Now we understand that there is a new bus tour available for those who seek to walk - er, ride - in the footsteps of the great detective. From their press release:
Brit Movie Tours, a unique sightseeing bus tour company that visits film and TV locations in London and throughhout Britain, is launching the first ever Sherlock Holmes Bus Tour in London.
Visiting sites linked with the world famous sleuth the Sherlock Holmes Bus Tour will take fans on a three-hour tour visiting places featured in both the Arthur Conan Doyle books and also the recent TV and film dramatisations.
The tour will take in key locations from the books including the Sherlock Holmes pub, locations from the recent Robert Downey Jr movie and BBC production with Benedict Cumberbatch and of course 221B Baker Street.
Brit Movie Tours director Lewis Swan explains, “one of the aims of the Sherlock Holmes London Tour is to get fans of the character a bit closer to the places they know both in the books and on screen. The Victorian London of Holmes is still very much alive and well today.”
Have you ever taken a Sherlock Holmes tour when you were in London or in other Canonical locations? Let us know which have been the most useful and/or rewarding by leaving a comment.
Please consider visiting our sponsors (in the right column and footer of the site) from time to time. It helps defray the costs associated with running this site.
On occasion, we must unfortunately share news of some members who have broken from the ranks of the Baker Street Irregulars. These are tagged (or grouped, if you will) under the category "terrace" in the sidebar area titled "Some Other Topic." Today, as we do some end-of-year tidying, we find that there are no less than three members who require our memories.
David Musto, BSI ("Dr. Anstruther") passed away on October 8, 2010 while on a visit to Shanghai to donate his papers to Shanghai University at a ceremony. In his professional life, Dr. Musto was the leading historian on drug policy and was world renowned in the field, having consulted for presidents and academia. He founded the Yale Sherlock Holmes Society and notably penned "A Study in Cocaine: Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud" that appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1968. For a full recounting of his career and life, the obituary that ran in the New York Times is available here.
A personal reminiscence from Burt Wolder:
David was one of the founding few, with Henry Folsom, Jan Prager, and Al Silverstein, who formed The Cornish Horrrors in December 1970.
David brought a rare mix of whimsicality and scholarship to his Sherlockian pursuits.
His annual Reichenbach Lecturers ore the last few years included Dr.Henry Lee, one of the world's foremost forensic scientists, Lila Wolff Wilkinson, niece to Julian, and Lisa Sanders, diagnosis columnist for New York Times Magazine.
Whimsicality, of course, because he conceived of the Yale Sherlock Holmes Society as an ephemeral organization, steadfastly refusing to appoint officers or adopt any formal procedures.
David was especially fond of Basil Rathbone's protrayal of the Master. Each summer evening at Yale ended with a screening of the Hound, The Adventures, or one of the Universal series.
David was gentle, soft-spoken, and brilliant. We have lost a great scholar and friend.
At Yale, Dr. Musto established the annual Sherlock Holmes Lecture. We happen to have footage of the 27th annual Sherlock Holmes Lecture, by Dr. Thomas Duffy, which took place at the Davies Auditorium, Becton Center at Yale on June 12, 2008.
Tsukasa Kobayashi, BSI ("Baritsu") died on September 27, 2010 in Tokyo. He had been suffering from myelodysplastic syndromes. Also known as a psychologist, and an active Esperantist, Dr. Kobayashi constituted the Japan Sherlock Holmes Club in 1977. He and his wife Akana Higashiyama, along with photographer Masaharu Uemura, put their Sherlockian interest to work by producing Sherlock Holmes's London: Following the Footsteps of London's Master Detective in 1986.
The passion for Sherlock Holmes in Japan can be said to be one of the most fervent in the world, if we pit countries against one another. And Dr. Kobayashi's work there has been instrumental in driving that passion. The Baker Street Irregulars chronicled that passion in the 2005 entry in the BSI International Series, Japan and Sherlock Holmes, which has since sold out.
Herb Tinning, BSI ("Dr. Leon Sterndale")
The Reverend Herbert P. Tinning passed away on November 15 after visiting his children in Arizona and Illinois. He worked as an association executive, and was a dedicated deacon in the Episcopal church. He was an active Sherlockian, holding membership in a number of societies in the midwest and then in the northeast. His special enthusiasms included the Antarctic (where he believed Dr. Watson visited during the Great Hiatus) and his namesake story "The Devil's Foot". He was awarded his Investiture in The Baker Street Irregulars in 1974. A longer obituary can be found here.
As we look back at 2010, it's natural to reminisce. Do you have any memories of the above Irregulars, or of other Sherlockians who have passed beyond the Reichenbach this year? Feel free to share them in a comment.
Please consider visiting our sponsors (in the right column and footer of the site) from time to time. It helps defray the costs associated with running this site.
It's always our intention to bring you new posts on these pages. But occasionally out of necessity, we resort to some old chestnuts.
Most notably, that has traditionally been the post titled "The Second Morning After Christmas" [BLUE] which has been used in 2006, 2008 and 2009 previously. As is the custom with the Wall Street Journal, which annually reproduces a 1961 editorial on the pilgrims in the new world, we saw no reason to avoid replication here.
So, we bring you "Two Days After Christmas," a tribute to "The Blue Carbuncle" in the style of Clement Moore's A Visit from St. Nick.
Please feel free to share and use this at your own Sherlockian society holiday meetings. The only thing we ask is that you attribute the poem to its rightful author.
For those of you inclined more to listening rather than reading, here's the audio version, courtesy of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere:
Please consider visiting our sponsors (in the right column and footer of the site) from time to time. It helps defray the costs associated with running this site.
!["An Effort to Preserve It" [IDEN]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c_t12ITxZc0/TwH7GNrCKlI/AAAAAAAADHU/JwxtZC37Pfs/s167/SaveUndershaw.jpg)
in 1986.
