Is it?

Is this how Sherlock faked his death? The Jonathan Creek trick Holmes could have copied involving a fake trap door 

This is a mystery every bit as fiendish as any of those solved by the great detective himself, and it is baffling the ten million armchair sleuths who watch TV’s Sherlock.

How did the world’s most famous private investigator fake his own death at the end of the last series? 

Now it seems that the case might have been solved by a rival master of deduction with a knack for explaining the seemingly impossible — fellow fictional sleuth Jonathan Creek.

In the final episode of last year’s series of Sherlock, the world’s most famous detective had been lured to the roof of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London by his arch-nemesis, the deranged Professor Moriarty. 

Sherlock

There he was told that several of his close friends would be assassinated if he failed to commit suicide. 

After issuing this warning, Moriarty shot himself in the mouth and appeared to die. 

Holmes then had a brief mobile phone conversation with Watson, before stepping off the building. 

Viewers saw Holmes fall several storeys, before lying in a bloodied heap on the pavement, with bloodtrickling from his head.

As Watson rushed to the scene, he was knocked over by a bicycle. By the time he arrived, the bloodied Holmes, who seemed to have no pulse, was being whisked away by paramedics.

Yet just a few scenes later, as Watson visits the grave of his best friend, viewers see that Holmes is in fact alive and well. So how did he do it? 

The question sparked months of frenzied speculation, across Twitter, Facebook, and the endless websites devoted to both the BBC show and author Arthur Conan Doyle’s original novels and short stories.

The show’s creators have been tight-lipped as to how the death was faked, saying only that all will be revealed in the show’s third series, which airs later this year.

But this week, as Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the show’s protagonist, was seen filming the opening episode of the next series in Bristol, an intriguing new theory emerged. 

Actor Alan Davies, star of TV drama Jonathan Creek, in which a magician detective solves outlandish mysteries, claimed to have discovered that the makers of Sherlock had borrowed a plot twist from a ‘similar’ episode of his own show, aired more than a decade ago, ‘when someone jumped off the roof of a party’.

Does his explanation stack up? Or are others more credible?

Or did he he use...

The Jonathan Creek theory
In a 1998 episode of Jonathan Creek, The Problem At Gallows Gate, a man faked his own death by leaping from a second-floor balcony onto a grass-covered trapdoor, with a secret crash net hidden beneath.

He was helped by an accomplice, who removed the trapdoor before he jumped, and then quickly replaced it.

Onlookers, who saw the man jump and then glimpsed his body lying prone on the ground, had no idea that he was actually unharmed.

Alan Davies reckons the creators of Sherlock used a similar dramatic device, noting that — during the detective’s notorious rooftop fall — viewers never actually saw the impact. ‘Nobody saw him land,’ he said. 

‘There was a gap of seven or eight seconds, which is when they did the clever bit.’ Closer examination of the scene gives at least some clues as to what this alleged “clever bit” may have been.

A camera shot, taken from above, shortly after the fall, appears to show a large white rectangle on the surface of the pavement.

If Davies is correct, this would have been some sort of removable panel, covering a safety net, which was manned by an assistant. ‘He [Holmes] needed at least two accomplices: one up top, one below,’ the actor said.

‘Leaping off a second-floor balcony’s no big deal if there’s something to catch you at the bottom, if you’ve dug yourself a big hole with a tightly sprung net inside [and] rigged up a camouflage frame — which slides across.’

All very clever. But would Holmes have been able to build a similar trapdoor in the pavement of a busy London street? 

And would Sherlock’s creators lower themselves to stealing a decade-old plot twist? 

Not everyone is convinced and the rival theories all have their supporters.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE.

On Sherlock

Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His book The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world has just been published in paperback.

Sherlock Holmes, 

Holmes and Watson as drawn by Sidney Paget

Filming of the third series of the BBC’s Sherlock begins on Monday, and it’s been confirmed that there will be a fourth. This news will either delight or horrify Sherlock Holmes obsessives, one of whom, it was reported on Thursday, has been caught cyber-stalking the actor playing the detective, Benedict Cumberbatch.

I say delight or horrify because Sherlockians, as they’re known, never agree on anything. I’ve been immersed in the Conan Doyle stories since I was 10 years old, and my bookshelves groan with volumes in which experts pore over “the canon” like biblical scholars dissecting Holy Writ.

A Sherlock Holmes Commentary by D Martin Dakin devotes a chapter to analysing every story. The Beryl Coronet, for example, is the tale of a young man wrongly accused of shameful theft. Dakin begins by asking: when precisely did this happen? Hang on, you might say, it’s fiction – but that would be to break the rules of the intricate Sherlockian game, in which Holmes and Watson are real people and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle merely Watson’s “literary agent”.

“I think Dr Zeisler has made a cast-iron case for Friday 23 February 1886,” says Dakin. “The client left the coronet with Holder the banker for four days and said he would reclaim it on Monday: therefore he called on Holder on a Thursday and Holder visited Holmes on Friday.”

Further evidence includes “a combination of meteorological records from Whitaker, including snow in London, sunshine in the morning and moonlight at 2am”. A rival date of 1883 put forward by another scholar is dismissed on the grounds that there was no snow in London in February 1883 “and snow plays too essential a part in the story to be discarded”.

Dakins’s nitpicking is witty and he has a sharp eye. Holmes “had remarkably bad luck with colonels”, he observes: Col Sebastian Moran, a deadly assassin; Col Moriarty, who tried to protect his evil brother; Col Walter, who stole the Bruce-Partington Plans; Col Upcott “of atrocious conduct”; Col Ross, “who was unpardonably rude to Holmes”, etc.

The origins of this odd game are intriguing. The Catholic scholar Mgr Ronald Knox invented Sherlockian “higher criticism” in order to tease liberal biblical scholars who used inconsistencies in the Gospels to dismiss Christian teaching. Knox wrote a mock-scholarly article exposing the hundreds of baffling inconsistencies in Conan Doyle’s stories. The game was then taken up by Dorothy L Sayers, who clashed with Knox over the identity of the unnamed university attended by Holmes.

“Oxford!” said Knox, pointing to clues in The Musgrave Ritual indicating Christ Church. “Cambridge!” said Sayers. In The “Gloria Scott” we learn that as a second-year undergraduate, Holmes was bitten by a bull terrier as he went down to chapel, and only in Cambridge was a second-year student likely to be living in college. A century on, the debate continues.

The Sherlockian movement, also big in America, verges on a cult – one to which I once felt myself drawn. Years ago I joined The Sherlock Holmes Society, but never attended their meetings because I was afraid I might get sucked in.

Also, Sherlockians hold events at which they dress up as characters from the canon – the fat blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton, or the fusspot housekeeper Mrs Hudson. There I draw the line (at least in public). But what a glorious example of Anglo-Saxon eccentricity – as puzzling, in its way, as any of the mysteries solved by the Great Detective.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE.

Because I've missed a lot of Friday's and you deserve it. . .

Comfort food images. . . .or. . . the currency of the mind.

No, this is not going to be a culinary review of lessor known recipes of Mrs. Hudson's.
Instead it is going to be an essay (short I hope) of an image I have formed about certain habits associated with my readings involving the UK and Irish themes. I think this association can also be suggested in UK and Irish themed television.
What brought this on you ask?
Well,. . . I am currently reading a modern Irish murder mystery and this 'comfort food' image keeps pooping up. Which is perfectly fine with me because it is one I enjoy.
Now it probably must be said that my 'comfort food' images and yours may not be the same, and probably aren't.
How does this relate to the Canon of Sherlock Holmes?
I know that my reading of the Canon as always been more about the images within the stories that Watson verbally illustrates, and not with the mysteries themselves. I care more about the location of Baskerville Hall and how it looks around it than I do with the dastardly deeds of Stapleton.
And I would suggest that it is the written ambiance that I find most appealing with most writers I follow.
This is probably the case with most readers following favorite authors, while some may choose subject matter or topic.
I would also suggest that the 'comfort food' images we find appealing at one time in our reading career may change or shift from time to time, often coming back to an earlier set of images as our tastes change. I find myself shifting settings depending on my mood at certain times in my life.
Most of the time these images are going to be fairly accurate, but sadly to say, they can sometimes be erroneous. I have admitted to that mistake once in my image of Watson's birthplace. But that's for another time.

This book I am reading now takes place in the tiny village of Leap, Ireland. If you are a movie buff, Leap is in the wonderful  movie, no pun intended, 'Leap Year'.
Very small, it is said, with a population of just a few hundred people.
So far, one of the main settings is an old Irish pub (you had me at pub) that the lead character ends up working at and around which much of the narrative takes place. Sort of this stories 221b if you will.
Well, at this time the mystery and the story are unimportant because I haven't finished it yet.
But one image keeps popping up and seems to be a reoccurring image in many UK/Irish books and shows. And one I love.
And that image is of people walking up to pub counters (or store counters) and paying for things with coins and not paper money. Nice coins, coins with character. Heavy, substantial.
Occasionally you will see paper money, but not very often
You don't see or hear of wallets coming out very often when reading or watching. Most of the time the man reaches into his pocket and  plops coins down. Women usually reach into the bottom of a handbag or coin purse.
Paper money seems to be reserved for exchanges planned well ahead of time requiring more funds than a pocket could support. (Now a days, that would be a tank of petrol)
Now, historically this would have to do with the fact that most coins were made of metal for durability and longevity. Many times made from a metal that could be traded across cultures.
Paper money was expensive to produce, easily damaged and could not be melted down and re-stamped. (and it doesn't sound as nice when you smack it down on the bar top).(and when did you ever see pirates raid a ship with paper money?)

Americans, at least in my life time, have never had a love of using coins in daily transactions.
The key word there is 'using'. We love to collect them, in a jar or something, planning on going through them looking for rare ones, but usually ending up  redeeming them into our bank accounts or for larger bills. But actually having them in our pockets and counting out change, I think we find that cumbersome.
As a kid, coins were fine. We collect soda bottles to get coins. We could still buy things with coins; candy, soda, an ice cream. You could easily carry enough coins in your pocket to acquire just about any thing a kid could need on any given  day.
But over here, once things started going up in price, coffee, papers, phone calls, we started caring less and less about using them. We would never, in America, consider carrying around twelve dollars worth of coins in our pockets. That would be about eight pounds UK at the time of this writing. Easily done with UK currencies.
Over here coins are usually thrown into a dish when we get home, retrieving the next day only enough to maybe buy a soda. We don't even use them in phone booths any more. Most of the time, especially pennies, they may not see the light of day again for several years.
Dimes are a nuisance. To small for their value, to close in size to the penny.
And most people don't want coin change much any more anyway. We are even talking about doing away with the penny over here. Most kids working at service counters can't even count out the right change for you without relying on the register. Advertiser will hate not being able to make something a certain dollar amount and an odd number of cents, but they will move on. (Why is it we will pay $15.98, but will shop around if it's $16.00?)

The dollar doesn't get you enough to want to carry many dollar coins around in your pocket, at least without the aid of suspenders. We even, over here, tried the make the dollar smaller to make it more appealing, but poor old Susan B. didn't fare very well.
Yea, you can find westerns and depression era books and movies that still show the use of coins (five cent beers, dinner for fifty cents, a glass of whiskey), but even those eventually found the use of paper money better suited. Remember in 'Butch Cassidy' the paper money flying all over the place after the train robbery.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong books or watching the wrong shows, but it doesn't seem that the use of coins in visuals has been around in America since the depression, except with the occasional newspaper buying scene.

You read a book, or watch a show set in the UK or Ireland and I believe you will still see coins coming out of pockets more often than wallets. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's just what I want to see, but I love it.
And over there the coins always have better names; quids, coppers, half-penny or hap'ney, two pence or tuppence ("with tuppence for paper and string, you can have your own set of wings. . ."), three penny bit. You actually want to use these coins in story telling!

On our last visit to the UK I would feel guilty if I couldn't come up with the right coins fairly quickly.
Something I wanted to master.

We all have favorite images that we carry around in our heads. Images we almost require to make a setting appeal to us. (Holmes can not open a can of Bud at the Alpha Inn!)
And for me Watson will always pay the hansom driver with coins. Holmes will always use coins at the Alpha Inn. Foyle will buy his whiskey with coins. Herriot uses them at the Drovers. And Barnaby. . . well, Barnaby may be a paper man, I just haven't decided yet.

It's just what I find appealing. I still have a big collection of English coins and I love them. I keep them in a Lyle's Golden Syrup can.

What are some of your favorite image requirements?

In Jude Laws words. . .

JUDE LAW TALKS SHERLOCK HOLMES 3 AND 4

Posted by RCNTV on Thursday, February 28, 2013 · 1 Comment 

Jude Law made an appearance at the Apple Store in London last night to  promote his new film Side Effects. During the Q&A event with fans the British star was questioned about the prospect of a third Sherlock Holmes adventure and responded very positively.

After joking about how hot, steamy and exhausting the relationship between Sherlock and his long suffering companionDoctor Watson is, Jude  confirmed that he believes work will start next month on a script for another big screen outing for the pair. Although it’s unlikely filming would actually start before next year due in part to Robert Downey Jr’s hectic schedule.

Jude Law admitted that he had already spoken to co-star Robert Downey Jr at length about ideas for the next film, drawing on inspiration from the vast collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work. In particular he confessed that both stars share a wishful ambition to turn their next adventure into a pair of sequels, with one case naturally leading into another in a second film.

While Jude was quick to  admit that nothing is confirmed yet, the idea would be that Sherlock Holmes 3 and 4 would follow the examples of franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight in filming both chapters back to back. As for what might lie in store for the super sleuthing detective duo Jude teasingly replied “Divorce!” Suggesting their bickering oddball relationship would remain just as hilariously awkward.

credit where credit is due.

Well good, he has Sherlockian standards.

Sherlock Holmes 3 must excite Downey

Latest News - 19 April 2013

Robert Downey Jr. will only make 'Sherlock Holmes 3' if it ''excites'' him.
The proposed third film in Guy Pearce's mystery movie franchise won't go ahead unless its lead star is impressed by the script, according to screenwriter Drew Pearce, who has been hired to pen the film and recently co-wrote 'Iron Man 3', which also stars Downey.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz at the UK premiere of 'Iron Man 3' in London's Leicester Square on Thursday (18.04.13), he explained: ''At the moment with 'Sherlock', we've been so busy working on this that what we really need to do is sit down and work out - a bit like 'Iron Man' - if there's a story that we can put together that excites Robert enough to spend two years of his life making it.
''The amazing thing about where he is in his life now and in his career, he's only going to do it if he really wants to do it. That's the challenge we had going into 'Iron Man 3' and I think we succeeded, so we'll see what happens with 'Sherlock'.''
Guy Pearce's take on 'Sherlock Holmes' stars Downey as the eccentric detective and Jude Law as his long-suffering sidekick, Dr. John Watson.
Both 2009's 'Sherlock Holmes' and 2011's 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' drew critical acclaim and have grossed over $1 billion combined.

Credit where credit is due.

A little trash talk (read to the bottom)

When MoDOT needs highway trash pickup, who's it gonna call?

ST. LOUIS • When temperatures warm up, expect the Paranormal Investigators of St. Louis to go on the hunt along Interstate 55.

Members will be looking for trash, not ghosts, as one of the latest entrants to Missouri’s Adopt-A-Highway program. They will don bright vests and bag litter along the half-mile stretch of I-55 near Gasconade Street.

“It does help out the community somewhat, and it does help put our name out there,” said Rachel Davidson, 33, who has been investigating the paranormal in her spare time for about eight years. But she said that so far, “If anything, we might have gotten a couple more likes on our Facebook page.”

As many other states, Missouri enlists small battalions of volunteers to remove trash or mow highway medians. There are now 3,700 total adoptions covering 5,200 miles of highway. MoDOT figures the groups’ efforts save it $1.5 million a year. The pay? Besides the feeling of satisfaction that comes with doing a good deed, each group gets a blue-and-gold sign with its name emblazoned across it.

Typically, the tradeoff works for both sides, but it sometimes comes at an unexpected cost. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Missouri mounted losing legal battles to prevent the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from participating and receiving a sign. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 said Missouri could not block groups from adopting highways.

The Klan is no longer on the list of Missouri highway adopters.

More recently, a group of Sept. 11 “truthers” adopted a section of Olive Boulevard just east of Lindbergh Boulevard. Its participants question the government’s version of the 9/11 terror attacks.

A review of Missouri’s Adopt-A-Highway program shows a collection of single-issue special interest groups that include those seeking legalization of marijuana and repeal of the Missouri law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

Both the Democratic and Republican political parties have adopted highways, but so has the Constitution Party of Jefferson County. Atheists and right-to-life groups maintain their own highway segments.

“We did it just to give back to the community,” said Kenny “Ditch” Williams, president of the Freedom of the Road Riders Local 42. “We ride through all the time. It was dirty. So we adopted it. It don’t hurt. We got our Adopt-A-Highway signs. It lets them know we are out there. We care.”

Freedom of the Road Riders is a motorcycle-rights group that among other things, Williams said, is seeking to ease the state’s mandatory motorcycle helmet law. It has adopted a half mile of Route AT in Franklin County.

Illinois puts limits on its similar program, said Paris Ervin, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Ervin said in an email that some Illinois groups have been barred because the “group name was unacceptable. Web sites, dot coms, individual names, phone numbers and promotion of political groups or organizations are not allowed on signage,” Ervin explained.

All a Missouri group must do is sign a three-year agreement and commit to pick up litter at least four times a year, said Tom Blair, MoDOT’s assistant district engineer in St. Louis. They also get some safety training, vests and trash bags.

For some groups, that has proven too high a hurdle.

Many have the adoption revoked for failing to comply with requirements, or voluntarily rescind it. Among the groups whose participation has been revoked are the Kansas City Royals Baseball Club, the Scenic Rivers National Audubon Society, and Waste Management Inc., according to MoDOT records.

More and more, families have adopted highways and pitched signs dedicated to the memory of fallen loved ones.

Hobbyists and social groups have not shied from highway beautification.

The Chariots of the Dead Hearse Club adopted a section of Highway 43 in Jasper County. Not to be outdone, the Hellacious Haulers Hearse Club is doing a portion of U.S. Highway 63 in Howell County.

One group with an interest in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes patrols two segments of Interstate 70 in St. Charles County. So far, the signs have helped grab the attention of at least one future member.

“I’ve always been interested in litter control,” said Michael Bragg, 66, a former MoDOT safety officer and leader of the Harpooners of the Sea Unicorn — a local group named loosely after elements of a favorite Holmes story. “What gets me are all the beer bottles and beer cans.”

The group has been around since 1989 and meets once a month at the Mother in Law House Restaurant. Participants have picked up trash at various spots along Interstate 70. When a particular stretch opened up, Bragg grabbed it for a reason.

The segment runs in an area designated on MoDOT maps as between miles 220.86 and 221.36. Somewhere in there would fall 221B, if there were such a mile marker.

That’s 221B as in 221B Baker Street — the London street address of the group’s favorite fictional detective.1

Ken Leiser is the transportation writer at the Post-Dispatch. Read his Along for the Ride column online and every Sunday in the newspaper.

Rest in peace Lady Thatcher

I think David Cameron says it best; "But when you're mourning the passing of an 87-year-old woman who was the first woman prime minister, who served for longer in the job than anyone for 150 years I think it's appropriate to show respect."

The Final Deduction - by David W. Walker

I bought this book as a Kindle edition.

Although a little long for the mystery involved, I found David's writing very good and his treatment of his subjects respectful.

Although the mystery plot of the book followed a little to closely to the movie 'A Game of Shadows', it remained distant enough not to be a distraction.

The plot involving the personality of Holmes took a turn, right at the beginning, I usually try to avoid in book choices, but David treated it respectfully with out offering offence to the originals. Once it took this turn I started to regret buying this book, but I am glad I held out and finished it for the sympathetic end the book had.

Once again it is a book about resolution between Holmes and Watson.

A couple of the other characters introduced were fun and it was good to see the return of Wiggins.

The mystery was a little lacking, but the story held enough to make you want to see how David was going to finish the book.
I enjoyed it more than I though I would.
As with most pastiches, I am glad they are in ebook form now to save room on my bookshelves, but this was better than most I have read lately.

So I give it;

The games afoot.. . . .

OK, I forgot last night was going to be re-runs, I think it had something to do with all the math I was doing a couple of posts ago.
I sat down with my pencil and pad to make notes and, well, we had already watched this one.

So instead of some stellar review being posted here today, I though I would post a link to CBS's game on 'Elementary'.

Have fun.

The games people play now. . .