"Taking the Queen's Shilling" [SIGN]

As you may have seen in the Twitter stream (the section on the right titled "Holmes Was a Very Busy Man"), the coveted Baker Street Irregulars investitures were awarded tonight at the BSI Dinner. It was a banner evening, celebrating 75 years of the BSI being in existence, and saying farewell to a large number of Irregulars who left us over the past year.

Mike Whelan, the current "Wiggins" of the BSI, states that it's his favorite part of the dinner - and I can certainly believe him. Much joy was given, much joy was received.

While the dinner is about much more than the investitures, it's clearly the thing on everyone's mind at the dinner. Having been someone who attended a number of dinners before I was called up to the podium, I can honestly say that the old Oscars cliche "it's an honor just to be nominated" does in fact ring true. I hope that this year's attendees feel the same.

This year, all of the Investitures were story titles - coveted titular investitures to be sure - and Wiggins spent some time discussing who previously held each title and in what year.

In the order they were announced, here are the latest Baker Street Irregulars:

• Bill Barnes, "The Gloria Scott"
  
• Susan Dahlinger, "The Bruce-Partington Plans"
  
• Robert Ellis, "The Illustrious Client"
  
• Walter Jaffee, "The Resident Patient"
  
• Allan Devitt, "The Dancing Men"
• Greg Darak, "The Engineer's Thumb"
  
• Jeff Bradway, "A Case of Identity"
• Michael Pollock, "The Blue Carbuncle"
• Sebastian LePage, "The Six Napoleons"
• Jens Byskov Jensen, "The Blanched Soldier
• Joel Schwartz, "The Three Students"
• Barbara Rusch, "The Mazarin Stone"
  

And this year, Mike gave the coveted Two-Shilling Award to an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in service to the BSI. The Two-Shilling Award went to:

• Dan Posnansky, for his incredible work with the BSI Trust and Archives.

In addition, Mike also presented a special golden door encrusted with diamonds to his wife, Mary Ann Bradley, for her assistance with the BSI weekend administrative work for the last 12 years.For anyone who knows the hard work that Mary Ann puts into all of the BSI events, ensuring registration and organization, it's a well-deseeved honor.

All of the recipients of shillings were people who have been at this for years and were incredibly worthy of the honor. And Wiggins noted that much would be expected of them in the future.

My hope is that all of the new BSIs already subscribe to The Baker Street Journal. It's not a requirement to become an Irregular, nor are all Irregulars required to subscribe. But it's something everyone should consider. You subscribe to the BSJ, don't you?

"The Night of January 6th" [VALL]

Well, that time of year is upon us again! Today marks the 155th birthday of the world's first unofficial consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

You may recall that in "His Last Bow," Holmes was described as "...a tall, gaunt man of sixty..." and that the story took place in 1914. In addition, of the Shakespearean plays he quoted, Holmes referenced Twelfth Night twice. These facts taken together have led scholars to believe that Holmes was born on January 6, 1854.

To help celebrate this event, I'll be in New York City later this week - but only for the BSI dinner, and not the entire weekend festivities. My work schedule is keeping me otherwise occupied.

And while that means I won't be on hand to document the entire weekend, I'll be posting the latest recipients of BSI investitures on this blog late Friday night/early Saturday morning - and, for those of you interested following along live, right below in the graphical widget. Expect the news to break around 9:30 - 10:00 p.m. EST on Friday, January 9.

If you don't follow along here, you can watch http://twitter.com/S_Holmes

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