiss? The did 'The Abominable Bride,' set largely in Victorian times so what about a one-off Sherlock set in the future? Or even a one-off Steampunk version?

I think the Mary character was a simply a twist in the plot. The writers obviously enjoy subverting the original stories (and they do it brilliantly.) If I've read any criticisms of Sherlock the one that I've heard most is one of over-complication. When characters have 2 sides to their character, and if there are a few characters like this, then the available plot twists are almost endless which can possibly, only possibly, lead to over complication. On the whole though I think that Moftiss got it just right (and we can always re-watch an episode if we mis-understood a bit.) I really liked Mary. She genuinely loved John but she had a serious and dangerous edge. I loved the bit where Sherlock was 'resurrected' and John punched him. She really threw John when, in the midst of his anger, she said 'I like him!.'

I don't mind being in a minority (I have to be used to it on here because, as much as I love Sherlock, I prefer the original Doyle Holmes.) I wouldn't have guessed that I'd be in a minority about Mary though. Why is that ?

I certainly agree about the Molly angle. I was just wondering aloud whether they had considered it?

I wonder what the series would have been like if the characters were more 'faithful' to those in the Doyle canon? By that I mean for example if Watson were a less forceful character or if Mrs Hudson 'just brought in the tea.' Or Mycroft only made a very occasional appearance. Or Mary just appeared in person in one story (as an archetypal Victorian demure and helpless woman!) I think that one of the main strengths of Sherlock is the fact that there are so many strong characters who appear regularly. It's not left to Sherlock/Cumberbatch to carry the whole story on his own. I think I've mentioned this on here before but an example of this is a version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles starring former Dr Who Tom Baker. It's pretty good but because Baker is such a big presence as an actor the film suffers when he's not in it and as we know in The Hound Holmes spends a fair portion of it away from the scene. It's a pity that Mary had to die because I think that she was a brilliant character (that's a definate example of where I wish that they didn't follow the Doyle canon and have her dying.) Holmes has had female relationships in non-Doyle stories and movies and I've always wondered if Moftiss have considered taking the Sherlock/Molly thing a step further?

Martin Freeman's Watson differs somewhat from all previous interpretations in the way that he stands up to him. Yes he's constantly amazed by his intelligence but he's not afraid to tell him off if his behaviour is unacceptable in 'normal' society. Other Watson's have been critical but none have been so strident about it. Of course Victorian society was more mannered and Doyle's Holmes was never quite as obnoxious as BC's Holmes can be but Freeman is definately less of a 'silent partner.' At first it jarred with me a little (being a Holmes traditionalist) but I soon grew to like his irreverent attitude toward Sherlock. On the question of whether he could have settled down to a normal life without Sherlock it's hard to tell. In the original Holmes there was never any suggestion of Watson being affected by war in any serious way. Of course these things weren't known about in Victorian times. John obviously had been affected though, hence the therapist. Living with Sherlock even appears to have a therapeutic affect on him. The relationship between Sherlock and John is one of the many triumphs of the series for me. I still can't imagine Nigel Bruce punching Basil Rathbone though. Can you?

Has anyone heard anything about the 'Dracula' thing?

There were still a few there I think Carol but just as I thought to have a look the tour moved on.

Only spent £60 on Holmes/Doyle related stuff which is pretty restrained for me

Back home now and with usable wi-fi! One thing I forgot to mention was that I passed the location at St. Bart's where Sherlock 'jumped.' There is Sherlock-related messages and graffiti everywhere. There were even messages on every dusty window. I took photos but the file sizes are too large to post.