Hello again and welcome back to Britain under the microscope 欢迎你又回到《闲话英伦》，hello Anlan.
Hello everybody, so today we're going to talk about the most famous British person in history.
Famous British person?
Well, not in history, actually he is fictional.
Fictional, means he's not real.
Yes.
He is a character created. Ehm…I know who you are talking about, is it Sherlock Holmes?
Absolutely. So today we're going to talk about the famous detective, the famous sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
Sleuth?
Sleuth, is another way of saying detective, SLEUTH.
Oh, which means detective. 所以今天就是福尔摩斯迷的福利了，We're going to talk about Sherlock Holmes.
I have to admit I've been really looking forward to this episode, I absolutely in love Sherlock Holmes.
Are you a fellow Holmesian, or Sherlockian?
Absolutely, I grew up watching Sherlock Holmes on TV, reading his books, I think he is absolutely brilliant.
So let's dig into this.
Enhen
So first of all, let's focus on the detective himself, what are his skills? I remember being very little and I read this part where Dr. Watson was describing him, what he does, what he knows…
You mean
Yes,《血字的研究》
So Watson just makes a few notes that Sherlock Holmes knows nothing about literature, philosophy, astronomy…he has a variable knowledge of botany…
Botany is about plants.
Yeah, it's a study of plants. Practical but limited knowledge of geology. Profound knowledge of chemistry.
Oh, that's why he's always doing those experiments.
Yeah, that's true. He also has an accurate but unsystematic knowledge of anatomy.
Anatomy is about human body.
It's a study of the human body. He has immense knowledge of sensational literature, so that means crime stories, horror stories.
Ah…Sounds like em…Sherlock Holmes and me we shared the same interest.
Yeah, but he also plays the violin very well.
Enhen..
He is an expert boxer and swordsman.
I remember him being depicted in the movies always very handsomely, wielding a sword or…you know, boxing with people.
Yeah, and of course being a detective or a consulted detective, that's how he
Describes himself, he has practical knowledge of British Law as well.
Quite diverse skill set.
Yes, but his main skill is the art of deduction.
The art of deduction, 推理，逻辑推理。
After all these skills, I remember his appearance, how they depicted him, it's always tall and thin.
Yeah.
Right? and very athletic and he has the signature cape and the tweedy clothes.
Lot of his clothes are made of tweed.
Tweed is 粗花呢，it's very very English.
Yeah
And also he has got a cane and a pipe.
Yes.
There is one more thing, all of the Sherlock's fans know about the "deer stalker", the hat called "deer stalker"猎鹿帽。So what's that about?
Well, the interesting thing is he never wore it. It was a creation from the films. In a lot of the illustrations, it shows him wearing a top hat.
Oh, so it's not written in the books.
No, so it's exactly an images that comes from 1940's films. How they always depicted him wearing a deerstalker hat.
Now when people wanna dress up likes Sherlock Holmes, they always have that. It's almost symbolic.
And they have the curly pipe as well.
What about his background, what kind of family, we don't know much about his family, do we?
He mentioned a little bit about his family. But the only family member you actually meet is his brother My croft.
My croft who is even smarter than Holmes.
Yes, but it's very unsure who My croft is, all it says is in the books that he does the books.
Does the books, what does that mean? Some sort of secretive governmental thing?
Not quite. Does the books means he is an auditor, he looks after the budgets of several government departments.
啊，他做审计的。Yeah.
But I have also read it somewhere that people are suspecting he's head a secret service.
Well it's all very mysterious who My croft actually is.
But I think Holmes actually admits his brother is even smarter and better at deduction than he is.
Yes, but he does say that his brother is very very lazy.
Yeah, true, then what about the place they live? 221B Baker street. Is that real? Is that a real address?
Yes and no, Baker street is actually a real place.
Is that where Sherlock Holmes Museum is? I remember going to the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
Yeah, but his Museum is not at 221B Baker Street, what should be 221B Baker Street is actually or it was a bank.
I bet they get all the fan mails.
It's actually a quite famous story that they had to hire someone at this bank to answer all the fan mail.
Because people keep thinking that Sherlock Holmes is real and they keep writing things to him.
So they had to hire someone to sort out all of the fan mail and all of the requests for help.
Did they write back as Sherlock Holmes?
Yeah.
Oh, I bet the fans are happy. So let's talk about the main characters apart from Sherlock Holmes. We have Dr. Watson who was an army doctor, and he's Holmes' flatmate, and also sort of the witness to all of his adventures.
Yeah, in the books, it's exactly Dr. Watson that writes the books, so all of the writing is in his own voice.
Oh, it's in eye of Dr. Watson.
Yes.
Sherlock Holmes famous words: "elementary, my dear Watson."
Everyone thinks that Sherlock Holmes kept saying that, but he never says it.
So that was another myth.
That's another invention, it comes from the movies.
Ah…so here elementary, basically he means that's very simple.
Yeah.
You know, even though sometimes we see Sherlock Holmes being quite condescending to Watson thinking how can you not understand this, how can you not see something so obvious, but he is very important to Holmes.
Well, Dr. Watson's got to be Sherlock Homles'real only friend, if you think about that. And there is a famous quotes where Sherlock Homles says to Dr. Watson: "You won't fail me, you never did fail me."
Ah…It's that why now a lot of modern TV shows and movies thinking that there is something going on between Dr. Watson and Sherlock Homles.
Yeah, if you watch the more modern adaptation there is always a lot of jokes about them being in a relationship together.

like Benedict Cumber batch.
Yeah.
…Sherlock, make a few jokes about that.
And also we cannot mention Sherlock Holmes without mentioning Professor James Moriarty.
Ah…the Napoleon of crime that's how they describing him in the books, because he is the Archnemesis.
死敌，死对头。
Yeh. He is the villain.
大反派。
He is the master criminal who controls the underworld in London.
The big boss of criminals.
Yeah. So essentially he is an evil version of Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, this is something I noticed when I was reading the books then I am thinking if Sherlock Holmes would go evil, he would be Moriarty.
Oh yeah, exactly.
基本上莫里亚蒂教授就是一个黑话版的福尔摩斯。
Yeah.
So what about some famous cases, in China I think the most famous cases are the 《巴斯克维尔庄园的猎犬》，《血字的研究》。And also .
Ah, the famous story with THE Woman.
THE Woman, Irene Adler.
Yeah.
艾琳艾德勒，especially in the latest , they really made an episode on the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Irene.
Yeah, it's very strange if you considered that she only appears in one of the stories, and it's never about love. This is something that Dr. Watson said "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler."
It is always a bit hidden theme going on there when you were not very sure how Sherlock Holmes truly felt about Iriene, but a lot of people who are fans, who are researchers, they love to say that there are something going on.
And they love to talk about it in the stories, in the latest adaptations as well.
And when I was researching this episode, I kept coming across that The Canon of Sherlock Holems, what does that mean? The Canon.
The Canon is the accepted set.
like 全集。Yeah.
En…So what does that include when you say The Canon of Sherlock Holmes?
So the canon is made up of 56 short stories and 4 novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Oh, so that's the Canon.
Yeah.
Ok, So Sherlock Holmes when you think about him, it's always purely logical. It seems like he doesn't have any emotions.
Well no, this is the thing that you see in the more modern adaptations but it really stress that Sherlock Homles doesn't have any emotions.
En, he's like an unemotional robot.
Oh, yes, exactly, and this is something that Sherlock Homles' admits, he says to Watson "I am brain, Watson, the rest of me is mere appendix."
I'm brain, and the rest of me is… just extra.
Yeah.
But these two dimensional character gradually turned into a more complex, I think you can see some of the changes in different stories
So he does become much more complex and he does have emotion, he does have feeling.
So what's your favorite case?
That's really difficult to say, to be honest. I would say .
, Oh, that's a creepy one.
What about you?
For me I would have to say the one that really creep me out was , 《斑点带子》。
Yeah, if you haven't seen those or read those yet
You can check it out.
Yeah, make sure you do. They are brilliant.
Those are really good stories.
And now about the author, so I often wonder how did he, how did Sir Authur Conan Doyle write such a character? He must had relevant background, no?
Well, he did, he was an army doctor himself, he also was an amateur detective as well.
Amateur detective, so not professional.
No.
So, 业余的侦探。
And some people say that it's his former professor Joseph Bell that was the inspiration for Sherlock Homles.
And he also wrote other things apart from Sherlock Holmes, even though we mostly know him because of Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, for example he wrote which was the book that inspired Jurassic Park.
实际上是催生了后面的这个《侏罗纪公园》。
Ehn.
So that's impressive.
So how popular is Sherlock Holmes? I mean in the UK, I know it's quite popular in China and in the world in general. But how popular is he still in the UK?
Sherlock Holmes is still a household name, everyone knows who Sherlock Holmes is, and Sherlock Holmes is the most filmed fully human fictional character.
So how many times?
He's appeared in 292 films and TV shows.
Wow, 292, there must be a lot of actors that played him.
Yeah, if you consider it has been portrait by over 90 different actors.
Some the modern twist like the < Sherlock>, or like the American TV show , I don't know if you have watched that.《基本演绎法》。
With Lucy Lu.
Lucy Lu was actually Dr. Watson, but a female Dr. Watson.
Yeah.
So that was a twist. But I have to say my favorite Sherlock Holmes is still the Granada one by Jeremy Brett.
I would say that in UK as well. Jeremy Brett he eventually the Sherlock Holmes that constantly repeated on TV.
Oh, a lot of reruns.
Yeah, and many people do see him as the classic Sherlock Holmes.
Whenever you think of Sherlock Holmes, you see the face of Jeremy Brett. So like you said that there are so many people, there are so many fans of Sherlock Holmes, there must be a lot of clubs, a lot of societies.
Yeah, they even have their own adjectives: Sherlockian.
Sherlockian, like Sherlock.
So Sherlockian or Holmesian.
If you are a fan, you can also call yourself a Sherlockian or a Holmesian.
And over 900 different societies base on Sherlock Holmes around the world.
900, I bet there are few in China.
So in today episode we talked about Sherlock Holmes the character, we talked about the other main characters, the Author of Sherlock Holmes books, and also its popularity in pop culture.
So if you are also a fan of Sherlock Holmes, let us know, and tell us what you think.
What's your favorite story?
We love to hear you in the comment section.
We see you next time.
Bye. Bye.

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