The Geek Interpreters

[Carol the Dabbler]

Too bad they didn't do an audio commentary for So3!

 

[Arcadia]

I think it's just supposed to be a bit of fun!

Well, yeah ... :p

 

(sorry, couldn't resist! )

[J.P.]

Why was Mrs Hudson laughing so hard about the wedding telegrams?

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Probably because Sherlock comes across as the most unromantic, unsentimental person and he had to read stuff that was very much opposite of his "known" personality.

[Arcadia]

Actually, I'm laughing right now just thinking about Sherlock having to say "big squishy cuddles from Stella and Ted.” And the way he blinks, like it hurts his eyes to even look at those words..... :D

[sfmpco]

Or the way he says Poppet - slowly popping his Ps.

[J.P.]

So she was laughing at the mere prospect of Sherlock reading that stuff? Okay, I can buy it. So much Schadenfreude. Bad, bad girl, that Mrs Hudson... 

[Arcadia]

That's my interpretation, yeah.

[T.o.b.y]

I have a little problem with the otherwise wonderful episode The Great Game: The Connie Prince murder is pretty brilliant, and clostridium botulinum is indeed of the same family as clostridium tetani, but why was tetanus so readily accepted as a cause of death? In Germany, nearly everybody is vaccinated against tetanus, so if someone actually got it and died from it, that would be a big deal and all over the media. I can hardly believe that vaccination would be less prevalent in a country like the UK. Or is it?

[SherlockedCAMPer]

It's probably a matter of getting a booster.  I know I'm past due on several boosters (been 15 years) and she could have been as well.

[Arcadia]

Yeah, I have no idea if I'm due for a booster or not. I never think about such things. :(

[SherlockedCAMPer]

If it's been more than 10 years, then possibly.

[Arcadia]

No, I mean I have no idea how long ago I had my last booster! Time flies when you're having fun!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

The only reason why I remember is that I had close to 30 shots over several weeks leading up to a 2 month trip overseas that included 3 developing countries.

 

 

(and the off chance that during 5 days at the beginning of the trip, Benedict [or any other British actor that rides the Tube and was in London at the time] could have seen a group of crazy talkative American university students on the Tube [and no I would not have recognized him at all because he was still at LAMDA] )

[T.o.b.y]

It's probably a matter of getting a booster.  I know I'm past due on several boosters (been 15 years) and she could have been as well.

 

Maybe... I would still have expected John "it's okay, I am a doctor" Watson to make some kind of remark about that. I mean, people over here are plenty lazy with their boosters too, yet death caused by tetanus is an absolute rarity, even though the bacteria really are everywhere.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

As I understand it though, the tetanus germs need to get into a deep, narrow wound (such as a puncture).  Otherwise they can't multiply, because they're anaerobic bacteria, meaning that oxygen kills them.  So you can't generally get tetanus from a nasty scrape.

 

Good point about John!  I am frequently disappointed by the way they write him.  As you say, he's fond of pointing out that he's a doctor, but he doesn't always act like one.  (For another example, I would have preferred that he not take the sergeant's word that Bainbridge was dead.)  Surely they could get an actual doctor or nurse to act as technical adviser -- probably even for free!

 

[Boton]

No, I mean I have no idea how long ago I had my last booster! Time flies when you're having fun!

 

The last time I got a booster, my doc asked me how long it had been since the one before.  I totally blanked and blurted out, "I don't know, I have to call my mom."  He just laughed and told me that if a woman my age has to call her mom to find out about her last booster, it had been more than a decade!   :P

[besleybean]

Yeah, must be nearly 20 years since mine!

[T.o.b.y]

Good point about John!  I am frequently disappointed by the way they write him.  As you say, he's fond of pointing out that he's a doctor, but he doesn't always act like one.  (For another example, I would have preferred that he not take the sergeant's word that Bainbridge was dead.)  Surely they could get an actual doctor or nurse to act as technical adviser -- probably even for free!

 

Mhm, I know what you mean. I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, a bit more medical realism wouldn't hurt the show or the character, and it surely couldn't be hard to get good advice on this.

 

On the other hand, Sherlock is not a realistic show and it's not based on realistic stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor, yet medically, a lot of his stories make no sense and he doesn't seem to have cared a fig about that.

 

I think from what I have read about him that Doyle was not enthusiastic about his profession, and he certainly wrote Watson as if he considered it "just a job", and a fairly tiresome one at that. The good doctor didn't think twice about selling his practice when the opportunity arose and going into full-time crime-solving with Mr Holmes and writing about it. Perhaps Doyle secretly wished he could do something similar.

 

So while it is kind of ludicrous that John points out all the time how he's a doctor and seems pretty proud of that, but doesn't really utter many sound medical opinions (no, you can not tell if an injury is merely a sprain or not from feeling a wrist for a second or so and you can not determine the cause of death by checking a pulse and briefly glancing at a dead person's face), it sort of fits his characterization. John's outstanding quality is not and never has been that he's a great doctor, it's that he's a great friend.

 

In the end, it's all fine for me, I guess. Sherlock-world follows its own rules, number one being Sherlock's word is gospel, and if he says John is a good doctor and what he says is true, then so be it.

 

 

P.S.: Guys, get your boosters! Seriously, tetanus bacteria really are everywhere, and the reason people very seldom die from this horrific disease these days is the vaccine. Take advantage of one of the few really great inventions of the last hundred years!

[sittything]

My last tetanus booster included pertussis (whooping cough) too since we're having lovely outbreaks here in the States of old timey diseases thanks to dropping vaccination rates.  Good times.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

My last tetanus booster included pertussis (whooping cough) too since we're having lovely outbreaks here in the States of old timey diseases thanks to dropping vaccination rates.  Good times.

 

 

Good times there.  My son and I were exposed to pertussis about 6 years ago and had to get checked.  He ended up having para-pertussis which is not whooping cough but similar and milder (all the same symptoms but not as severe).

[sittything]

 

My last tetanus booster included pertussis (whooping cough) too since we're having lovely outbreaks here in the States of old timey diseases thanks to dropping vaccination rates.  Good times.

 

 

Good times there.  My son and I were exposed to pertussis about 6 years ago and had to get checked.  He ended up having para-pertussis which is not whooping cough but similar and milder (all the same symptoms but not as severe).

 

 

Glad he didn't get the full thing!  I know a lady who caught it as an adult b/c she hadn't had a pertussis booster in some time, and she said she felt like she was suffocating at times.  These diseases are scary. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think whooping cough is one of the few diseases that I was vaccinated for as a baby, along with smallpox, diphtheria, and tetanus.  We were expected to gain immunity to everything else (mumps, two kinds of measles, chicken pox) by actually having the disease -- which worked well enough as long as you got it during your childhood.  My father caught the measles from me, and had a much tougher time of it than I did.
 

John's outstanding quality is not and never has been that he's a great doctor, it's that he's a great friend.
 
In the end, it's all fine for me, I guess. Sherlock-world follows its own rules, number one being Sherlock's word is gospel, and if he says John is a good doctor and what he says is true, then so be it.

I agree, in the sense that I would not want them to cling to medical accuracy at the expense of the story. However -- if they can work in a little more accuracy without harm to the story, I'm all for it! Plus I'd love to see more John-being-a-doctor moments.

By the way, it isn't just Sherlock who says that John is a good doctor -- John himself says that he is a very good doctor, and I choose to believe him.

 

[besleybean]

Me too.

[Boton]

 

I agree, in the sense that I would not want them to cling to medical accuracy at the expense of the story. However -- if they can work in a little more accuracy without harm to the story, I'm all for it! Plus I'd love to see more John-being-a-doctor moments.

 

By the way, it isn't just Sherlock who says that John is a good doctor -- John himself says that he is a very good doctor, and I choose to believe him.

 

I don't want this to turn into a medical show (even though I loved House), but I would like a few more moments where John's skill as a doctor really moves a case along.  I mean, even in the small "date" that Sherlock had with Molly in TEH, she managed to walk over to that skeleton and, using her skills as a pathologist, start telling the person's age at death and the like.  John did that a little in TGG with the museum employee on the banks of the Thames, but I'd like more.  It seems like, if you're a detective who deals with murder cases, a physician experienced in dealing with trauma deaths could really contribute something substantive to a lot of investigations.