Archive for the ‘sir arthur conan doyle’ Tag
Everyone at one time or another has a bad day or a bad week or a bad year. When your in one of these ruts it’s sometimes difficult to pull yourself out of it. Todays post is meant to inspire the readers and to lift their spirits a little. I hope it works for you!
- “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” Helen Keller
- “Keep your eyes on the stars, keep your feet on the ground.” Theodore Roosevelt
- “I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. Arthur Conan Doyle
- “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you got a put up with the rain.” Dolly Parton
- There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
- “Don’t give in! Make your own trail.” Katharine Hepburn
- “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” Margaret Thatcher
- “One of the things I learned the hard way was it does not pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” Lucille Ball
- Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers
- “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” John F Kennedy “
And finally one of my favorites:
Rules for Living
“Do not worry, eat three square meals a day, say your prayers, be courteous to your creditors, keep your digestion’s good, and steer clear of biliousness, exercise, go slow and go easy. Maybe there are other things that your special case requires to make you happy, but, my friend, these, I reckon, will give you a good life.” Abraham Lincoln
THESE SHOULD RAISE YOUR SPIRITS A LITTLE
This blog was intended to supply the masses with “everyuselessthing” I could find. There are also thousands of so-called “trivia experts” out there with knowledge of thousands upon thousands of other strange and odd facts. It’s a true challenge for me to search out a few that even the experts may not have heard before. Here are ten items that were new to me, and I hope new to them as well.
- The name of the monster in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel was not “Frankenstein” but “Adam”.
- According to Ian Fleming’s writings, James Bonds favorite alcoholic beverage wasn’t a vodka martini (shaken not stirred) but bourbon. Of the 317 drinks consumed, Bond drank 37 bourbons, 10 bourbons and branch water, and seven bourbons and soda, but only 19 vodka martinis.
- Although the deerstalker hat is almost a trademark of Sherlock Holmes, he never wore one. Nowhere in Sir Arthur Conan Doyles four novels and 56 stories is the hat ever mentioned. The belief that Holmes wore such a hat can be traced to Sydney Paget, an illustrator for Strand Magazine. Paget, who liked deerstalker hats and wore them himself, produced drawings inaccurately depicting Holmes wearing one.
- The official name of the bed created by the Murphy Door Bed Company was not called a Murphy Bed but an In-A-Door bed.
- The monkey wrench was named after its inventor, Charles Moncky.
- The rock group America was actually formed in England.
- The specific English word for a group of kittens is not litter, which can designate animals of different species, but Kittles, or Kindle.
- Table tennis was invented not in China but in England, where it was originally played with balls made from champagne corks and paddles from cigar box lids. English engineer James Gibbs introduced the celluloid ball.
- The person who invented the electric chair was a dentist. In 1881, Dr. Alfred Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo, New York, saw an intoxicated man touch a live electric generator, which promptly killed him. Thus, the electric chair was born.
- In slang Italian perfume describes garlic.
A special thanks to Ted Nugent for this quote.
I’ve had a relationship for more than fifty years with the criminal justice system in this country. Starting as a cop, then a private investigator, a corporate Loss Prevention specialist, and eventually working for the State of Maine in the Judicial Branch. I’m fascinated with all aspects of the profession which includes collecting odd bits of trivia which I’ll share with you today.
- The world’s first police detective was Eugene Françoise Vidocq. The Frenchman founded the plainclothes civil police unit, the Brigade de la se Surete, in 1812.
- C. Auguste Dupin was the world’s first fictional police detective. Edgar Allen Poe used Eugene François Vidocq as a model for his character C. Auguste Dupin in the 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which is considered to be the world’s first detective story.
- The act of hanging, drawing, and quartering was not abolished in England until 1870.
- Sheraton Hope and Ormond Sacker were the original names of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous crime-fighting duo, Sherlock Homes and Dr. John Watson. They first appeared in a novel called “A Tangled Skein.” Doyle ultimately changed the novel’s title to “A Study in Scarlet” when it was officially published in 1887.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sold more books than J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien combined.
- One in four convicts ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence confessed or pled guilty to crimes they did not commit.
- Until 1998 it was a valid defense against rape or sexual battery in Mississippi to claim that the female victim was not chaste in character.
- From the 11th to the 18th centuries criminals were executed in southeast Asia by being crushed by an elephant.
- A real-life member of Scotland Yard, Inspector Charles Frederick Field, was friends with author Charles Dickens and introduced Dickens to many of London’s criminal haunts. Dickens later featured the inspector in his 1851 short story “On Duty with Inspector Field.”
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE
I decided to do a little trivia today but in a different way. Normally my trivia lists pertain to the same subject such as the human body, accidental deaths, or just about anything you can think of. Today’s list is a scattering of trivia facts and information that are hard to categorize so I’ll just throw them out there and you can read and enjoy them. Here they are . . .
- The upside-down catsup bottle was invented by Paul Brown, who spent years developing a valve that would open when inverted and then close automatically without leaking. Now Brown’s patented valve is used by NASA (so that astronauts cups don’t spill) and by baby food and shampoo manufacturers.
- “Brain Freeze” happens when something cold, such as ice cream, touches the roof of your mouth and causes blood vessels in your head to dilate.
- Each year Americans spend $9 billion on candy and consume more than 25 pounds per person.
- Women have played basketball from the sport’s earliest days; the first intercollegiate women’s basketball game, between Stanford and UC Berkeley, was played in 1896. Stanford won.
- Beyond his weight, President Taft is remembered for being the first US president to throw out a pitch on the opening day of baseball season. Since then, every president except Jimmy Carter has followed suit.
- The word “dictionary” was coined by the English in 1220. John of Garland wrote a book called Dictionarius to help readers master Latin diction. The first dictionaries were English language glossaries of French or Latin words with their English equivalents.
- “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep is sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
- In 2012, a Florida man died after winning a cockroach eating contest at a reptile store. It wasn’t the cockroach that killed him; they are edible and frequently consumed in some cultures. Instead, the likely cause of his death was a rare allergic reaction to cockroach dandruff.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sold more books then J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien combined.
- The Twinkie was invented in 1930 in Chicago. Its creator, James Dewar, noticed that the machines used to produce Strawberry Filled shortcakes were idle for half the year when strawberries were out of season. His original recipe included a banana cream filling. The name was inspired by “Twinkle Toe Shoes.
Well, there are your ten little tidbits of trivia for today. More are sure to follow.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1940 in Sussex, England, of a heart attack. Six years and one month later I was born. Approximately 12 years later I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and saw my first Hollywood movie version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve been hooked ever since. It wasn’t until I was stationed in Korea in the 60’s that I happened upon a complete volume of Sherlock Holmes Adventures in the boudoir of a young Korean women. Since she was unable to read English I took immediate possession of the book and read it so often I wore it out.
In the intervening years I’ve read the entire Holmes collection many times. After leaving Korea I joined the Pennsylvania State Police which also helped prepare me for my thirty years of investigative experiences. I’m not saying that Sherlock Holmes was my total inspiration for my career choice but I couldn’t begin to guess how many times when initiating an investigation I thought to myself, “Watson, the game is afoot”.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to differentiate between Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has always seemed much more real to me as he as does with most of his dedicated fans. The official-unofficial date of birth for Sherlock Holmes has been argued about for years but the general consensuses is January 4, 1854. That would make him 160 years old this month. That’s quite an accomplishment and life span for a fictional character who is widely recognized as the individual solely responsible for the worldwide development of forensics as a tool in criminal investigations.
Just recently I bought myself a new Kindle e-reader and the very first purchase I made was the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries. That’s four complete novels and fifty eight short stories. It gives me a sense of security knowing that I have those stories readily available at a moments notice. This new e-reader is small and easily carried in my pocket and I can take Sherlock with me everywhere, now that we’re both retired.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERLOCK
P.S. If you happen to be in Europe this month why don’t you swing by Riga, Latvia for the Sherlock Holmes birthday celebration.
Check it out at: Riga, Latvia Sherlock Holmes Birthday Festival
We’re well into the month of March, one of the more religiously celebrated months of the year. The following days are observed by millions of people in many varied religions and countries. They are this year; St. David’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Saint Piran’s Day, St. Urho’s Day, and of course Easter Sunday.
I tend to get mixed messages because at the same time we have a total of 287 other daily, weekly, and monthly observances in March that are anything but religious. Here are a few odd and unusual observances that are in my opinion completely ridiculous.
Atheist Awareness Day, Root Canal Awareness Day, Pig Day, Day of the Dude, Corn Dog Day, Snowman Burning Day, and Earmuff Day. Go figure.
I myself have only one observance in March that interests me enough to mention. March 15-17 is Sherlock Holmes Weekend and I celebrate it each year by reading selected stories from my Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collection. Of all of the detectives written about over the years Sherlock Holmes has had more staying power than almost all of them. Alex Cross, Jack Reacher, Travis McGee, and Eve Dallas all have a huge followings around the world but nothing comes close to the Sherlock Holmes contingent of which I count myself a proud member.
Not only is it fun to read detective stories written in the late 1800’s but it’s also amazing to me how many of the skills developed by the Holmes character eventually became talents developed by many real life investigators. I was a criminal investigator and interrogator for more than than thirty years as a police officer, private investigator, and then in the private sector. The most successful investigators have an ability to look at a series of facts and circumstances from a unique angle that most people are unable to do. They place themselves into the mind of a criminal or victim which in turn helps them to understand the simplest of actions and statements which under normal circumstances might go unnoticed by the untrained. My first exposure to that way of thinking was through the Sherlock Holmes stories.
You can’t really appreciate Holmes without giving credit to his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who died on July 7, 1940 in Sussex, England. Six years and one month later I was born. Approximately twelve years later I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and saw my first Hollywood movie version staring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve been hooked ever since.
I’m not saying that Sherlock Holmes was the inspiration for my career but I can’t tell you how many times when I first initiated a case I thought to myself “Watson, the game is afoot” .
One of my all time favorite Holmes mysteries is The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Find it, read it, and enjoy it.
Also thank God for my IPad, I still carry Holmes with me wherever I go.
Are you one of those folks who loves celebrating birthdays? If you are you have my deepest sympathies. I’m not arrogant enough yet to believe that the world and it’s occupants really give a damn when I was born or for that matter when I die. I’ve never seen it as a special day and only send two or three birthday cards a year to family members because it’s the politically correct thing to do. I’d much rather celebrate the things they’ve done in their lives rather than the date randomly determined by the whims of their parents based on when they copulated. It’s a little like Christmas to me in that it’s more for the youngest of us to enjoy. In my opinion we should stop celebrating kid’s birthdays when they stop believing in Santa.
All that being said I’m celebrating in a few days what some folks consider to be the birthday of a fictional character that has taken on a life of his own. Happy Birthday to Sherlock Holmes. There’s no way to actually determine the birth date of Holmes no matter how hard some obsessed fans try but it seems January 6th is the date that’s been decided upon. As I said in the above paragraph the date isn’t all that important to me. This fact was obtained from surveysez.com and will help make my point.
- The total number of Americans who have ever lived: 558.1 million (558,097,837)
Take the number of Americans who’ve ever lived since 1776 and divide that by 365. That would roughly indicate 1,529,035 people born on your birthday. I readily admit it’s not an accurate figure but it does prove my point that the date really isn’t all that meaningful in and of itself.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character out of a need for money and it seemed to me, after reading about his life, he was quite the diva. When he tired of the Holmes character he killed him off without a thought and pursued more intellectual writings. It was too late to just walk away from Holmes as he soon found out. The fan base at the time raised so much hell he was forced to bring Holmes back to life with a lamely written explanation and proceeded to write many more Holmes mysteries.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Doyle but I’ve been captivated by the Holmes character since I was a kid. I’ve read every word written about the character, seen all the remakes, the movies (good, bad, or awful), and remain quite the fan. Even when the Law & Order program based Detective Goren’s (Criminal Intent) character on Holmes, I liked it a great deal.
Birthdays for us real people seem silly to me but a fictional character who has kept himself alive for decades deserves some recognition. Once again, Happy Birthday Sherlock!
everyuselessthing.com 