Instead I stayed in and watched Sherlock, a modern re-working of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never warmed to the Baker Street detective but it was a terrific opener from Steven Moffat. It’ll be interesting to see whether the remaining two episodes maintain the standard but given that one is written by Mark Gatiss, who along with Moffat created this series for the BBC, I will be holding my breath and hoping for the best. Gatiss was unfortunately responsible for the duff episode in the recent and otherwise excellent series of Doctor Who, which coincidentally in a separate episode dredged up one of my least favourite quotes:
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.Arthur Conan Doyle must have rather liked this quote as he seems to have used it or a variation thereof a number of times and, judging from how often it makes an appearance elsewhere, his fans are rather fond of it too. Holmes, I’ll assume but I could easily be wrong, makes his statement to illustrate a point rather than pronounce; it’s a shame therefore that his following have taken it so literally. In Doctor Who it is a child but it didn’t stop me from rolling my eyes and adding “or there’s something you haven’t thought of”. For such a statement excludes the possibility of error, that fallibility that makes us human and against which perfection is so boring.
-- Sherlock Holmes
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