Guest Post: Guy Adams presents 'The Adventure of the Wrong-Headed Blog'

Originally aired 11th October 1962 on the BBC Light Programme.

Available on the double-CD box set A Little More Sherlock and John (BBC Music, 1997).

ANNOUNCER: This is the BBC Light Programme.

GRAMS: [‘HOLMES AND WATSON OPENING 1’ by Willy Scott]

ANNOUNCER: We present Sherlock Holmes and John Watson with Gordon Lestrade, Martha Hudson and Billy Page in…

GRAMS: [‘HOLMES AND WATSON OPENING 2’ by Willy Scott]

HOLMES: The Adventure of the Wrong-Headed Blog.

EFFECTS: Establishing sounds. Baker Street buzzing with life, news boys holler, cart wheels clatter. We fade into the contemplative world of 221b, a grandfather clock ticks, a match is struck, pipe tobacco crackles.)

HOLMES: What do I say about David Moore, this giant among men?

WATSON: (STRAINED) You tell him to sit in another chair, the colonial colossus is crushing me to death.

MOORE: Sorry, didn’t see you there.

(MOORE gets up. It sounds like the entire contents of a butcher’s shop being moved three feet to the left where it is dumped on another ungrateful armchair.)

HOLMES: There certainly is plenty of him. Where’s the… what should we call him?

WATSON: Author?

HOLMES: That’s stretching things too far.

WATSON: Writer?

HOLMES: No. No. We mustn’t devalue words. That would compound his crime.

WATSON: Hack?

HOLMES: Agreed, let us be gracious, he is, after all, a guest.

ADAMS: (MUFFLED) I’m having the will to live squeezed out of me by my editor.

MOORE: Sorry, didn’t see you there.

ADAMS: It’s fine, it wasn’t an entirely new experience.

(MOORE moves to another chair, it explodes in a huff of suicidal leather and oak.)

MOORE: I’m not this massive in real life, why are you being so mean?

ADAMS: You suggested Holmes’ opening line, what else did you expect me to do? Pander to your ego?

MOORE: I think Lydia was just joking.

WATSON: (LIKE A STARVED DOG BEING SHOWN A MAP TO AN ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD Lydia? There’s a woman here?

(There is the rushed sound of suit brushing, splashed cologne and plucked roses.)

HOLMES: Easy Watson, she’s married.

WATSON: Not for long!

HOLMES: She’s the PR for the publisher. She’s the one who asked Adams to write this meandering nonsense.

WATSON: (IMMEDIATELY DEFLATED, HIS COLOGNE EVAPORATES) She works in publishing? (SIGHS) Never mind.

HOLMES: Indeed, she’s taken up residence in the drinks cabinet and is likely no longer capable of coherent conversation.

(EFFECTS: HOLMES opens the drinks cabinet, there is the sound of raucous German Beer Hall dancing, he immediately slams the door shut again.)

HOLMES: A sight beyond words. I will never be able to enjoy walnuts again. Do pass me that padlock, WATSON, for all our sakes.

(EFFECTS: HOLMES chains up the drinks cabinet.)

HOLMES: So gentlemen, other than incarcerating your inebriated staff, what can we do for you?

MOORE: We were hoping you’d help promote the new book I’ve edited. It’s called Two Hundred and Twenty One Baker Streets and it’s an anthology of Holmesian tales across time and space. A selection of stories offering an unusual take on the characters of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

WATSON: Two hundred and twenty one of them?

MOORE: Sorry?

WATSON: Two hundred and twenty one stories?

MOORE: Erm… no. There’s fourteen actually. From people like Adrian…

WATSON: Then it should be called Fourteen Baker Streets shouldn’t it?

MOORE: Ha! (OFFERS THE SORT OF LAUGHTER PEOPLE EMPLOY WHEN THEY’RE BUSILY TRYING NOT TO PUNCH PEOPLE). That doesn’t sound quite as good.

WATSON: But it would have been more accurate.

MOORE: I don’t think people would expect there to be that many stories.

WATSON:  Unless they’d read the title.

MOORE: Even then. As I say, we have writers like Adrian…

WATSON: I suppose it would be bad for the wrist.

MOORE: I’m sorry?

WATSON: A book containing two hundred and twenty one stories. Nobody wants to publish a book that makes reader’s wrists ache.

ADAMS: I don’t know, I’ve enjoyed a few in my time…

HOLMES:  I fear we’re straying off the point a little.

WATSON: I suppose you could do two hundred and twenty one extremely short stories.

MOORE: Much better to do fourteen really good, satisfying stories, from people like Adrian…

WATSON: “Once upon a time there was a small duck called Sherlock Holmes and he lived on the river with his friend John Watson, an otter.”

MOORE: There are no otters in our book.

WATSON: Don’t blame me. “One day Holmes the duck found the body of a dead moor hen. “Curious!” he quacked, “someone’s killed this moor hen.”

MOORE: Yeah, that’s not really the sort of thing…

WATSON: “It was me Holmes!” cried John Watson the naughty otter, “I stabbed him with this sharpened reed.”

MOORE: Not much of a mystery is it?

WATSON: Shows what you know. It’s brilliant and intriguing. WHY did the otter kill the moor hen?

ADAMS: Because he really hated the pompous, quacking git?

WATSON: Perhaps the otter and the duck could plunge off a weir at the end.

MOORE: Why would they do that?

WATSON: It’s worked before. Drama. Self sacrifice. The noble duck sacrificing himself to rid the world of this bastard of an otter.

(EFFECTS: A loud crashing sound. MOORE has left the room, taking most of a wall with him.)

HOLMES: If you’re going to storm out, Mr Moore, might I ask that you stoop when you negotiate the doors?

(EFFECTS: A distant crash followed by the sound of screams and veering carriages as the behemoth MOORE attempts to navigate the street outside. Eventually the chaos subsides.)

HOLMES: What are we going to do with the sauced-up loon in our drinks cabinet? I was hoping he was going to take her with him.

WATSON: More to the point, why is this entire thing written like a particularly stupid radio programme?

ADAMS: That’s my fault I’m afraid. In my story Holmes and Watson are actors, comedians who play the characters we know from Doyle’s original stories as part of a long-running radio comedy series.

WATSON: Absurd.

ADAMS: I know. It’s actually a far more serious story than this old waffle would suggest but, you know, guest blogs… always hard to think of something to do.

(EFFECTS: The rattle of a chain as ADAMS unlocks the drinks cabinet.)

ADAMS: I’ll be in here if anyone needs me.

(EFFECTS: A burst of German Beer Hall music stifled as ADAMS closes the door behind him.)

WATSON: A brave man. So what do we do now? This has gone on far too long as it is.

HOLMES: (RE-LIGHTING HIS PIPE) Tell me more about this naughty otter.

WATSON: Well! He is the Napoleon of River Based crime! He strikes fear into the hearts of badger and water boatman alike…

(EFFECTS: We fade out on their conversation, moving outside to where the screaming continues as MOORE makes his slow way back to his Oxford office, muttering to himself about the perils of working with stupid authors.)

MUSIC: [‘HOLMES AND WATSON CLOSE’ by Willy Scott.]

***

Guy Adams (guyadamsauthor.com) has written far too many books. In recent years these have included: the Heaven’s Gate Trilogy for Solaris; the Deadbeat books for Titan and the Clown Service series for Del Rey UK.

He has, as yet, not written far too many comics but he’s working on it: he’s written a number of strips for 2000 AD including a reinvention of Grant Morrison’s Ulysses Sweet: Maniac for Hire, scripted The Engine for Madefire and is the co-creator of Goldtiger with artist Jimmy Broxton.

A lifelong fan of Sherlock Holmes (once playing him, rather badly on stage) he has written two original novels, The Breath of God and The Army of Dr Moreau, as well as a couple of non-fiction books.

He is the author of A Study in Scarborough in the new Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets anthology, out now from Abaddon Books!

Order: UK | US

Guest Post: Jamie Wyman on the Soggiorno Brothers' Travelling Wonder Show

When the indomitable David Thomas Moore and his epic beard approached me to participate in his Sherlock Holmes alt-anthology, I couldn’t say no. (Seriously, the beard held me at gun point.) His instructions were posed as questions: What would Holmes and Watson be in a different time and place? Would they still solve mysteries? Would they even be friends?

And so these are the questions I asked myself when putting together “A Scandal in Hobohemia”.

Truth be told, I jumped at the chance to be a part of Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets. I have always enjoyed the stories of Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson. Be they the original Doyle works or the modern film adaptations, the mysteries are not what keep me riveted, but the relationship between the two lead characters. I’ve always loved the strange, inexplicable friendship Holmes and Watson share. They are from disparate backgrounds and Sherlock can be so maddening that sometimes the true mystery is not who done it, but how do these two men not kill one another?

This relationship is what I chose to focus on in my story, answering the question originally posed by David Moore, “Would they even be friends?”

I drew inspiration from many Sherlocks: the Doyle works, the Robert Downey Jr. films, and the BBC series. While I do draw on canonical details and character traits, I wanted to distance my work from Doyle’s. So, I chose to rename my characters. In “A Scandal in Hobohemia” readers will meet newly minted Pinkerton Agent Jim Walker, our Watson. A veteran of the Great War, Jim was an army medic who served largely in France. His partner is Agent Adele Trenet, a Pinkerton officer who happens to moonlight as a mole for Leland Haus, the head of the Secret Service. While Agents Trenet and Walker are on a case for Pinkerton, Mr. Haus has sent his spy to look in on his wayward little brother Sanford. Both missions lead them to the Soggiorno Brothers Traveling Wonder Show in the dusty Midwest of the United States. The circus and Ms. Trenet’s cases are the backdrop of what I feel is the true story: the meeting of our Sherlock and Watson.

I had immense fun writing in this world with these characters, and hope to revisit the Traveling Wonder Show in the future. While you enjoy Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets, I do hope you enjoy your time at the circus. 

***

After a misspent adulthood pursuing a Music Education degree, Jamie Wyman (www.jamiewyman.com) fostered several interests before discovering that being an author means never having to get out of pajamas. She has an unhealthy addiction to chai, a passion for circus history, and a questionable hobby that involves putting a flaming torch into her mouth. When she’s not traipsing about with her imaginary friends, she lives in Phoenix with two hobbits and two cats. Jamie is proud to say she has a deeply disturbed following at her blog.

Jamie’s debut novel Wild Card (Entangled Edge, 2013) is available wherever ebooks are sold. You can also find her short story “The Clever One” in the anthology When The Hero Comes Home 2 (Dragon Moon Press, August 2013). Look for Unveiled, the follow-up to Wild Card, in November 2014. 

She is the author of A Scandal in Hobohemia in the new Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets anthology, out now from Abaddon Books!

Order: UK | US

Guest Post: Joan De la Haye on the journey to 'The Rich Man's Hand'

It all started one chilly morning while keeping Sarah Lotz company outside the Metropole Hotel in Brighton, while she sucked some nicotine into her lungs, during the World Fantasy Convention in 2013.

I was just an innocent bystander, watching others smoking and trying to pretend that I wasn’t freezing my arse off. I hadn’t seen Sarah in ages and wanted to catch up – she’s always a good laugh and probably one of my favourite writerly types, so she’s worth enduring a little cold weather for and at least I didn’t get frostbite. Bear in mind that I’m South African so anything under 20°C is considered cold and the weather that weekend in Brighton was well below that.

Somewhere along the line David Thomas Moore, the bearded, crazy, genius, joined the conversation. Sarah said something about my writing being twisted and that I was sick in the head. In any other circles that would probably be considered an insult, but not in the horror writing world. Someone saying that about you in the horror world is probably the greatest compliment a writer can get. I duly blushed. David had a strange evil glint in his eyes as he turned to me and asked if I’d be interested in writing a story for his Sherlock Holmes anthology. I thought he’d lost his mind or had a few too many pints at the bar. Who in their right mind would ask me to write a story about Holmes?

I think I may have had a few too many glasses of wine at the bar and said yes. Because, hey, I love Sherlock! I did, however, add a disclaimer and warned him that, as Sarah had pointed out, it was likely to be bit twisted. He seemed pleased by that idea, which left me wondering just how twisted was I allowed to be … I had a feeling he wouldn’t have a problem with my writing something as twisted as I could possibly get.

By the end of the convention I’d convinced myself that there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell that I would ever hear from Mr Moore again, but a few months later there was an email in my inbox from David asking if I was still interested. I almost shat myself. I was now actually going to have to produce something that was worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. I knew there was no point in trying to reproduce the original stories and plus that wasn’t what David wanted. I also realised that an editor wouldn’t ask a horror writer for a story unless he wanted a horror story, so that’s what I set out to do. I also wanted to have a bit of fun with it.

Pretoria is my home town and Mamalodi, the township, informal settlement, ghetto, or whatever you want to call it is only about a ten minute drive from my front door. It’s the type of setting that most people living in first world countries would find alien, but is common place anywhere in Africa and other developing countries. I wanted to put Sherlock and Watson outside of the readers comfort zone and away from the normal settings. Pretoria and Mamalodi are also not the typical settings you find in most South African novels. Most South African authors seem to set their books in Johannesburg or Cape Town or in more exotic locations, but I prefer to set my stories in places that I know well.

Mamalodi may not be as dangerous as some of the other informal settlements that they have in Johannesburg, but it has a character all of its own and makes for an interesting backdrop for Holmes and Watson and a muti murder.

I’m incredibly grateful for having had the chance to spend some time with Holmes and Watson and for working with David. It’s been one hell of a fun rollercoaster ride. I can’t wait to see what else David and the Abaddon team do next. 

***

Joan De La Haye (joandelahaye.com) writes horror and some very twisted thrillers. She invariably wakes up in the middle of the night, because she’s figured out yet another freaky way to mess with her already screwed up characters.

Joan is interested in some seriously weird stuff. That’s probably also one of the reasons she writes horror.

Her novels, Shadows and Requiem in E Sharp, as well as her novella, Oasis, are published by Fox Spirit (foxspirit.co.uk).

You can find Joan on her website and follow her on Twitter @JoanDeLaHaye.

She is the author of The Rich Man's Hand  in the new Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets anthology, out now from Abaddon Books!

Order: UK | US

Guest post: The Case of the Galaxy Far, Far Away By J. E. Cohen

New York, 1977

Following the events which I have chronicled in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Bandana,’ Holmes seemed to descend into depression, as he often did after a case which tested the glittering heights of his deductive prowess.

            One evening when I called on him in Bleecker Street, I found him slumped in his armchair with the telltale glassy-eyed expression which I had seen before. His violin hung listlessly from one hand, and beside his chair was a plastic Baggie half-filled with white powder.

            ‘Enough,’ I said. ‘I will not allow you to wallow in his apartment, taking drugs. You are coming out with me right now.’

            ‘What’s the point? Everything is so dull.’

            ‘It’s New York, man. The world is at our fingertips. A concert, a movie. Actually, yes—a movie would be perfect. You need a more wholesome escape from your own mind.’

            He fluttered an indifferent hand. ‘Movies are for the simple-minded. I need a case, Watson. And perhaps some more—’

            I snatched the bag of coke and flushed it down the toilet.

            Half an hour and some harsh words later, we were sitting in the third row of The Strand theatre, watching the opening credits scroll across the screen. Holmes looked supremely bored, but I was quite excited. I’d seen Star Wars before and I was delighted to be seeing it again.

            Most of my attention was taken up by the thrilling events on the screen (and the smart-mouthed charms of Carrie Fisher), but I did notice that Holmes was gradually sitting upright, his keen eyes focused on the film. By the final scene, he was positively on the edge of his seat, his hands clasped, his mouth quirked into half a smile.

            ‘So you enjoyed it,’ I said to him as we left the theatre into the neon Manhattan night.

‘Surprisingly so.’

‘Even though movies are for the simple-minded, and science fiction is utterly implausible?’ I couldn’t resist repeating his own words to him. ‘What did you like the best? The space battles, the light sabres, the Death Star?’

‘It gave ample scope for observation and deduction. Of course it was obvious that C3PO was suffering from backache, but less so that Grand Moff Tarkin was wearing too-tight shoes. Or that two thirds of the cantina band had recently given up smoking.’

‘Holmes, I rather think you have missed the point.’

‘I miss nothing. Surely even you must have noticed that the Imperial Stormtroopers were nearly all left-handed, due, no doubt, to the magazine on the modified Sterling L2A3 submachine guns they used.’

I threw up my hands. ‘But what of the story?’

‘Stories are for children, Watson. All the same, I thought the twist was moderately cleverly done.’

‘What twist? When Han Solo returns, you mean?’

‘I mean the fact that Darth Vader is both Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia’s father.’

I stopped on the sidewalk, flabbergasted. ‘Holmes…that’s not in the film.’

‘I think you will find that it is.’

He lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs, like a man who has found a new zest for life.

‘Overall, this has been a most invigorating evening. I think we should watch another film. What say you to Smokey and the Bandit?’

***

J. E. Cohen’s (julie-cohen.com) life changed at age eleven, when she bought The Complete Sherlock Holmes because it was the biggest book in the shop. She joined the Baker Street Irregulars at sixteen, and at age twenty-two moved to England to study Arthur Conan Doyle’s involvement in the Cottingley fairy photographs. Despite not being able to draw, she is an official cartoonist for The Sherlock Holmes Journal, with her feature “Overrun By Oysters.” Under the name Julie Cohen she writes novels which have sold nearly a million copies worldwide. Tweet her @julie_cohen.

She is the author of The Adventures of the Speckled Bandana in the new Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets anthology, out on Abaddon Books October 9th

Pre-order: UK | US