Sherlock's Fun Facts and Trivia

[Carol the Dabbler]

If left untreated, have any of these people ever gone on to give birth to puppies?

 

I've heard people say that if they misbehaved, their mother would have kittens. Must be another of those cultural things!

[Van Buren Supernova]

If left untreated, have any of these people ever gone on to give birth to puppies?

There would be finally time when everyone treats their dogs like their own kids then. :p

 

P.S all the men will get abortions, because eventhough the puppies are cute, they believe for men the puppies would be delivered through.. eh.. you know, that thing. XD (I don't want to risk forbidden 404!:p)

 

I've heard people say that if they misbehaved, their mother would have kittens. Must be another of those cultural things!

Isn't it a neat way to ask for cat pet? One stone two birds!

[Carol the Dabbler]

... all the men will get abortions, because eventhough the puppies are cute, they believe for men the puppies would be delivered through.. eh.. you know, that thing. XD (I don't want to risk forbidden 404! :P )

Oh dear, I guess I can understand their concern! (My first thought was how could they possibly believe such a silly thing -- but then it occurred to me that the way babies really *are* born seems just about as improbable.)

[Van Buren Supernova]

I read other psychosomatic cases and some of them are really weird because the sufferers really believe their symptoms and pains.

It's some kind of psychological problems that affect them physically, to put it in simple way.

 

I'm not sure it's psychosomatic, my physics teacher told us that he experienced his wife's birth pains, while his wife was fine. He is someone that I think always genuine and honest. Not sure if it's sympathy pain, because he told us his family has this heirloom (some kind of traditional knife) and some male in his family experience this when they decides they want to do it for their wives. And unlike sympathy pain, he only experienced the birth moment.

 

Maybe in the future there will be more explanations.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I know of a guy who had the weird cravings and morning sickness when his ex-wife (my friend) was pregnant with their 2 girls.

 

Now if something like that happened on the show, I dare say Sherlock would find it intriguing asking all sorts of questions unless he was going through it. Then he would question it while probably being annoyed.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Sherlock Holmes has a secretary. Real one.

For at least forty years.

 

 

Article published in New York Times, 1989. Here is a good chunk of everything relevant.

 

LONDON, Nov. 4— Nikki Caparn is Sherlock Holmes's secretary. Yes, that Sherlock Holmes.

 

Of course, Mr. Holmes has been retired for decades in the English county of Sussex, or so the story goes, and spends his days following the gentler pursuits of beekeeping and reviewing the records of his famous cases. But dozens of letters to the fictitious British detective stream in each week to 221b Baker Street in London, the address made famous in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 60 stories about the detective.

 

Since the 1940's, the address has been the headquarters of the Abbey National Building Society, which initially forwarded the letters to the Conan Doyle family and later to the Holmes Collection at the Marylebone Public Library. But for about 40 years it has assigned an employee to be part-time secretary to Mr. Holmes and reply to his mail.

 

Miss Caparn, a video coordinator in Abbey National's corporate affairs office, has diligently served as Mr. Holmes's assistant for four years, answering letters from children, lawyers, academics, scientists, policemen and others around the world who seek the detective's discretion and awe-inspiring powers of deduction in sorting out a wide range of matters. Never mind that this figment of Sir Arthur's imagination cracked most cases between 1880 and 1914 or that the last story about him was published around 1927, three years before Sir Arthur's death.

 

''Name a country and we've had letters from there,'' said Miss Caparn, 28 years old, who appears to be just the matter-of-fact, businesslike sort to put Mr. Holmes's affairs in order. ''Mr. Holmes has been asked to help with Watergate and Irangate, to solve the murder of Olaf Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister, and find lost homework to prove to the teacher that the student really did it. ''Many people don't ask for anything in particular. They just want to know what Mr. Holmes is doing now or where he is and they hope he is well. And many people know he's not real and write tongue in cheek. But some people haven't worked it out. The stories were written in the late 1800's and early 1900's and Mr. Holmes would be 136 years old now, so it's unlikely that he'd still be living here.''

 

The United States and Japan, which have large societies devoted to the study and celebration of Sherlock Holmes, produce the largest volume of mail. Most letters get a standard reply printed on stationery that bears the detective's profile in silhouette, complete with pipe and deerstalker cap. In the form letter, Miss Caparn thanks people for writing and explains: ''In his own words, Mr. Holmes has given himself up entirely 'to that soothing life of nature for which I had so often yearned during the long years amid the gloom of London.' '' She expresses the retired investigator's delight in receiving mail, although the letters no longer prompt his famous cry of ''The game is afoot!''

 

Letters sometimes call for personal responses. A voter in the United States wrote last year that he was frustrated by what he viewed as ''incompetent'' Presidential candidates, said Miss Caparn, and called on the investigator to ''come and do the job himself.''

 

The secretary wrote back that Mr. Holmes appreciated the offer and the fact that the United States had looked to England for a leader but, alas, he was too old to travel. One man wrote that the only dispute he and his wife had ever had was over whether Sherlock Holmes had actually existed. The writer wanted the argument settled, even if it ended in divorce.

 

''We never say he never existed,'' said Miss Caparn, who takes her job and distinguished employer seriously.

 

...

 

Source:Sherlock Holmes's Mail: Not Too Mysterious

 

However, in 1990, Sherlock Holmes museum opened nearby, between 237 and 241 Baker Street and decided they should be the only one to receive those letters, they even put plague declaring that the museum was the real home of Sherlock.

 

The court ruled in favour of the bank, since they technically own 221B Baker Street and had done admirable job with those correspondence. The museum fought the decision for over a decade until 2002, when the bank moves the headquarter to nearby Triton Square. The exclusive right to use the address of 221B Baker Street was granted to the museum.

 

 

P.S. I wonder if there is any American trying to write to Sherlock regarding the current presidential candidates now. XD

[Arcadia]

I feel like I should make a scathing remark about our current crop of candidates, but I can't think of one that would get past the bad word filter.

[Van Buren Supernova]

 

Don't drink Mrs. Hudson's soup and anyhow send Sherlock letters.

[J.P.]

Maybe that's the source for Billy's name?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Possibly. But most people seem to think that Billy Wiggins is a hybrid of canon Holmes's servant boy Billy and the head of his Baker Street Irregulars, Wiggins.

[J.P.]

I meant Billy the Skull. ;)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, I see. Yes, I believe that the book is the only official source for the skull having any name. I'm not at home today -- is that the Sherlock Chronicles or, umm, the other one? I get the names confused (when I can remember them at all!).

[Van Buren Supernova]

You are asking for the book source of image above? If yes, that is from the Casebook.

[Shadow Dweller]

I feel like I should make a scathing remark about our current crop of candidates, but I can't think of one that would get past the bad word filter.

*snickers* http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/612766/Queen-responds-frustrated-American-begs-Britain-take-back-US

[Arcadia]

Since Brexit, I don't think much of that solution either, Shadow! If I wanted to be adopted by anyone, I think it would be Canada. They still seem to have their sanity.

[Shadow Dweller]

For how long? ;)

[Arcadia]

Until half the Americans emigrate there. :p

[Van Buren Supernova]

Hey hey... I considered to emigrate there before, maybe they still want me in the future. Don't ruin it! XD

[Van Buren Supernova]

Want to say that I haven't forgotten that I promised on my first post to consolidate and compile the fun facts we have collected eventually for easier reading, but I have dropped the idea based on multiple reasons;

First, originally I thought of putting in a lot of bullet points but over time I think it's more interesting to have more write-up and supporting images for each, so it would be hard to consolidate those sometimes superlong items.

Second, the thread itself hardly goes out of topic, and even if it did, it derived from original discussion so the flow is not lost, in fact, I find those entertaining and don't want to filter/separate them.

 

Many thanks for great contributions especially those more fun and sherlock related behind the scene, analysis and comparison that I hardly have any knowledge about. Appreciate them and hope to see more.

 

This thread was basically created based on boredom that we are running out of things to discuss and selfish need to express my nerdiness and obsession through a show I love, I hope it works the same for everyone else. :p

 

Anyway, enough for mush!

I have something nerdy below to torture everyone.

[Van Buren Supernova]

We watched Sherlock danced around happily solving puzzles and talked about a way to court Sherlock by leaving him a trail of puzzles around.

 

I think we may have something very interesting for him in our world to cure his boredom for awhile.

 

 

(In fact, this, had also been mentioned in Elementary, another Sherlock's adaptation, Just a Regular Irregular episode. I don't watch it, so can't really say anything about it except that it is related to math hunt mentioned by a character)

 

Cicada 3301.

 

Cicada 3301 is mysterious and enigmatic puzzle from mysterious group. It was posted as cryptic massage on message board across the internet on 4th January on year 2012, 2013, 2014, skip 2015, and appeared again on 5th January 2016, claiming to seek highly intelligent individuals, challenging people to find secret hidden message.

 

The upper message is very first one from 2012, below is the latest one from 2016.

 

Liber Primus mentioned above in latest 2016 puzzle is a name given to around 60 page book of runes discovered at the end of 2014 cicada 3301 that are still largely undeciphered.

Sample:

 

Here is the interesting story shared by one of the solvers Cicada: Solving the Web's Deepest Mystery

 

The extend of the puzzles consist of cryptography, steganography, encrypted secret codes in image files, find website addresses that lead to more clues, book codes/book cipher (something similar to TBB London A-Z), Mayan numerals, patterns, coordinates of actual locations spread over four continents (includes US, Australia, South Korea, Russia, Japan, France, Mexico, Spain, Poland) where some QR codes are found.

 

 

Marcus who shared his story on the link above revealed that Cicada 3301 claims to be international group with no name, symbol or public website, not hackers and not engaged in illegal activities, no affiliation with any government or military, but a think thank with ideology of liberty, privacy and security.

[Arcadia]

Read the Rolling Stone article; wow. Well beyond me. A bit spooky. Happy to leave it alone. Suspect it's an elaborate "joke."

[Van Buren Supernova]

That's a lot of works for a joke, but it's possible.

I think it could be a group of like minded people who want to do something but not coordinated/lack resources.

 

For spooky, initially I think that also, but then again, the spooky part was when they know about followers not real solver, which could be easy to arrange without being creepy. I mean they could easily send one member to infiltrate the wannable solvers to see their methods, at least they should be around to see progress and it would be easy to conclude that people are sharing information, too much to their liking.

 

The other spooky, yes, about the warning..but then again, if it's a cult or something similar, they are not persistent enough about their way or propaganda to be efficient, so.. I mean it would be lazy cult, and lazy cult makes it hardly threatening, I guess.

 

It's one thing left, the unknown.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Sherlock deduces that Ian Monkford relocated to Columbia based on his observation on Janus's car owner.

 

 

 

From Ariane DeVere:

SHERLOCK: Mr Ewert of Janus Cars had a twenty thousand Colombian peso note in his wallet ...

(Flashback to Ewert opening his wallet and Sherlock seeing the foreign note inside.)

SHERLOCK: ... Quite a bit of change, too.

 

In fact, 20000 Colombian peso merely worth around 6.8 USD or 5.6 GBP.

 

A McDonald meal or equivalent cost around 14000peso and taxi fare starts at 4000 and 4000/km.

So I'd say he is on very tight budget here or he had spent a lot.

 

(Note: Biggest denomination on year 2010 is 50000 peso, current year 100000 peso)

[J.P.]

Reminds me of Poland in the eighties. :/

[Carol the Dabbler]

I assume Sherlock mentioned the 20,000 peso note, not because it was a lot of money but rather because it was Colombian money. Monkford claimed he hadn't been abroad lately, but here he was with some South American money in his wallet.