Addendum...

Oh, and darlings, I should warn you that all Mummy's stories have adult themes...

... you have been warned, dears! *grins*

Spring is indeed sprung!

Darlings,

as well as putting Mummy's latest story on TwitLonger she has included it here on her blog for you. Parts 2 and 3 to follow over the holiday season (who said all your Christmases wouldn't come at once! *chuckles*). Inner Fire - Part 1: The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Enjoy, darlings, I believe The Professor did... *grins wickedly*

Poems

Darlings,

it's a fine line between the brave and the foolish... I will not ponder on it too much and claim bravely to include here some of Mummy's poems for you.

The following poems be found on this page darling: POEMS

SHIPPING NEWS
THE PUZZLE
ON THE APPLICATION OF LIPSTICK

I hope they provoke some thoughts and even some tittering! *chuckles*

Kiss or Kill?

Ah, darlings! The story of how Mummy ended up with the ring Sherlock used to propose to Irene is finally revealed. In fact it was one of three pieces of magnificent jewellery... and three tempting proposals!

In homage to this I present this story for you in three parts. And to be kind I will not make you wait for parts 2 and 3! *chuckles* But don't think it didn't cross my mind dears!

I hope you enjoy it - Mummy would like to thank with great depth and love the writer of @VinHampton for her valuable input to the story, and her magnificent drawing which adds to the story's climax. You, my darling, shine as brightly as any diamond!

Start the tale, dears, with Kiss or Kill? - Part 1 here.

If you would like to read the role plays around the current use of the ring by Sherlock, then see my previous post on The Story of the Diamond Ring.

***I dedicate this story to all the players of The Great Game - gone, but not forgotten... ***

The Story of the Diamond Ring

Hello Darlings,

Mummy's recent silence on this blog has been because she has been working hard to capture her memories of the whole story of the ring the Professor gave her many years ago... the same divisive ring that Sherlock foolishly used to propose to Irene (in all fairness he was not aware of its history!).

The roleplays (RP) are now here on this blog to their current (albeit unfinished) point, dears, and reflect the story today. Read them in the order they are presented, darlings:

1. Reminiscing (the Professor returns to reminisce and warn)
2. Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses (Mummy discovers Sherlock's use of the ring)
3. Ring around the Heart -Part 1 (Irene learns the ring's provenance)
4. Ring around the Heart - Part 2 (Mummy is confronted with her ring)

In the next week I will post the story of when the Professor first gave Mummy the ring... stay tuned, dears...

London Calling

Darlings,

Mummy has realised that she has fallen in love with - of all things - London's red telephone boxes. They are so iconic, and they are everywhere! I am amazed that they are still in existence, as in Australia more and more public phones are being removed, especially now so many people carry a phone in their pockets! And in truth I didn't see any of the ones I photographed being used today, so I hope they keep them around into the future...

They pop up everywhere, usually when you're not expecting it. So many are tucked around many corners, like this one below that is near St-Giles-in-the-field Church. It looks like it snuck around the corner and is lying in wait for an unsuspecting passer-by!




Talking about an ambush, dears, I particularly like the way they gang up on you. Yes there are single ones, standing proudly alone. Boldly being a garish red amongst all the neutral colours of the buildings and roads of London. But there are also pairs of them, quite frequently, like these two at Covent Garden markets. They have a way of looking like they have achieved a form of solidarity in their red comradeship.














So imagine my unbridled joy when I found this entire family - five in a row - outside the Bow Street Magistrates Court. The court is now disused and the building looks abandoned. But I like to imagine all the court reporters rushing outside and into these phone boxes with the latest news about who's been sent down and who got off scott free! *chuckles* Of course being opposite the Royal Opera and Ballet School means it is also possible that youngsters snuck across the road and called home to lie that all was well to Mum and Dad while they chased their dreams, lost in the big city!




But then, at the end of today, I came across this last phone box on my walk around town. It is located on Charring Cross Rd, near Cambridge Circus. I was rather surprised at seeing it and had to look twice to be sure I hadn't gone colour blind! For quite clearly, darlings, this telephone box has gone over to the dark side!

Oh Button, My Button!

Hello Darlings,

here's a little poem dedicated to the hardest working buttons in showbiz! It is based just post-Reichenbach dears...

--------------------------------------------------
Oh button, my button
Out fearful trip is done
The shirt has weathered every rack
And not once come undone!

John's in tears,
The belles I hear
In the fandom all theorizing
While follow eyes the steady mind
Of the detective grim and daring.
--------------------------------------------------

And to take your minds off the pain - here's a little picture! *chuckles*

Sherlock and the ring

Hello my darlings,

Mummy has had her scissors and glue out and put together all the Sherlock and Mummy RP scenes covering our reconciliation. You will find this listed under the pages on the right as Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses, a rather apt name, I believe for dealing with children and cursed rings...

Do enjoy, dears!
Kisses
xxx

The Vixen

Darlings, the Professor calls Mummy by this pet name - but the power of naming is a strong force and some care should be taken... for meaning can be acquired, dears, where once there was none.

Read some more about The Vixen on this blog, here ("The Vixen: a documentary" under the list of pages to the right).

Mummy.
xxx

Sherlock Limericks

Darlings,

Mummy has added more limericks - for Irene, Kate, Mrs Hudson, and Moriarty on this blog, here: Sherlock Limericks

Who else needs a limerick? Requests taken, dears! *smiles*

Sherlock Noir

In the fun and somewhat saucy season 2 first episode of BBC’s Sherlock - “A Scandal in Belgravia” - there is one very dark scene that I love because it is classic film noir.

(See below for the script.) While the exact definition and boundaries of the genre are well debated, Film Noir has some clear traits that even I can identify in this Sherlock scene which is so beautifully filmed and acted.

Firstly - noir, which is French for “black”, refers to both the lack of colour and the mood, with many of the film noir classics dating to the black and white cinema tradition. An underlying theme of film noir is alienation - bleakness, despair, and cynicism. It is often associated, especially in the 1940s, with detective movies, such as The Maltese Falcon, that have hard-boiled detective heroes who have frequently, if not fatally, become entangled with a femme fatale. Along with the seedier side of the life of the “private dick” are the underbelly characters, the drugs, prostitution, crime and of course plenty of cigarettes (often as a symbolic substitute for sex in a highly censored Hollywood film industry).

So how amazing is it that Steven Moffat and Paul McGuigan worked all of that seamlessly into one short scene in Sherlock? Of course, what better location for a Film Noir scene than at a morgue. Even the effervescent Molly is subdued by the realisation that there might be “another woman” in Sherlock’s life. That the “femme” in this case has proven her own fatality is an integral part of the greater arc of the episode - as is the ambivalence of our leading man’s feelings for her - the cigarette is, after all, low-tar! 

Our bleak scene is set with a dark, stormy night as snow falls on the Hospital - looking both sinister and grimly picturesque. The colour palate is decidedly black and grey. Even the splash of colour in the morgue’s examination room is used to hide and obscure our characters (and perhaps their motives too) as the camera pans around columns. The use of low camera angles, long empty corridors and high contrast lighting create the distinct film noir visual effect needed.

In what turns out to be our only intimate scene in two seasons between brothers Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, we are often given a point of view of the outsider and voyeur looking in - through the window, or through the door. In the DVD commentary, Mark Gattis (co-creator, writer, and the actor that plays Mycroft) notes that without an audience to impress, this is a wonderful insight into the non-competitive - possibly as “normal” as we’ll ever see -  side of the Holmes family. 

That these characters stand apart from the norm is echoed in Sherlock’s question “Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us?” Both highly intelligent and manipulative men, we discover that even the little bit of comfort Mycroft offers Sherlock in this scene - a Christmas cigarette - is in itself a pre-conceived test (of which John Watson is aware) of the depths of despair Sherlock’s friends anticipate he might sink to (and a subtly managed reference to Sherlock’s past drug problems).

And of course - if you’re only going to have one cigarette, then milk it’s film coolness for all it’s worth. Benedict Cumberbatch (despite his personal exhortations otherwise) may indeed have set back anti-tobacco campaigns by years through this one scene alone! It’s easy to see why marketing for a cigarette brand used to be a dream job - especially if you had an iconic character with a cool coat and manner to match.


But this is not art for art’s sake. The dialogue for the scene reflects the same alienation as the photography - especially with our Holmes boys’ backs to the camera as Mycroft states “Caring is not an advantage”. This introduces a key theme of the season, and a vital clue to Sherlock’s solution to the Irene Adler case.

Adding to the bleakness are lines like “All lives end, all hearts are broken” - which is delivered in all its cynicism from the end of a tunnel-like corridor. Life is full of pain, but as Sherlock learns in the next two episodes, while keeping your emotional distance may be a logical advantage, it is not necessarily the best or the most human solution.

Yes, I could continue to wax lyrical about the perfect marriage of form and content in this scene - but I think the point is made. Paul McGuigan’s direction and Fabian Wagner’s photography deserve the highest praise in delivering such a delectably black scene with such haunting beauty. And that Steven Moffat delivers humour amid the bleakness provides some light relief in a morbid (literally) moment.

Our characters might conclude the scene with platitudes of the season - but there is nothing merry or happy about this scene - and it provides a good catalyst for the story moving forward, as it is easy to grieve with/for Sherlock into the subsequent scenes. This is cinematic perfection!

*** SPOILER ALERT***

A Scandal in Belgravia

Written by Steven Moffat. Directed by Paul McGuigan.

Director of Photography: Fabian Wagner

Shot of Exterior of St Bart’s Hospital at night. It is snowing.  Sherlock and Mycroft walk down a bleak corridor and enter the Morgue where Molly waits with a body lying under a sheet.

MH: ... the only one who fitted the description. Had her brought here, your home from home.

SH: You didn’t need to come in, Molly.

Molly: That’s OK, everyone else was busy with... Christmas. Uh, the face is a bit sort of bashed up, so... it might be a bit difficult. (Lowers sheet from body’s face.)

MH: That’s her isn’t it?

SH: Show me the rest of her.  (Molly lowers the sheet from the body. Sherlock gazes up and down body.) That’s her. (Exits Morgue.)

MH: Thank you, Miss Hooper.

Molly: Who is she? How did Sherlock recognise her from... not her face?

SH: (Smiles. Exits Morgue after Sherlock.)

Corridor outside Morgue.

MH: (Holds up a cigarette.) Just the one.

SH: Why?

MH: Merry Christmas!

SH: Smoking indoors, isn’t there one of those... one of those law things?

MH:We’re in a morgue. There’s only so much damage you can do. How did you know she was dead?

SH: She had an item in her possession. One she said her life depended on. She chose to give it up.

MH: Where is this item now? (Sounds of distant wailing.)

SH: (Notices grieving family beyond doors at end of corridor.) Look at them, they all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us?

MH: All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage... Sherlock.

SH: (Exhales cigarette smoke and pulls a face.) This is low tar.

MH: Well, you barely knew her.

SH: Huh. (Walks away smoking.) Merry Christmas, Mycroft.

MH: And a Happy New Year. 

(Sherlock exits. Mycroft dials on mobile.)

MH: He’s on his way. Have you found anything?

John: No. Did he take the cigarette?

MH: Yes.

John: Shit! (Turns to Mrs Hudson.) He’s coming, ten minutes.

Mrs H: There’s nothing in the bedroom.

John: Well, it looks like he’s clean. We’ve tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight’s a danger night?

MH: No, but then I never am. You have to stay with him, John.

John: I’ve got plans.

MH: No. (Hangs up.)

John: Mycroft? M..?

Hello Dears!

My Darlings,

Mummy lost her journal - what a catastrophe! At least with modern technology she can leave a copy of her reminiscences here on this blog.

Remember, dears that there are lots of pictures on Mummy's Tumblr account, and she Tweets daily, darlings. The side bar has the addresses, dears!