I barely knew who he was back then. I miss that happy ignorance. By the time of the election, I could see his imperviousness to things like Access Hollywood, mocking disabilities, etc, yet I still thought that some old school idea of norms would still apply. (Maybe that was my complacency, D?)

And Shelob Was #tolkienheads

Unfortunately, I’m allergic to podcasts.

I was equally guilty of this back then, and what’s even worse is that after four years of comparative normality under Biden, I slid back into the same kind of complacency. Never again.

(Trivia nerds will be delighted to learn this episode serves as a means of connecting Jon Pertwee with George Clooney. It shouldn’t take much Holmesian deduction to work out the link.)

Away from the canonical chronology and away from London for a proper country house costume drama, with suitably dubious accents and monstrous facial hair to boot. Bonus points for amusing overacting and unfortunate pattern baldness to Eugene Lipinski as Abe Slaney.

By the way, the opening titles, along with Patrick Gowers’ wonderfully ominous theme music, are properly Proustian: more evocative of being a kid in the 1980s watching grownup TV than they could ever be of London in the 1880s. Anyway, let’s try episode two.

A solidly enjoyable start, faithfully adapted and sumptuously presented. Brett is irresistible as Holmes (albeit colossally over the top when the detective is in disguise) while David Burke’s Watson is moral, compassionate, intelligent – a perfect antithesis to the Nigel Bruce-style buffoon.

Weber’s work is incredible. Documents of a lost world.

victor: Hugo

David.

Fucking hell. What enrages me more than gen AI is the kind of wanker who does this shit and then doesn’t even check or notice dumb mistakes.

The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes. Stomach-knottingly tense social thriller in early Sixties Arizona.