Plaque Buildup

For a fictional character, Sherlock Holmes has a strangely real presence in the physical world. This plaque is posted near the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sherlock_Holmes_plaque.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This one’s on a cottage in Sussex:

sussex holmes plaque

There’s even a plaque at the spot where Holmes met Watson.

Naturalist Gilbert White, author of Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, seems to have had an imaginary contemporary nemesis. Someone has posted this plaque on the house opposite White’s 18th-century Hampshire home:

sullivan black plaque

(Black is the opposite of white, and Sullivan is the opposite, or at least the complement, of Gilbert.)

Finally, this plaque adorns the Park Street Eye Clinic in Tauranga, New Zealand:

nz plaque

Accurate enough.

(Thanks to readers Tom Race, Brieuc de Grangechamps, and Derek Christie.)

| Humor · Oddities

Footwork

Conclusion of a 2021 investigation by physicist Eve Armstrong of her cat’s reactions to a laser pointer:

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fffscinating and merits further investigation.

(Eve Armstrong, “My Cat Chester’s Dynamical Systems Analysyyyyy7777777777777777y7is of the Laser Pointer and the Red Dot on the Wall: Correlation, Causation, or SARS-Cov-2 Hallucination?”, arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.17058 [2021].)

| Humor · Science & Math

“Geographical Enigma”

https://archive.org/details/StrandVolume22/page/n117/mode/2up?view=theater

Charles Craik of Weston-super-Mare received this enigmatic postcard from a friend in 1901 and sent it on to the Strand:

I think it rather cleverly done, and it took me some time before I could understand its meaning.

The principal message is on the big island in the centre of the map — an invitation to meet the sender at a café, with the day. The name of the island below on the left-hand side is at once translated, ‘If so, do.’ The names of the land at the bottom of the map are meant for ‘Same time and place as before’ and ‘Don’t let anything hinder you’ respectively.

The following is a translation beginning at the top and working to the right: ‘Straights of cash. If you don’t come, all sorts of ills befall you. Come early. Let me know if you can come or not. I say, there’s a peculiar thing! You’re getting it by degrees. Can’t you see? Bay rhum. Get your hair cut! Deuced bad straights. See you later. Don’t you see? Devil take you. You are a merry cus! Good old flipper. Love to all. Oh! Tut, tut. R.S.V.P. Yours ever, Guy.’

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Still Waiting

In a 1901 parody edition, the journal Mind! offered £1,000 to any philosopher who could produce adequate documentary evidence that he:

  1. Knows what he means.
  2. Knows what anyone else means.
  3. Knows what everyone means.
  4. Knows what anything means.
  5. Knows what everything else means.
  6. Means what he says.
  7. Means what he means.
  8. Means what everyone else means.
  9. Means what everyone else says that he means.
  10. Can express what he means.
  11. Knows what it signifies what he means.
  12. Knows what it matters what he signifies.

“At first sight it might seem as though the Twelve Labours of Hercules would be in comparison with this a slighter achievement,” the editors wrote. “But in view of the extensive and peculiar knowledge of the Absolute’s Mind which is now possessed by so many philosophers, a large number of solutions may confidently be expected.”

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Minimalism

https://books.google.com/books?id=oTAYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA193

There are several simple little drawing tricks which the nurse may use to arouse the interest of her patient as she uses puzzles and catches. The oldest of these is by Hogarth and represents a soldier and his dog going through a doorway. As is seen by the diagram, it consists of three straight lines and one curved one.

— William Rush Dunton, Occupation Therapy, 1915

In the 1950s, humorist Roger Price invented “Droodles,” simple enigmatic drawings explained by their captions. Frank Zappa used one on the cover of a 1982 album:

zappa droodle cover

It’s called Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch.

| Art · Humor

Correspondence

Excerpts from letters received by the British pensions office, quoted in George Lyttelton’s Commonplace Book, 2002:

  • Mrs R. has no clothes, has not had any for many years. The clergy have been visiting her.
  • In reply to your letter, I have already cohabited with your officers, so far without any result.
  • You have changed my little boy to a little girl. Will this make any difference?
  • Please send money at once, as I have fallen in errors with my landlord.
  • I have no children, as my husband is a bus-driver and works all day and night.
  • In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.
  • I have been in bed with the doctor for a week, and he does not seem to be doing me any good. If things don’t improve I shall have to get another doctor.
  • Milk is wanted for the baby, and the father is unable to supply it.
  • The teeth on top are all right, but the ones in my bottom are hurting terribly.
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“Almost Too Ceremonious”

A gentleman walked up to another gentleman, who was standing before the fire in a Coffee Room, and immediately said, ‘I beg your pardon, Sir, but may I ask your name?’ ‘I am not in the habit, Sir,’ said the other man, ‘of giving my name to strangers, but, as you are so pertinacious, Sir, my name is Thompson, Sir.’ ‘Then, Mr. Thompson, Sir,’ said the first speaker, ‘now I know your name, I beg, Sir, to inform you that your coat tails are on fire.’

— Frederick Locker-Lampson, Patchwork, 1879

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