Of course, this is the most perfect opportunity to drop in the negative note that I despise my current theme, but it is my second coded this month, so I’m not going out of my way to design another. I have updated my theme to version 10.2 as of 30th July. I will side-track to say that I can make one for you if you want (go here) but, seeing as we are being negative, I’ll add a sarcy comment at the end of the sentence – because that’s likely to happen. Anyhow, moving on ho!
I’ve spent all my money on my 2 major obsessions. I have none left. Nada, zilch, zero, nil, nothing. A Jeeves & Wooster singular novel and a 4-story omnibus by P.G. Woodhouse is part of the cause. Encase you haven’t heard of it, Jeeves and Wooster is a series of books (adapted into a television series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) about quintessential English culture and class, demonstrating exaggerated lives of both an unemployed upper class citizen with several frivolous marriage engagements and a butler who devises ingenious plans to abolish them, among other things. To cut a long story short, it’s a comedy, well-worth the read and, undoubtedly, the watch.
Sherlock Holmes. I have to point out that, although he is stunningly good-looking, Robert Downey Jr was not the only trigger to my obsession of this. I realised how wonderful the idea – the concept – of a person who can tell, to the tiniest detail, a large number of things about another being is. The skill of observation. The genius. For purpose of understanding, the appropriately named ‘Science of Deduction’ refers to deductive reasoning: a method of thinking which involves a series of statements identified as hypothesises forming conclusions which are sound/unsound or valid/invalid but never true or false. For example, whether it be correct or incorrect: All mammals have fur. A cat is a mammal. Therefore, a cat has fur.
What may confuse you is how this is applied to any form of realistic circumstance. In simple terms, I shall explain. If your friend walks up to you and says “I have a new cat”, and for some particular reason you wish to know whether this cat has fur or not, you can use the deductive reasoning example. A cat is a mammal, you think to yourself. All mammals have fur. So, this cat has fur. Regardless of whether the statements are correct or not, the conclusion is valid. However, to be sound, the first statements must be correct. We know this is unsound because you can have mammals without fur, so this cat may not have fur. I apologise if I’m unclear about explaining this. But in Sherlock Holmes’ case, deductive reasoning is applied to a much higher level, to much greater detail.
A fantastic programme to watch in conclusion to this obsessive, unnecessary lesson in deduction definition, is BBC’s ‘Sherlock’. I just bought the 3-episode series and am delighted to hear that a new series will run in Autumn of this year. It involves Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the swarve and eccentric Mr Holmes with clear enthusiasm, and Martin Freeman, who pulls off the dark, deep and caring soul in Dr Watson brilliantly. Without any chance of ruin, it is set in Modern Times, which compliments it in a unexplainable way. Please don’t let initial judgements get in the way of enjoying it. But if you really prefer the classics, you could use up all your money, like I did, on a copy of ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ and hardback volume of the 4 long Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, despite the fact you could get it free on the Internet (without the worthwhile classic quality though).
Now, hopefully I’ve inspired at least one person to take up the obsession with this long essay of Sherlockness. And I also hope that the word ‘Sherlockness’ will be put into the dictionary before the year’s out. Look out for any website updates… comment on the blog a little… share the post on twitter… I hope that all this obsessive stuff will inspire myself to be more observant and less judgemental or vacant. But, then again: humans are judgemental. I am a human. So, inescapably, I am judgemental. How about it.
Complete credit and copyright to BBC for top image.