Gower St

Perhaps the worst thing about London is their infinite capacity to capitalise on those parts of its appeal to foreigners with fanciful notions of 'quaint old England' by completley defacing the historic heritage of so many interesting sites.  And the most woeful of all travesties has been committed to a building I've always been quite keen to see, 221B Baker St, the residence of Sherlock Holmes the great detective himself.

It honestly brought me close to tears, what could have been a faithfully maintained, cleverly designed place of insight into London's turn of the century enthusiasm and charm, is instead a tourist museum, replete with all manner of shockingly tasteless souvenirs and tacky quotes unimaginativley strewn across a place I imagined so completley in my youthful fascinations.

I travelled far, far away.  Winding my way past a myriad of streets and statues, until I found a suitable substitute.  This door served as the first clue.

As one can see, the number 187 of Gower St has been strangley replaced.  Scuff marks mar the polished wood of the door and knocker too looks strangley out of place.  My dear Watson, it almost seems as though someone has replaced the number on the door!

But why ever would that be Holmes?  I'm going to end this pantomime here out of kindness to you, because I know through intuition rather than the science of deduction that this line of thought is not as interesting to you as it is to me.  I could go on for hours.  That said, if you've seen the new BBC series 'Sherlock' then you'll guess pretty quickly from the succession of images below that I managed to find the filming location of another 221B, one that actually looks the part.

If you haven't seen the new series, you really should.  Its currently running into its third season and has to be unequivocally one of the best series of the decade.  If you have, then I hope this post will provide some modicum of the excitment to you that it did for me.

While in all other respects unremarkable, this simple doorway illustrated to me something of London that visiting historical sites could not, the enduring nature of the city as a place of narrative.  The reminder that stories cannot be confined to rock and plaster alone was one that washed away the stains of rampant exploitation, and set me in good spirits for the rest of the day.  A subtle enough victory for Mr Holmes.