Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press 2012 - Red Circle of ...

Mar 12 #5 "At the main pilgrimage temple he paid his respects to the head
Lama, who gave him 'a bag of tiny pills which would preserve me
from every possible mischance.'" Spotted by John Baesch in the Daily Tele-
graph obituary (Jan. 31) for Augusto Gansser, a Swiss geologist who died at
the age of 101. He visited Tibet in 1936, disguised as a Buddhist pilgrim,
and he met the head Lama at Mt. Kailash. And his geological expertise was
not limited to the Himalayas: another technical paper "The Roraima Problem,
South America" was published in 1974.
"Sherlock & Shylock: The Sleuths of Venice" will be the theme of the No Fog
Countries Meeting II, scheduled by Uno Studio in Holmes in Venice on Oct.
12-14; details at , and
you can expect wining, dining, lectures, tours, and a concert.
Mona Morstein's THE CHILDHOOD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES was first published by the
Galde Press (Feb 00 #6), and it has been reissued by UCS Press in two vol-
umes as THE HOLMES BOYS: SHERLOCK AND MYCROFT ($14.95 per volume); it's an
imaginative and well-written history of the Holmes family, both parents and
children, told by the butler who served them.
Tim Kelly died on Dec. 7, 1998. According to an obituary in Playbill, he
was thought to be the most-published playwright in America, under his own
name and at least four pseudonyms, writing more than 300 comedies, dramas,
one-acts, mysteries, melodramas, children's shows, and musicals. His work
continues to be popular in the amateur market: in 1998, the Pioneer Drama
Service (one of his publishers) licensed more than 3,000 productions of his
plays worldwide. His Sherlockian credits include more than a dozen plays,
among them an adaptation of William Gillette's "Sherlock Holmes" and drama-
tizations of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Speckled Band".
Titan's recent reprint of Sax Rohmer's THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU (Feb 12
#6) has at the end an interesting essay by Les Klinger on "Appreciating Dr.
Fu-Manchu". A separate section "About the Author" notes the truly ironic
fact that Rohmer died in 1959, "a victim of an outbreak of the type A in-
fluenza known as the Asian flu."
One assumes that many Sherlockians have ordered the British region 2 DVDs
of the second series of the BBC's "Sherlock" (at least those Sherlockians
who can play the DVDs on multi-region DVRs or computers). The box for the
British DVDs carries a "12" rating ("Suitable only for persons of 12 years
and over"), which is similar to the Motion Picture Association of America's
"PG-13" rating ("Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappro-
priate for children under 13"). But that's not because Lara Pulver is seen
wearing nothing but a pair of Louboutins: the box for the British DVDs with
the first series carries the same "12" warning.
Christopher Roden has reported that the Arthur Conan Doyle Society has re-
ceived a message from the Parish Church of St. Oswald's Thornton in Lons-
dale, Yorkshire, where Arthur Conan Doyle married Louisa Hawkins in 1885:
St. Oswald's proposes to commission a special "Arthur Conan Doyle Plaque"
to be affixed to the lych gate entrance to the church and graveyard, and
hopes to raise £20,000 for the project, which will also enhance the church
facilities with a new kitchen area and disabled toilet.