Young Sherlock Holmes

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching the film Young Sherlock Holmes, directed by Barry Levinson. Set in 19th century London, the film depicts Sherlock Holmes (played by Nicholas Rowe) and John Watson (played by Alan Cox) meeting as teenagers at boarding school, where they discover that a number of wealthy, prestigious men (including Holmes' mentor) have been killed by a strange poison that induces horrific hallucinations. It is a very enjoyable film, and one that I have seen a few times before. Released in 1985, the special effects are still impressive and it's notable for having the first entirely computer generated character (a knight which leaps out of a stained glass window during a hallucination scene). The film is only very loosely based on the original "Sherlock Holmes" stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (in which it is explicitly stated that Holmes and Watson first met as adults). I used to love the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was young, I read most of them when I was about eleven and I have a book that has all the original stories presented as reproductions of how they first appeared in the 19th century magazines. For my twelth birthday I remember being given a set of tapes of radio plays based on the original stories, but I don't know what happened to them. I bet they've been thrown out, which is a shame because I would really like to listen to them again. I remember watching the TV shows as well.

Later on I was watching a couple of episodes of the third season of The Mighty Boosh, a deeply surreal British comedy series. The funniest of them was the second one I saw in which Vince (played by Noel Fielding) becomes preoccupied with making his legs thinner so he can fit into a pair of drainpipe trousers and sing in a band, while Howard (Julian Barrett) has to overcome his crippling stage fright in order to beat a talking crab for a part in a movie. It's a very, very strange show!

It was a very quiet day at work today, as it usually is. I got some milk on my way home and when I got in I had a microwaved spaghetti carbonara with a glass of apple juice.