MON DIEU!

A pocket history of the French badass who inspired Sherlock Holmes

By Joe Blevins@joe_a_blevins

Aug 11, 2016  3:40 PM

Sherlock Holmes seems like a pretty interesting guy, what with the opium addiction, the violin playing, the crime solving, and that long-simmering erotic tension with Dr. John Watson. But Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, despite being a bona fide Guinness record holder for the most commonly portrayed human character in film and TV history, is not one-tenth as interesting as the real-life French master criminal who inspired him. That is the message of a highly entertaining cartoon from Cracked entitled “Sherlock Holmes Is Based On A Real Guy (Who Was Even Cooler).” This brisk, brief bit of animation runs through the life and career of one Eugene Francois Vidocq (1775-1857), a prolific criminal and multiple-prison escapee who wound up as the world’s first private detective and basically jump-started modern criminology. He’s the literal embodiment of the adage that it takes a thief to catch a thief. He’d solve crimes just to pass the time while he was incarcerated, and eventually the cops just let him out so he could do what he did best. Risky as it seems, this decision proved to be a quantum leap forward for law enforcement.

The police in Vidocq’s time were not that successful in solving crimes because they didn’t think like criminals. “Apparently,” says the video, “before Vidocq came along, cops were just kind of guessing.” But the world of crime was one that Vidocq himself knew from the inside out. Among the inventions with which he is credited here: ballistics, crime labs, criminal databases, and footprint clues. By training agents in his methods, he essentially created an 1800s equivalent of the FBI. Like Holmes, his fictional counterpart, Vidocq was a multifaceted man with many interests. In his case, according to this video, he was a swordsman, businessman, author, womanizer, and braggart who embraced his celebrity status. So does all of that make Vidocq more interesting than Holmes? Possibly, but only Holmes will have the honor of being brought back to life in the next century in order to solve future crimes.

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I miss uniforms. . .

Uniforms, not the military type, that told you what people do. . or did.
The other night while attending a school open house, several scout type organizations and booths, trying to get new kids to join were set up.
And not one, adult or child, wore their uniform completely. They wore just enough of the uniform to make it clear who they were, but that was it.
Now, while that has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, it goes much deeper than that.
For me it is a matter of respect for the job or organizations one belongs to. First impressions and all.

Even in my own profession, mailman, carriers that are given uniform allowances rarely where the uniform as it should be worn.
And the one's that don't have uniforms, I won't even go into how they dress.

And what does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes?

Well, it kinda got me thinking about uniforms of occupations during Holmes' era.

Holmes often, most of the time to Watson as a seemingly parlor trick, discribes someone's occupation by their appearance as they walked by.

The type of apron or jacket one wore could often tell what one did. Sometimes it was the cut of said garment, or maybe even the direction of the stripes on the apron.

Most of the time these distictions were had probably come about for a practical reason like safety or function.

But many times these uniforms came about as a way to tell one occupation from another.

For may reasons; weather, safety, changing trends, the need to look nice for happy hour after work, uniforms have changed and evolved, or maybe disapperared all together.

Would the modern Sherlock be able to make correct observations on our appearance today?

Or do we all wear the same uniform of casualness today?

Don't even get me started on how parents dress to go meet their kids teachers now a days!

I know dear, I am sounding like an old man.

What were some of the uniforms described in the Canon?

What does the future hold?

Benedict Cumberbatch talks future of 'Sherlock'

Series 4 of BBC show is expected in 2017

LUKE MORGAN BRITTON, 4TH AUGUST 2016

Benedict Cumberbatch has addressed uncertainty over the future of Sherlock.

Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman started shooting the new series in May, joined once again by Amanda Abbington as Mary Morstan, as well as by a new villain played by Toby Jones. 

Cumberbatch joined Abbington plus the show's co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss for a panel at Comic-Con in San Diego last month (July 24), when he was asked how long the show could keep going for.

"We’ll see. We’ll see how this series lands," Cumberbatch responded, as reported by Collider.

"It’s been great fun to come back and do it. How it will continue in the future, who knows? It’s not just about what any of us want. It’s about what’s actually right for the show, to be honest, and that has to be judged very carefully."

Cumberbatch continued: "Think about the very limited but classic British output of certain shows, and there aren’t that many of them. It’s a painful thing to say, but maybe Series Four is it. Who knows? I don’t know. I don’t want to say this is it because we have too much fun doing it. But generally, we have to see how this lands."

"And the actors aren’t the only ones who are busy," he added. "Mark and Steven are pretty tied up. Mark is an actor, as well as a producer and writer. It’s all of us being stretched in different directions. Also, this has run longer than most American series. You don’t want to compromise it by continually doing it, just because we could carry it on. There’s lots of stuff to weigh. It’s not just about what we want to do. It’s about what’s right. We’ll see. Really, we will have to see. No one has decided on it, so there’s no yes or no to an end or a beginning."

Steven Moffat went on to say: "We have to take it one season at a time. We don’t know what the future will be, and it’s not entirely down to us. Hopefully, we’ll do more. I find it hard to imagine that we won’t. But in terms of a specific plan, there are ideas that we haven’t gotten to yet."

During the panel, Abbington told fans of the new series: "It's really dark. It's the darkest Steven and Mark have written."

The BBC has previously revealed that series four will begin with Cumberbatch's title character "back once more on British soil as Doctor Watson and his wife, Mary, prepare for their biggest ever challenge - becoming parents for the first time".

Cumberbatch and Freeman returned in a one-off special, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, on New Year's Day this year. The special attracted an audience of 11.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched programme of the 2015-16 festive season.

The show's last series, which also consisted of three episodes, aired in 2014. Cumberbatch and Freeman first played Doyle's iconic characters in 2010 and each actor has won an Emmy for his performance.

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What Doctor Strange & Sherlock Holmes Have In Common Will Get You Excited For Benedict Cumberbatch's Next Role

COURTNEY LINDLEY

3 days ago ENTERTAINMENT

The time has come for us to start getting really excited for Marvel's upcoming film Doctor Strange. I mean, you know, if you weren't already. During San Diego's Comic-Con panel, an all new Doctor Strange trailer gave us a more in depth glimpse into the mind of Stephen Strange, aka Sorcerer Supreme, aka the titular superhero. But something about Doctor Strange's personality might come as a shock to those who aren't well informed of his character, and it also might remind you of someone. If you ask the actor who plays Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), then the newest Marvel superhero happens to share a personality trait with Cumberbatch's other well known character: Sherlock Holmes. That's right. Two pretty dissimilar characters — Doctor Strange and Sherlock Holmes — share one pretty specific trait.

When Collider asked Cumberbatch what people would find surprising about the upcoming film, the actor's answer had to do with some of Stephen Strange's particular qualities. He said:

"Quite how much he suffers and how extraordinary his willpower is. I think that's his main superhero trait, is that the guy is sort of unstoppably stubborn. He won't cease. And that's great, because you see this character really go through the grinder. It's non-stop punishment for this dude. What he has to become and how quickly he's tested in the new arena that he becomes this person is so violent, so sudden, so non-stop, and psychologically brutal as well as physically very very brutal. It's a huge character arc. So I think that might surprise people."

Doesn't "unstoppably stubborn" seem like a familiar characteristic of Sherlock? What about this concept of "not ceasing"? While Stephen Strange and Sherlock Holmes couldn't be more different in terms of how they solve things (Sherlock is ruled by logic, where Strange has mystical, magical powers), I deduce that Doctor Strange and Sherlock Holmes are not so different after all. Which makes Benedict Cumberbatch all the better to nail the role. And the film? All the better for it.

Sherlock would likely laugh at Doctor Strange's source of power. Like the Cloak of Levitation that allows him to fly or the Eye of Agamotto that he wears around to protect himself from illusions. But like Sherlock, Stephen Strange has endured what Cumberbatch calls "non-stop punishment," and that's part of what makes him so compelling. After he injure's his hand in a car accident, his career is over and he must find a way to get his abilities to back. If Cumberbatch is able to bring the kind of pathos to Strange as he brought to Sherlock, then this will be another character of his we soon won't forget.

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On the Trail of Sherlock Holmes - from the Wall Street Journal

By Ralph Gardner Jr.

Teel James Glenn portrayed Sherlock Holmes at a gathering of The Priory Scholars of NYC. PHOTO: RALPH GARDNER JR./THE WALL STREET JOURNAl

I don’t believe I’d ever read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories until the day before I attended a lunch held by The Priory Scholars of NYC, a Sherlock Holmes society, on July 16.

Nonetheless, several attendees who gathered at the Churchill Tavern on East 28th Street, where Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches were piped through the bathroom sound system, assured me I’m an honorary Sherlockian through my father.

The Priory Scholars is a scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars, an organization of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts founded in 1934 by Christopher Morley, a journalist and novelist. And of which my father was a member.

Indeed, I remember my dad’s pride when he was asked, probably in the late 70s or early 80s, by Julian Wolff, the head of the group at the time, to recite the “Musgrave Ritual” from the Conan Doyle short story “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual.”

To this day, Dr. Wolff’s note, encased in a protective plastic sheath, sits on the shelf of my father’s library.

I also looked up the Baker Street Irregulars website and discovered my father seated in the front row of the BSI 1984 dinner. He was rocking a curved-stem pipe whose bowl he’d carved himself with the likeness of the great Holmes.

Not that I wouldn’t have been welcomed with open arms in any case. And not just because I was a member of the press. Even though that wasn’t held against me. Indeed, someone at my table promptly quoted Holmes to Watson in “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons”: “The press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.”

ENLARGE

Warren Randall at a Priory Scholars of NYC lunch. PHOTO: RALPH GARDNER JR./THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

My sense was that the Priory Scholars of NYC was a highly inclusive, hyper companionable organization. Indeed, the group’s affection for “the canon,” the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle, only partially accounts for what brings people to its four-times-a-year meetings.

“The stories are fundamentally about friendship,” explained Christopher Zordan, a chemist and the group’s “Economics Master,” or treasurer. “Everybody likes that underlying theme.”

Added Robert Katz, a pathologist and Holmes lecturer, “There’s a big cluster of groups in the tri-state area. You could literally be going to some Sherlock Holmes event in the eastern half of the United States every weekend of the year if you felt like it.”

The work under discussion at the summer meeting was Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.” It’s a somewhat macabre tale that involves the arrival in the mail of a parcel containing two severed human ears.

I was taken by the economy of the language, which is apparently part of the Holmes canon’s appeal. “If you read other Victorian stories,” Mr. Zordan explained, “they’re very flowery. [The canon] feels like it was written recently. There’s a bit where Watson says, ‘And I blew his brains out.’”

The meeting was called to order with author Elizabeth Crowens reporting on the success of a book signing for her debut novel, “Silent Meridian,” a time-traveling work whose characters include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Next came a series of witty toasts of which Holmes would have been proud. An appreciation for a good Burgundy or even a robust Bloody Mary also seems to attract students of the detective in the deerstalker cap.

“Drinking is a very popular sport among Sherlockians,” attested Judith Freeman, the Priory Scholars’ “Headmistress.”

Among the toast givers, with the help of a picture frame as a prop, were Chelsea Moquinand Finn Upham, young Brooklynites who host “Three Patch Podcast.” Ms. Moquin described it as “Get somebody very inebriated and try to tell one of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories.”

”

ENLARGE

Chelsea Moquin, left, and Finn Upham, hosts of a Sherlock Holmes podcast. PHOTO: RALPH GARDNER JR./THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The picture frame was a reference to a portrait mentioned at the start of “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.” “There’s been a lot of effort to bring together the younger crowd and the older crowd,” Ms. Moquin said.

After lunch was served the group got down to the serious business of the afternoon—starting with a quiz about the reading. “The women come in first more than the men,” reported Priory regular Marc Sawyer. And they did.

The quiz was followed by a discussion of the work, described by someone as the “eeriest case in the canon.”

He sounded quite learned until it was pointed out to me that the gentleman was making a pun. Eeriest was spelled “ear-iest.”

Ralph Gardner Jr's father is center front with pipe.

Have you ever heard of this one. . . . The Baskerville Arms Hotel

Close to the Black Mountains, the Brecon Beacons and Offa's Dyke path and within a short walking distance of the River Wye, dishes are prepared from fresh local produce.

Here you will find a homely 'locals bar' atmosphere.

 The Baskerville Arms

Will both 'Toby's' appear in the same episode?

Just for fun. . .

I just couldn't do it. . . .

I was going to post some recent pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock for the up coming season.
But I chose not to get drawn into all the tease that goes on with each upcoming season, however far apart they are.
I am going to wait for something definite. Or maybe not.

Houdini and Doyle - I'm not sure if I have given up completly on it, but I may have. . . .

Now I don't mind a little artistic license in the handling of shows about times or characters I like and follow. Rarely does any movie or TV show completely follow facts or history.

My main motivation, besides being entertained, in watching shows like this is that they make me want to learn more about the actual facts behind the story or people portrayed. I will go look up details on things taking place in the story to see how far astray the artistic license went.

But for some reason Houdini and Doyle has not done that for me.

It may be that I am not all the interested in Houdini and that I do not particularly like the portrayal of Doyle.

Or maybe it is just that they stray just a little too far away for historic fact about the times and the two main characters.

I am not sure, but this week I found myself deleting from the DVR a couple episodes I had not seen to make room for Women’s Gymnastics.

There were a few things I liked about the show, but most of that had to do with the sets and the atmosphere of the episodes.

Oh well, I can at least look forward to the start of Elementary in a few months and Sherlock in a couple of years.