Two days ago BBC 1 broadcast "His Last Vow", the brilliant finale to the third series of "Sherlock". It was followed immediately on BBC 4 by the excellent documentary, "Timeshift: How to Be Sherlock Holmes" - but earlier in the evening "Countryfile", back on BBC 1, had paid a visit to Arthur Conan Doyle's former home at Hindhead in Surrey.
This morning on "Today", the regular early morning programme on BBC Radio 4, the historian Dr Lucy Worsley and our own M J Elliott (well, I think of him as one of us, anyway) spoke about the character, the writer and the house.
Here's the link to my Times Past SkyDrive folder: http://sdrv.ms/TCF5PV
Roger
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I am grabbing the HD 720p and the standard def. version of Countryfile right now with get_iplayer. I can upload them if requested. I'm no video editor so if the ACD piece is just a part of the show, probable, I won't be editing the rest out like I do with audio files.
I don't know if iPlayer still has shows for 7 days only or if they have changed that. I'm sure I recently read they would change it to one month. As Countryfile goes out on Sunday it should still be possible to watch for at least the coming 48 hours. If you can access iPlayer that is.
Thanks for the heads-up Roger. I regularly do BBC searches for 'Sherlock Holmes' but missed this. Maybe because it's more Conan Doyle related the beeb have filed it under his name. I'll have to remember to do searches for both in future.
I caught Lucy Worsley on some TV documentary on the Yesterday channel the other day. It was about the history of the bathroom. That was an eye-opener!
If you plan on watching this bathroom history doc. then what I'm about to say might be considered a spoiler.
Lucy went into the sea on what looked like a cold day in this long full-length gown. I've not really taken to Lucy Worsley but have nothing against her either. But going into the sea on a cold day, all the way let me add, did surprise me. I have a new found admiration for her now,.
I believe she used Judith Flanders as a consultant on the English murder series. Her book from a year or two ago was a good read.
Quite right, Jake. I reviewed Lucy Worsley's book "A Very British Murder" in the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's newsletter back in November. This is what I said:
"You wait ages for a book about the British popular fascination with murder in fact and fiction, and then two come along – well, not exactly at once, but pretty close together. The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders was actually published in 2011, and Ms Flanders acted as a consultant to the recent fine BBC4 TV series A Very British Murder: The Story of a National Obsession, and the book of the same title by Lucy Worsley (BBC Books; www.randomhouse.co.uk; £20.00). As Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, Dr Worsley is probably best known for her works on the monarchy and the development of the British home, but her interest in murder as a social phenomenon is genuine. In 1827 Thomas De Quincey’s satirical essay ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’ broached the idea of the English as ‘Murder-Fanciers’. He was inspired by the brutal killing in 1811 of a shopkeeper and his family in Ratcliffe Highway, and the possible miscarriage of justice by which John Williams was speedily arrested, convicted and hanged. The Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829, developed in parallel with science and medicine. Detection of crime became gradually more sophisticated, but so did crime itself, including murder. Real-life detectives were immortalised in fiction – Inspector Field as Inspector Bucket in Bleak House, Inspector Whicher as Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone – and fictional murder became big business, not least when it was satisfactorily solved by a truly great detective, as too few factual murders were. Sherlock Holmes came on to the scene just as the police and scientific specialists were learning, as Dr Worsley puts it, to read a body. It was a timely arrival. The Invention of Murder is rightly recommended as the fuller, more comprehensive study, and A Very British Murder makes an admirable companion volume."
Roger
I've had that book of De Quincey's (On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts) on my list of books to read for as long as I can remember. I read De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater around my mid-teens. I came across him as I had recently read some Coleridge, who I came across when I saw his plaque on St Mary's church in Ottery St Mary which is about 12 miles from me. In consecutive order I read The Ancient Mariner followed by Kubla Khan and then De Quincey's Confessions. Heady stuff. Ever since that time I have been meaning to read On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts. I've downloaded an ebook version from Project Gutenberg however I can't work out what edition Gutenberg have used. It would be nice to know when the edition they have used was originally printed.
Thanks, Roger.
Thank You! I just yesterday posted a BBC TV Documentary set on the British Fascination with Murder and the History both real and in Literature. It is in the Documentary group. if you have not seen it, it is excellent and hosted by Lucy Worsley. -------- R
I saw the TV documentary and reviewed the book! Same title; "A Very British Murder".
Roger