Volume 39, No. 2, April 2015

I Find It Recorded in My Notebook . . .

            Fourteen people attended the Hansom Wheels meeting at the Palmetto Club on February 26. Spokesman Cap’n Billy Rawl announced that the game was afoot; we toasted the woman, Irene Adler; and Sarah Leverette led us in the Musgrave Ritual. Then we ate dinner.
            The next order of business was the Happy Hour Posers: 1. Call the fire department! They’re burning up the flatware! = “Silver Blaze.” 2. Ooh-la-la! Hanky-panky in the Czech Republic! = “A Scandal in Bohemia.” 3. It’s an extremely serious ceremony = the most grave ritual = “The Musgrave Ritual.” 4. We’ve got a situation with Coach Gil’s pants = the problem of Thorp’s britches = “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” the assigned story for the meeting (Gil Thorp is a high-school coach in a comic strip).
            We moved on to a quiz contributed by Charlie Cook and made easier by your Editor: who played Holmes and Watson in movies or on TV with these actors portraying Inspector Lestrade? 1. Archie Duncan = Ronald Howard; H. Marion Crawford. 2. Dennis Hoey = Basil Rathbone; Nigel Bruce. 3. Eddie Marsan = Robert Downey Jr.; Jude Law. 4. Colin Jeavons = Jeremy Brett; David Burke and Edward Hardwicke.
            Next was a “‘Name’s the Same’ Quiz” on “Thor Bridge”: 1. The first name of the page at 221B Baker Street is the same as that of a nineteenth-century New Mexico gun-fighter = Billy; Billy the Kid. 2. “The Gold King’s” first initial is the same as that of the author of children’s books about a wizard; his middle name is the first name of a founder of the rock band Buffalo Springfield; his last name is the same as that of the brand of instrument the singer usually plays = J. Neil Gibson; J. K. Rowling; Neil Young; Gibson (guitar). 3. Holmes’s first visitor’s name combines the last name of a riverboat captain who travels up the Congo to meet Mr. Kurtz and that of a motel-owning

transvestite murderer = Marlow Bates; Charles Marlow (in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness); Norman Bates (in Psycho). 4. The Gold King’s late wife’s first name is the same as that of a former nun who became the stepmother of some singing kids; her maiden name is that of a car with an exploding gas tank = Maria Pinto; Maria von Trapp; Ford Pinto. 5. The Gold King’s governess’s first name is the same as that of a former actress who became a princess; her last name is the same as the name of a Columbia funeral home = Grace Dunbar; Grace Kelly; Dunbar Funeral Home. 6. The police sergeant shares his last name with a British city that was bombed during the Blitz = Coventry. 7. The barrister’s first name is the same as that of a tree-loving poet killed in World War I; his last name is the same as that of an actor who appeared in a movie with the actress in question 5 = Joyce Cummings; Joyce Kilmer; Robert Cummings (in Dial M for Murder).

            The solution to the Cryptoquiz on “The Problem of Thor Bridge” was: “Your best friends would hardly call you a schemer, Watson, and yet I could not picture you doing anything so crude as that.”
            The Featured Presentation was Charlie Cook’s discussion of some Sherlock Holmes pastiches by Barrie Roberts. They sounded stupid, and we resolved to avoid them at all costs. JUST KIDDING!!! They actually sounded

“221B,” and we saddled Old Paint for the last time and rode out of there.

 For April: Opera! With Children!

             The Hansom Wheels will meet at 7:00 P.M. Thursday, April 16, at the Palmetto Club, 1231 Sumter Street. The price for dinner will be $22.00 per person. Adult beverages will be available.
            The featured speaker will be Ellen Schlaefer, Director of Opera Studies at USC. She will present a program about Carolina Opera Experience, a day camp held each July to introduce young people to opera. The children write the story and the lyrics, the latter of which they set to existing opera tunes. Ellen will present a video of the 2014 production, Songville Mystery, which features a chorus line of kids wearing deerstalker caps and wielding magnifying glasses, and tell us how it came about.

            The obvious story to assign to tie in with the presentation would be “A Scandal in Bohemia,” which features the contralto Irene Adler; but we’ve read that one eight times over the years, most recently in July 2011 (yes, we used to meet in July!). The “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffmann is played (on a phonograph) in “The Mazarin Stone,” but we did that one last August. So how about we go with “The Red Circle,” which ends with Holmes and Watson heading out to a Wagner night at Covent Garden, and which we haven’t read since May 2008?

            Please make reservations with Cap’n Billy Rawl at (803) 739-8951 or at spokesman@hansomwheels.com  as soon as possible, but no later than April 14. See you there!