Sherlock Holmes had a nasty habit of having recognised the scent of the tobacco as one only smoked by lefthanded men from Berlin on alternate Tuesdays.

And then he wrote a short monograph on the subject, the berk. Would you expect any better from a junkie?

But at least those descriptions were filtered and therefore blameable on that twit Watson.

I love Ngaio Marsh, but you do begin to wonder why anyone would go to the theatre with Roderick Alleyn.

I am completely irrational on the subject of Sherlock Holmes. Watson is not a twit. He is Everyman observing Genius. He is pretty damn fuzzy about that Afghanistan injury, though.

Ginger, I'm nuts for Sherlock Holmes - I keep thinking I could do what Irene Adler couldn't, which is break him and ride him like a Lippizan. And I'm actually very fond of Watson. But I'm a gamma type myself, apparently, so my whole thing with sidekicks is a bit clueless.

And BWAH! on the theatre-with-Rory deal. Too true. Especially if it's the Scots play.

I have reread all of Sherlock Holmes probably 15 times. I'm thinking about doing it again.

I do have a Sherlock Holmes story. I have an unusual last name. When I was in an English graduate seminar, someone asked what kind of name it was. I said my great-grandfather had come from Bohemia. One student gasped and said, "A Scandal in Bohemia. I thought that was a made-up country."

There is a Peter Wimsey mystery (sans Harriet Vane) that pulls this about three chapters in,

It's Five Red Herrings, and it's generally admitted as one of the weakest, since it's basically Sayers' attempt to write a mystery that depends on train timetables and all that boring shit.

Ginger, the woman I did the reading with this past Saturday - Lora Roberts - writes Holmes pastiches. She does a quite decent job, too.

The thing about The Five Red Herrings is, when you get to the end and realize what the question was, it really is a completely obvious thing that any 12 year old might have asked. I find that FRH is not my favorite Sayers by any means, but the recreation of the crime/coverup is hilarious.

One student gasped and said, "A Scandal in Bohemia. I thought that was a made-up country."

Hee! OK, sad, but still. Heh.

My love for Sherlock Holmes goes beyond the platonic, that's for sure. I got a leather-bound complete Holmes collection as a high school graduation gift and read through it several times the summer after graduation. It's probably the only HS grad. gift I still have, lo these 20 years later.

I have a friend who went trick-or-treating, our senior year of high school, as Sherlock Holmes. She looked really cool, I have to admit.

Oh, my. Remember our nice long heated debate on Amazon.com reviews?

From today's L.A. Times.

Why yes, Virginia, your career can depend entirely on whether or not four people who didn't like you in high school want to get bitchy.

BTW, Caroline Leavitt, who's mentioned in the article, is out there spreading the Wonderfalls gospel. She's a damned good writer, too.