'You know that thing in Germany, ostalgie, people who miss the old days under Communism? People are weird, aren't they? According to this there's quite a market for Cold War memorabilia. Thatcher, Reagan, Stalin. Time's a great leveller, innit? Thatcher's like Napoleon now!'
'So, basically your plan is just to sit there solving crimes like you always do?' 'Awesome, isn't it?'
'Hastag "Oh What A Beautiful Morning!"'
'You can't arrest a jelly fish!' 'You could try.' 'We did try!'
'As ever, Watson, you see but you do not observe. To you, the world remains an impenetrable mystery whereas to me it is an open book; hard logic versus romantic whimsy, that is your choice. You fail to connect actions to their consequences. Now, for the last time, if you want to keep the rattle, do not throw the rattle!'
'"By the pricking of my thumbs ..."' 'Seriously? You?' 'Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the consciousness to comprehend.'
'I can't stand it. Never can. There's a loose thread in the world.' 'Doesn't mean you have to pull on it?' 'What sort of life would that be?'
'There'll be cake, will you do it?' 'I'll get back to you.'
'Don't give it a title.' 'People like the titles! Give the people what they want.' 'Never do that, people are stupid.' 'Some people!'
'Is your friend quite mad?' 'No, he's an arsehole but it's an easy mistake to make.'
'Hang on, Mary's better than me?' 'Well, she is a retired Super Agent with terrifying skills. So, of course she's better. Nothing personal!'
'I met her once?' 'Thatcher?' 'Rather arrogant, I thought.' 'You thought that?!'
'You want help? One condition, take all the credit, it gets boring if I just solve them all.' 'Yeah, you say that but then John blogs about it and you get all the credit anyway, which makes me look like some prima donna who insists on getting credit for something I didn't do.' 'I think we've hit a sore spot, Sherlock.' 'Like I'm some sort of credit junkie!'
'You don't have many favours left.' 'And, I'm calling them all in.'
'So, how's it going then, fatherhood?' 'Oh, good. Great. Amazing.' 'Getting any sleep?' 'Christ, no!' 'You're at the beck and call of a screaming demanding baby, being woken at all hours to obey his every whim? Must feel very different!' 'Yes, well, you know how it is? All you do is clean up their mess, pat them on the head! Never a word of thanks, can't even tell people's faces apart.' 'Are you two having a joke? ... Is it about me? I don't get it!'
'You wrote your own version as I recall; Appointment In Sumatra. The merchant goes to a different city and is perfectly fine. Then, he becomes a pirate for some reason!'
'It's never twins!'
'I thought you'd done something clever, but it's simple, innit?'
'Something's coming.' 'Are you having a premonition, brother mine?' 'The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.'
'I've withheld this information from you until now, Mr Kingsley but I think it's time you knew the truth. Have you ever wondered if your wife was a little bit out of your league? You thought she was having an affair, I'm afraid it's far worse than that. Your wife is a spy. Her real name is Greta Bengsdötta, Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She's been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only, to get near to the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow, the US President will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the President greets members of staff, Greta Bengsdötta, disgusted as a twenty two stone cleaner, will inject the President in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drugs hidden inside a secret compartment inside her padded armpit. This drugs will then render the President entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. Moriarty will then use the President as a pawn to destabilise the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia; this chain of events will prove unstoppable, thus precipitating World War Three!' 'Are you serious?' 'No, of course not, his wife left him because his breath stinks and he likes to wear her lingerie.' 'No I don't! Just the bras!' 'Get out!'
'Is that sentiment talking?' 'No, it's me.' 'Difficult to tell these days.'
'How the f-?!'
'It can't have been easy all those years sitting in the back, keeping your mouth shut when you knew you were cleverer than most of the people in the room.'
'What do you think, Sherlock? Should we take him with us?' 'John, or the dog?'
'You two, take the bus.' 'Why?' 'Because I need to concentrate and I don't want to hit you!'
'When does the path we walk on lock around our feet? When does the road become a river with only one destination? Death waits for us all in Samara. But, can Samara be avoided?'
'Vivian Norbury, you outsmarted them all. All except Sherlock Holmes.'
'I just come here to look at the fish.'
'Moriarty?' 'Has to be him. It's too bizarre, too baroque. This is designed to beguile me, tease me, lure me in. At last, a noose for me to put my neck into.'
'Mrs Hudson, if you ever think I'm being a bit full of myself, cocky or overconfident would you just say the word "Norbury" to me. Just that. I'll be very grateful.'
'Whatever's coming, whatever he's lined-up, I'll know when it begins. I always know when The Game is on, you know why? Because I love it!'
Does this blogger even need to tell you, dear blog reader, that he thought that was great? Not just yer normal great, mind, but extra-primo rad great with big, broad, massive and hard greatness spread thickly all over it like a big, broad massive and hard spready-type thing. It was also geet canny lush, pure dead proper excellent and totally fek-off superb, so it was. And, various other superlatives too numerous to list. But, if you want to have a go at doing so, dear blog reader, Keith Telly Topping shan't be the one to stop you. Though, you'll need a lot of paper. 'Go to Hell, Sherlock.' One has the feeling he will - perhaps, quite literally - and that he'll be taking all of us with him. (This bloggerisationisms update, incidentally, would have been up online at least twenty minutes earlier than it was except for the fact that this blogger, err, had something in his eye, dear blog reader. That's the official excuse, anyway.)
The episode included lots of clever Conan Doyle references, some of which Radio Times have helpfully listed if you missed them. Plus, there was a terrific bit of foreshadowing of next week's episode.
And, indeed, seemingly to the episode the week after, too.
But, for the moment, this is how we shall remember The Six Thatchers; with much sadness (even if we've kind of known it was coming since the day she first arrived).
Genealogy detectives have discovered that yer actual Benedict Cumberbatch is directly related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The star of Sherlock and the author who created Sherlock Holmes more than one hundred years ago are, in fact, sixteenth cousins, twice removed, according to researchers at Ancestry.com. 'We love that through family history we can connect the creator of this brilliant detective and the captivating actor who portrays him,' said Ancestry historian Lisa Elzey. 'Making family history connections is similar to piecing together a mysterious puzzle, one that the great Sherlock Holmes himself would be intrigued to solve.' Benny and Doyle share a common ancestor in John of Gaunt, who was the Duke of Lancaster and a close friend of The Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer. John of Gaunt, born around 1340, was also the fourth son of King Edward III - another ancestor yer man Cumberbatch and Doyle share. 'How rare that an actor in a major series has the chance to play a character created by a relative, especially one as iconic as Sherlock Holmes,' historian Jennifer Utley said in a statement. 'Imagine our surprise to discover that the connecting link between these two is British royalty. Seems fitting.'
Amanda Abbington has been talking to the Sunday Torygraph's Stella magazine about her separation from Martin Freeman - and how the new series of Sherlock was filmed just two weeks after their break-up.
It was a very pure excellent Christmas for Doctor Who and BBC America. The Christmas episode The Return Of Doctor Mysterio delivered 1.7 million total viewers in the Nielsen 'Live Plus Three' ratings. It was BBC America's most-watched broadcast of the year 'across all key demographics.'
TV Comedy Moment Of the Week: Wor Geet Canny Ross Noble on dazzlingly sarky form on the latest episode of Qi when revealing, during a jolly interesting round about bees, that: 'Scientists did research and the best bit of the bee is its knees! Closely followed by the testicles of a dog!
A steamy bath scene full of red hot sexy doings from the second series of Poldark topped a poll of the biggest television moments of 2016. Radio Times readers voted for the scene from the Cornwall-set drama, where Ross Poldark - played by Aidan Turner - is bathed by wife Demelza, portrayed by Eleanor Tomlinson. Turner took the - not especially significant - prize for a second year running, following his 'topless scything scene' from series one in 2015. More than two thousand people with nothing better to do with their time took part in the poll. They were asked to choose from a shortlist of thirty five clips said (although said by whom is not entirely clear) to be 'among the most dramatic, inspiring and emotional TV moments of the year.' The scene in Peaky Blinders when the Shelbys were arrested was voted the second biggest moment of the past twelve months, followed by Tom Hiddleston's brief flash of full frontal nudity in The Night Manager. Poldark also featured at number four in the list, for the scene in which Ross Poldark pushed his former fiancee, Elizabeth, onto a bed after she rejected his advances. The top five was rounded off by a sequence from Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth II in which baby iguanas were chased by snakes. Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls also made the list, for his dance to Psy's 'Gangnam Style' on Strictly Come Dancing.
So, 2017 dawned and, thus far, nobody famous has died. That's novel.
Still, it can only be a matter of time before something mind-bogglingly awful happens. Probably involving aliens ...
And, God, it was certainly lookin' a bit grim over in Gatesheed on New Year's Day.
