#british writer

[ancientpansy]

Writer Radclyffe Hall

Charles Buchel (Karl August Büchel). 1918

[melz-367]

the things I have researched for this fic

[eminthegrave]

I just read back a chapter I wrote a few month ago and... How did I write it? It's like a Monty Python comedy sketch, or something Douglas Adams would write. I know it's sad but I made myself crack up laughing at my own jokes. Like what spirit possessed me while writing that scene???!!!

[hot-on-my-watch]

"The Cipher was the Song": The Musgrave Ritual and Nemo Holmes

In reading the script for The Final Problem I inevitably returned to the puzzle of the fake gravestones and whether the code works.

Clearly, if this was going to be worked out, it would've been done long ago by someone much cleverer than me, a new fan with a dodgy brain, but hey ho...

So here we have the numbers:

And the song:

BUT, it doesn't quite work from the numbers we're given. After the numbers on the third gravestone, we're missing:

28, 1, 2, 3, and 8 = 281238

Corresponding with the words:

LOST WITHOUT YOUR LOVE SAVE

This post by @ explains the theory that most makes sense and immediately became my head canon: the cipher does work, if there is a fifth fake gravestone. And we know that there is. Sherlock's. If we take his date of death as 2/8/12 and his age as 38, it works.

The shooting script somewhat supports this- notice how "NEMO HOLMES" is given its own line as though it's a separate piece of code.

However, where would this "date of death" come from? Did Sherlock fake his death on the 2nd of August, 2012?

John's first blog entry following Sherlocks's death is 6th June and I don't know what year it was actually posted, and The Reichenbach Fall first aired on the 5th of January 2012. Even if we go all American with the date, and why would we, we still have the Fall occuring after the episode was broadcast in reality and not even slightly lining up with John's blog.

But... it's television. The writers very much seem to have forgotten that the "real" online blogs existed in season four and they have given us contradictory information prior to this too; in The Empty Hearse Mary says "finally, the famous blog" as if she's never seen it before, but in "blogland" she's bloody commented on it! And as for the episode release date, we know that A Scandal in Belgravia too place over several months, release dates mean nothing. But to my mind it IS weird that it would ever have happened in world after in real life.

But again... it's not real. Slip-ups happen.

It's entirely possible that the entire thing with the unworkable cipher was just a mistake, and I know that.

But, are there any other possibilities? Does NEMO HOLMES somehow equate to 281238 or LOST WITHOUT YOUR LOVE SAVE in some other undiscovered way?

Again, if it did, someone cleverer would've already cracked it. But...

After some brief googling I can tell you that the Odyssey, which we get 'Nemo' from, was written in the 7th or 8th century BC and the surname Holmes was first recorded in about 1300 AD. I can also tell you that you can buy a chair called Nemo 28 Stone and that an artist called Nemo had a song called 'The Code' in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. That's where I'll leave it!

And, I'm really not sure that any of it would work 'in-world'. Eurus' god-like powers of deduction allow her to predict terrorist attacks from Twitter, sure, but do they enable her to predict a faked suicide over three decades in advance? Would this even be what was meant, or would it be intended as a nice little easter egg from the writers? Is nothing meant to be real? Or was it just a standard slip-up?

I solemnly swear that show I ever become trapped in a lift with Steven Moffat or Mark Gatiss, I will absolutely ask.

For now, the headcanon continues!

[portrait-paintings]

John McArthur, 1755 - 1840. Writer on Naval Topics

Artist: George Romney (English, 1734-1802)

Date: 1795

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

Description

John McArthur spent a long career as an officer in the British Navy. He was commissioned as an assistant clerk on the HMS Eagle, before being promoted to purser (accountant) of the Rattlesnake and then the Santa Margarita. He served in these capacities during the American War of Independence, when he was often stationed to observe naval flag signals. His attempts to improve the signalling system brought him to the attention of Admiral Hood, who employed him as secretary and purser aboard his flagship, HMS Victory. By this time, McArthur had become known as a writer on military and naval issues. He later wrote a pioneering life of Lord Nelson. McArthur evidently acquired considerable wealth in his period of service, enabling him to become the proprietor of a valuable sugar plantation in Guyana. His prosperity is reflected in this stylish portrait by Romney, one of London's most fashionable portraitists, as well his purchase of paintings by the celebrated historical painters Benjamin West and Richard Westall.

[midnightmuses301]

"𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞, 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮? 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞, 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐫, 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐞, 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬. 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭."

- 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐞, 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

[edge-of-thorns]

Julia Prinsep Stephen and her daughter Virginia Woolf (1884) platinum print by Henry H. H. Cameron

[krumpkin]

This is a book I enjoyed , if you like ( Horror, Thrillers, Fiction ) Then it's worth giving this one a try, I enjoyed it 😊. I've added a little synopsis below to give you an idea of what it's about 😁.

Synopsis :

In 1945, Hitler unleashed the Blood Death on Britain as his final act of vengeance.Those who died at once were the lucky ones. The really unfortunate took years. The survivors - people like me, who had the blood group that kept us safe from the disease - were now targets for those who believed our blood could save them.I survived for three years. I lived alone, spending my days avoiding the fascist Blackshirts who wanted my blood for their dying leader. Then I met the others - and life got complicated all over again . . .