A little of what happened in January
Does anyone know where January went? Perhaps it was spending about three weeks reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse that has left me feeling a little lost now I've come to the end of it. I was tempted to start another one of her novels after I finished To the Lighthouse, after all the library in town has a load of them and I have my own copy of Mrs Dalloway lurking around somewhere. My other thought was buying Virginia Woolf's diaries after reading bits of them in Waterstones. If I found that book in the library I'd have it out in a heartbeat but the second it's on a shelf in a bookshop and I have to spend money on it, I am forced to gloomily remind myself that I have too many books to read and not enough money to spend on more. It might be worth asking for it as a birthday present in the future and no doubt October will sneak up far too fast for my liking.
January did last long enough for me to form a bit of a Sherlock obsession that currently has me writing a story with the Mark Gatiss version of Mycroft Holmes after his brother's apparent death. I'm also reading through the original stories, some of which I've read before, some I haven't and a great many that I can remember listening to in the form of the Bert Coules adaptations with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams as Holmes and Watson. I mustn't forget the stories I've watched with Jeremy Brett as Holmes. It's amazing how many years the characters of Holmes, Watson, Mycroft, Mrs Hudson and Inspector Lestrade have been in my life in their many incarnations. I know that another Arthur Conan Doyle tale came into my life even earlier that Sherlock Holmes because I remember listening to a tape with The Lost World back around the same time I had tapes with stories such as Peter Pan and a telling of the Pandora myth.
With my head being so full of Holmes there are a few films I am very tempted to get, which are
The Seven Percent Solution (with Nicol Williamson as Holmes and Charles Gray as Mycroft, who he also played in the Jeremy Brett version), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (which Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have mentioned as a big inspiration) and Without a Clue.
I do have a couple of DVDs to keep me occupied for the meantime, one of which has 5 episodes with Ronald Howard as Holmes from a 1950s TV series and the other is a Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce film, The Woman in Green. The only thing I really know about this film is that the scene of Sherlock and Moriarty having tea in the last episode of the most recent Sherlock is inspired by, or borrowed from, a similar scene in The Woman in Green.
Before I watch either of those I really ought to tidy the hellish tip that is my room. Today is the only day this week that I've felt like I've done nothing useful, so I best change that even if I'd really prefer to be doing anything else.
January did last long enough for me to form a bit of a Sherlock obsession that currently has me writing a story with the Mark Gatiss version of Mycroft Holmes after his brother's apparent death. I'm also reading through the original stories, some of which I've read before, some I haven't and a great many that I can remember listening to in the form of the Bert Coules adaptations with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams as Holmes and Watson. I mustn't forget the stories I've watched with Jeremy Brett as Holmes. It's amazing how many years the characters of Holmes, Watson, Mycroft, Mrs Hudson and Inspector Lestrade have been in my life in their many incarnations. I know that another Arthur Conan Doyle tale came into my life even earlier that Sherlock Holmes because I remember listening to a tape with The Lost World back around the same time I had tapes with stories such as Peter Pan and a telling of the Pandora myth.
With my head being so full of Holmes there are a few films I am very tempted to get, which are
The Seven Percent Solution (with Nicol Williamson as Holmes and Charles Gray as Mycroft, who he also played in the Jeremy Brett version), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (which Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have mentioned as a big inspiration) and Without a Clue.
I do have a couple of DVDs to keep me occupied for the meantime, one of which has 5 episodes with Ronald Howard as Holmes from a 1950s TV series and the other is a Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce film, The Woman in Green. The only thing I really know about this film is that the scene of Sherlock and Moriarty having tea in the last episode of the most recent Sherlock is inspired by, or borrowed from, a similar scene in The Woman in Green.
Before I watch either of those I really ought to tidy the hellish tip that is my room. Today is the only day this week that I've felt like I've done nothing useful, so I best change that even if I'd really prefer to be doing anything else.