The Game is Afoot !!
Happy Monday, International Sherlock Holmes Day

In today's Issue

International Sherlock Holmes Day

A Sherlock Poem

Facts About Holmes

Trivial Top 10

The World's most famous detective. Also the most portrayed character in history. Who is it? Of course, by a matter of deduction we've detected it's....Sherlock Holmes ! Any self-respected detective would have worked it out! 

The uber consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes has been a hero since his creation in the 1800's. So of course he deserves his very own day.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, says the character was originally inspired by Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for whom Doyle had worked as an assistant. 

Like Holmes, Bell was famous for his ability to draw broad conclusions from minute observations. Francis “Tanky” Smith, a policeman and master of disguise who was Leicester’s first private detective, is also thought to have influenced the character. Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story first appeared in print in 1887 and continued to be published for the next forty years, until shortly before the author’s death. During this time, the detective had countless adventures, usually accompanied by his loyal friend and assistant, Dr. Watson.

An Original Poem About Holmes :-

Interesting Facts About Sherlock Holmes

The only fictional character portrayed in more films than Sherlock Holmes is Dracula.

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Sherlock Holmes Baffled was his first film, a 30-second silent spoof made in the US in 1900.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was also a ship’s surgeon, a boxer, Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey and a first-class cricketer.

He was also responsible for popularising skiing in Switzerland.

Conan Doyle chose the name Sherlock in honour of Nottingham cricketers Sherwin and Shacklock. Originally it was Sherringford Holmes.

Conan Doyle played 10 first-class matches for the MCC. His batting average was 19.25 but his only wicket as a bowler was that of WG Grace.

In the 1969 Oxford-Cambridge chess match, players named Holmes and Watson both won their games for Oxford.

Holmes often said “elementary” and “My dear Watson” but never “Elementary my dear Watson.”

The Sherlock Holmes Museum, officially at 221b Baker Street, London, is actually at number 239.

Dr Watson’s first name is John but his wife calls him James in The Man With the Twisted Lip.

Trivial Top 10

The Top 10 Portrayals Of Sherlock Holmes

10. Ellie Norwood

Norwood played Holmes in 47 silent films ! He was the first actor to bring Holmes from the page and onto film.

9. Nicholas Rowe

Nicholas Rowe was the star of the 1985 Steven Spielberg movie Young Sherlock Holmes.

8. Tom Baker

A year after leaving Doctor Who, Baker was invited to play Holmes by his former producer Barry Letts. The 1982 BBC television production of The Hound Of The Baskervilles, 

7. Arthur Wontner

Arthur Wontner won the role of Holmes having played Sexton Blake, a character seen as a flattering imitation of the Baker Street detective. Wontner earned appreciation from staunch Holmes experts, including Conan Doyle’s wife.

6. Douglas Wilmer

Douglas Wilmer became the first television Sherlock Holmes when the BBC produced The Speckled Band in 1964.

5. Robert Downey Jr

Over the course of two Guy Ritchie films, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (2011), the magnetic personality of Robert Downey Jr has allowed his rather crass, cynical, yet likeable portrayal of the master detective to be enjoyed by cinema-goers across the world.

4. Peter Cushing

Although Peter Cushing first portrayed Holmes in the 1959 Hammer version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles, he is perhaps better remembered for the 16-episode, 1968 BBC series, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, when he replaced Douglas Wilmer as the Baker Street sleuth. Even as late as 1984, Cushing appeared as Holmes in the TV movie The Masks Of Death.

3. Basil Rathbone

Arguably the actor most commonly identified with Sherlock Holmes on film, Sir Basil Rathbone made 14 Sherlock Holmes movies between 1939 and 1946, creating the deerstalker and cape look in the process.

2. Benedict Cumberbatch

Star of the current BBC series Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch is Holmes for the 21st century.

1. Jeremy Brett

The sorely-missed Jeremy Brett was a genuine one-off – an actor of immense skill and intense personality. In 1984 Granada television, fresh from the success of The Jewel In The Crown, produced an equally superb television adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Supported first by David Burke and then Edward Hardwicke, both intelligent and thoughtful as Watson, Jeremy Brett made Sherlock Holmes so much his own that any fresh television adaptation would have to approach Conan Doyle’s work from a very different direction.

Well that's it for today. I'll be back Friday, as I'm having a break. I'll send you all a postcard !!!

Finish with a song. Today it's "Watching The Detectives" by Elvis Costello, released in 1977 !!