UK 2022: Stage Fright.

 

 

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally the day - we're in London, and we have tickets for the sold out 12:45 show of the immersive Doctor Who: Time Fracture event today.  However, I'm surprised to realize that I'm inexplicably nervous about it.

I'm not sure why.  The show is well reviewed (although I haven't done too much research so as to avoid spoilers), I was reassured via e-mail that the venue would accept whatever COVID-19 documentation we used to get into the UK*, I brought my Angels have the Phone Box t-shirt, we've got the London Underground pretty well figured out,  it's close enough that if something went very wrong with the Tube at the last minute we could actually walk there (although it would be a bit of a hike), I've already picked out the t-shirts I want to buy, it would all seem to be under control, but I'm still a bit on edge.

It may just be the weight of expectation.  We've come a long way, spent a lot of money, and exposed ourselves to some COVID-19 risk for this**, and it would be devastating if something went wrong. 

Well, as I like to say, we're here now - it's time to be the hero.

- Sid

* "If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us."

** I have nothing but praise and gratitude for Karli in all of this.  Imagine flying a quarter of the way around the planet wearing a mask so that your husband can go to a two and a quarter hour fan event - I'm not sure I deserve that degree of love.

UK 2022: Tomorrow's the Day.

You know, it never occurred to me that there would be actual ads in London for the Doctor Who: Time Fracture event - when you're researching something 7500 kilometers away, it all seems so much more abstract than that.

- Sid

UK 2022: 221B

We start our first full day in London with a visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, located not quite at 221B Baker Street, a fictitious address even when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle originally introduced the character of the world's most famous detective. (Fortunately, the museum has been kind enough to fake up a doorway for the Instagram crowd.)

The museum combines a fascinatingly detailed recreation of Holmes and Watson's bachelor residence with set pieces recreating their most famous cases. The recreation hits the high notes from the stories such the tobacco filled Persian slipper on the mantle and the queen's initials punched out on the wall in bullet-holes (one would expect the neighbours to complain about this sort of thing) and fills in the rest with appropriate and authentic artifacts from the era.

Although Sherlock Holmes doesn't identify as either SF or fantasy, it's hard to ignore how frequently he shows up in one form or another in genre literature: revealed as the nephew of Vlad Tepes in The Holmes-Dracula File, the second book in Fred Saberhagen's Dracula series; crosscast as queer black FBI agent Sara Holmes in Claire O'Dell's near-future Janet Watson Chronicles; investigating the Great Old Ones for James Lovegrove in The Cthulhu Casebooks; mismanaging magical investigations in the Warlock Holmes series, by G. S. Denning; and in innumerable other novels, short stories, guest appearances, and offstage references.

For conveniently short examples, the curious reader can sample Poul Anderson's The Martian Crown Jewels, featuring Martian consulting detective Syaloch, whose second floor lodging is located on The Street of Those Who Prepare Nourishment in Ovens, and Neil Gaiman's Hugo-winning A Study in Emerald, featuring a consulting detective, a wounded Afghanistan war veteran, and a queen named Victoria, none of whom are who you think they are.

- Sid