Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Mug.

[wardytron]

I recently bought the Complete Sherlock Holmes Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It normally retails at £5.99, but I got it on Amazon Marketplace for 1p, which I think is pretty good value. I mean you can't really haggle very much from 1p, can you. It's 1,408 pages, so I'm confident I'll finish it within the next 2 or 3 years or so. Well I was

Comments

[lifesizemonkey]

Not ever having bought anything over the internet i am not sure if you are joking about paying 1 pence or not. What does the seller get out of it? Presumably they charge P&P as well, but would it really be worth the hassle of packing it and posting it for 1 pence, even if it was a very shiny one?

Have you seen the Sherlock Holmes television adaptations starring the late Jeremy Brett, easily my favourite ponce on the box?

I am SO glad you found your mug, btw!

[wardytron]

I resent this insinuation that I'm some kind of liar. It was 1p plus £2.75 postage and packing, which is completely pointless for the seller, even if they're using the outgoing post at work instead of paying for it themselves - WHICH IS SOMETHING I WOULD NEVER DO. Anyway I tend to get most of my books these days for 1p or thereabouts.

I've never seen the TV version, probably because it was on ITV which I'm not sure I get.

[oldbloke]

Brett is possibly the best Holmes we've had, OTT though he was at times.
http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/565141/Sherlock-Holmes-The-Complete-Collection/Product.html
Still a tad more expensive than the book, but hey, it could be your chrimble prez to yourself. Or you might find it cheaper somewhere else.
Blimey O'Reilly:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Collection-David-Burke/dp/B001CWLFH2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1226413330&sr=1-3
Bit of a saving. I might have that set myself, I think.
Oh hang on looks like HMV are even cheaper!
In fairness I must point out that the edition everybody has for just under 40 is at Play for not much more, the expensive on is Some Other Edition.
Zavvi match HMV.

Go on, buy 'em.

[wardytron]

There's also the fact that I've had to sit through an astounding number of hours of the West Wing over the last few years, and this would work brilliantly as revenge. "It's all right", I'd be able to say, "there's only another THIRTY episodes to go".

[steer]

Read about ten sherlock stories one after another then by staring at the cupboard very hard you'll be able to deduce something along the lines of "My mug was moved to the wrong cupboard by a tall thin man who works as a hatter, limps with his left leg and has recently had a bereavement in the family."

[wardytron]

Generally the done thing is to blame the cleaners, isn't it. "Oh, I bet it was the cleaners who moved/stole it". The thing is, not only are they foreign, they're never around to defend themselves. Blame the cleaners, that's the safest strategy.

[steer]

OK, but using the eminently logical methods of Holmes you can determine not just that it was a cleaner but it was a thin, hunch-backed, pipe-smoking cleaner with a dog named Toby and an allergy to shag pile. Imagine how impressed your colleagues will be when you point this out. "Good Lord Wardytron, how could you possibly deduce that?" and so on. Countless opportunities for you to be tremendously smug!

[Although, had it been me in Dr Watson's place I would be more likely to say "Sherlock, you're off your bloody head mate, I should lay off the drugs for a while and have a quiet lie down."]

[wardytron]

Well all right then, using my powers of deduction I'd say it wasn't just any old cleaner, it was a very poorly paid black African woman whose first language isn't English. At my last job I became quite friendly with one of the cleaners - not in that way, you filthy beast - but got the distinct impression that this was somehow not deemed to be the done thing, that I'd crossed a line. No danger of that here of course, not with these mug-moving swines.

[mattydesade]

A baffling case indeed, almost a strange as the case I had to investigate last year on behalf of m'colleague:

Hercule Poirot returns in Agatha Christie’s
"The Strange and Peculiar Case of the Small but Regular Amounts of Money Going Missing from a Bank Account but Only in the Six Months Since the Victim Moved House so She had to Get the Train to Work on the Orient Express."

[wardytron]

This was certainly my most absorbing mystery since The Curious Case of the BLT I'd Left in the Fridge Overnight but Which had Gone Missing the Following Day. I blame the cleaners, I think I've mentioned that tends to be my policy.

[mirrorblue]

Perhaps a young person took it home to try to read it, but couldn't make it work, so brought it back.

[wardytron]

Well that's the problem with young people, isn't it, they don't understand how mugs work because all their drinks are digital, or something. Do you remember when mugs first came out, how excited we all were? Until then of course we'd had to put a spoonful of coffee granules into our mouths and then pour in scalding hot water straight from the kettle. But then some clever chap came up with the idea of mugs. Oh we were resistant at first, weren't we - "What's wrong with pouring scalding hot water into our mouths straight from the kettle?", we demanded to know. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". But they soon caught on.

[mirrorblue]

Mugs are much better I must admit - dishwashers can be a lot smaller too.

I don't know if it is true, but apparently if you put a mug of tea in the freezer overnight before you try to play it, it ... no, I've misremembered that.