culture is ordinary

the programme switched in the last hour from classical music to grind core, but not without forgetting to squeeze in german lady rap. i love this radio station! and right now they are elaborating on the etymology of 'fuck'. and it's not even 10 pm.

after having stumbled across a blog on the topic a while back, i had started to watch a couple of films in b&w instead of their intended techinicolor in order to see whether the author was right and there are indeed a number of films that would have actually been better had they been intended as b&w films. one of these examples in case is cabaret (1972) by bob fosse. it's remarkable just how much better and much more dramatic it looks with the colour switched off. all of a sudden, the film is acquiring an almost documentary-style kind of look and also shows off the marvelous lighting used on the sets. it's absolutely mind-blowing. but see for yourselves.

as of late, i've been running behind my self-imposed reading schedule once again and the head start is once more dropping away as i'm writing up these reviews. i'm only about a handful of stories short from having read through the entire canon. and currently that jane austen woman is keeping me busy with her most wondrous tale about the dashwood sisters. but once that novel is finished in a few days, i'll return to the holmesverse so that this project will see more than just the light at the end of the tunnel. so without further ado, let's have a look at that house with the three gables.

find behind the cut a delightful interview that young master o'toole gave to the beeb in 1960 -- before he went off to the jordanian desert to ride his camel gladys for the next two years and emerge on the other side of that project covered in dust but world famous. he may have been only 28 years old at that point, but you can already hear his great talent with words which he proved much later in his two autobiographies. he's one of those guys who'd be able to read the phonebook of greater london, the only problem is, though, that you'd have a difficult time sitting through it because the voice is so soothing.

once more, tardiness reigns. this time it is all to do with my personal watson having moved out of the flat. my former flat-mate of eight years (though not biographer) has deserted me and relocated to her new abode last week. since then i have been ever so busy cleaning up my personal mess to make these rooms presentable to prospective new watsons. btw. i still take applications. but that's enough with that. let's turn to ACD plagiarizing himself this week.

please note the rather random and non-chronological order of the reviewed stories from this collection in the case-book. i am simply following in the order how they are printed in leslie s. klinger's new annotated. and with that, let's come to 'the blanched soldier', one of the last holmes stories ever written by ACD -- but which for some inexplicable reason is listed in second place in the case-book.