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Monday, March 01, 2004

Winding my way down to Baker Street

Trust London's most famous detective to be a druggie

Had to travel up to north London today, and as it was lunchtime and for once I was running early, I took a couple of snaps at Baker Street, home of Sherlock Holmes. Anyone going through Baker Street tube at the Bakerloo and Jubilee line platform level, knows that there are tons of murals featuring
Sherlock the Smackhead. So it was quite sweet to see a nodding reference to his substance abuse with a little drawing of a marijuana leaf coming out of his pipe (wrong drug, right sentiment)

Sherlock Holmes on drugs at Baker Street - bizarre storyline in the Red Headed League


Someone will correct me but I'm pretty sure that none of the murals feature Holmes' only case on the London Underground - The Bruce Partington Plans (loads of e-books of the whole short story, or watch the DVD). As Holmes only lived a stone's throw away from the tube, I'm surprised the london underground didn't feature more heavily in his stories.

Holmes was clearly suffering the after effects of some coke when he made the following comment:

"This is really very singular. According to my experience, it is not possible to reach the platform of a metropolitan train without exhibiting one's ticket. Presumably, then, the young man had one. Was it taken from him in order to conceal the station from which he came, or did he drop it in the carriage?"

However this was before the days of the Oystercard and jumping the barriers so perhaps we can't blame him for his naivety.

I'm sure he'd be freaked out to see the tile mosaics of his profile, made up of hundreds of tiny images of his silhouette. I think that would put me onto coke pretty damn quick.

Sherlock Holmes mosaics at Baker Street Station designed by Michael Douglas - no not that one


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