Today, November 3rd would have been Jeremy Brett's 85th birthday.  Sadly, he was taken from us too soon.  Happy birthday Jeremy - the definitive Sherlock Holmes!

I've talked about this on Facebook, but I'll post it here also. The JeremyBrett.info website is going away. I've decided not to renew it, because 1) I don't own the domain name and the woman who does won't even answer my emails, so I have no guarantee that we can continue anyway and 2) the database crashed and it would take nearly a thousand dollars to reprogram and migrate to another site.

Fortunately, the Wayback Machine has a number of copies and almost all of the content will continue to be available there, although of course, it can no longer be updated.
It can be accessed here: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.jeremybrett.info/

January 6th is supposed by many to be the birthday of Sherlock Holmes. I'll ad my voice and say Happy Birthday, Mr. Holmes

As Tiny Tim observed "God bless us, every one" whether you believe or not, it's the thought that counts.
Here, have a lovely picture, courtesy of the talented Julia Notte-Karwas.

Somebody in the Gift of the Heart for Jeremy Brett group on Facebook just pointed me toward a wonderful interview with Peter Haining, author of many books, including The Television Sherlock Holmes. (Well worth reading, BTW) In the interview he expresses a great deal of admiration for Jeremy Brett who really poured himself into his role as Holmes, but the part that I thought really hit the nail on the head was when he talked about Peter Cushing:

"Peter Cushing...who was very quiet, very gentle, but determined to portray the character in the way he felt was closest to the original author's intention - whereas so many actors want to change a character and imprint themselves on it. If you're dealing with classic figures of fiction, if you want to really carry the audience with you, then go back to the original. It wouldn't be so popular or enduring if the original hadn't got it right in the first place."

Bingo! Mr. Haining, you just expressed in three sentences exactly why I don't care for either Elementary, or Sherlock, or the 2013 Russian series. Note that I'm not necessarily blaming the actors themselves; I'm sure the directors had a great deal to do with the idiosyncratic, quirky portrayals of Holmes that emerge from those shows. And they are original, they are modern, they are whatever. The point is, none of them are Sherlock Holmes to me in the way that Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing, and Vasily Livanov were - precisely because those are the guys who kept it closest to Doyle's original character.

Merry Christmas to all, or whatever holiday you celebrate! I hope yours is wonderful!

Here's a link to some fabulous vids by marycrawford to help you along.

http://www.iment.com/maida/keepthissecret/songvids/hwsong.htm

If Oh, Come All Ye Faithful doesn't float your boat, I guarantee that Auld Lang Syne will have you in tears. (In a good way, of course). Feel free to share the links, but she doesn't want them reposted to Youtube, because of possible copyright issues.

Enjoy!

Yay! Leslie Klinger just posted
The U.S. Supreme Court today denied the Conan Doyle Estate's petition for certiorari--CASE OVER!

And isn't it totally appropriate that this decision came down on what would have been Jeremy Brett's 81st birthday. Happy Birthday to Jeremy!!

As usual, I'm late to the party. Not having been around as long as many of you, I'm never sure how much of what is new to me may be familiar to everyone else, so apologies if this is old hat.

Howard K Ritter of the WelcomeHolmes Yahoo Group recently posted a link to an amazing Flickr photostream of shots taken during the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's visit to the Granada Baker Street set in December, 1987. There are exterior and interior shots, shots with Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, and Rosalie Williams, and lots of the Society members.

I would have loved to have been there, (I think! urk - those glasses!) but I guess this is the next best thing.

Here's the link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/shsl/12094002423/in/set-72157640058850925

(opens in a new window - there are tons of photos)

tweedisgood recently posted a lovely image of Jeremy Brett as Nicholas Rostov in War and Peace from 1956. In that same spirit, here's a little more slightly older Jeremy eyecandy. This one is from the Number 10 episode Bloodline. I actually think I prefer this one, if only because it's been a long time since I was 25.

Again, the only possible response is *thud*