Side Business

Notable allusions to unrecorded cases of Sherlock Holmes:

  • “‘Oh, you mean the little problem of the Grosvenor Square furniture van. That is quite cleared up now — though, indeed, it was obvious from the first.'” (“The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”)
  • “‘Farintosh,’ said he. ‘Ah, yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson.'” (“The Adventure of the Speckled Band”)
  • “‘Here’s the record of the Tarleton murders and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife.'” (“The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual”)
  • “‘He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy — something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair.'” (The Adventure of the Cardboard Box”)
  • “‘You know that I am preoccupied with this case of the two Coptic Patriarchs, which should come to a head to-day.'” (“The Adventure of the Retired Colourman”)
  • “‘We have not forgotten your successful action in the case of Matilda Briggs.’ ‘Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,’ said Holmes, in a reminiscent voice. ‘It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.'” (“The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”)
  • “A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science.” (“The Problem of Thor Bridge”)
  • “‘This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a teetotaller, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which you will allow is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller.'” (“A Case of Identity”)
  • “‘And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose – that proved to be the correct solution.'” (“The Adventure of the Second Stain”)
  • “‘I must thank you’, said Sherlock Holmes, ‘for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.'” (The Hound of the Baskervilles)
  • “Our months of partnership had not been so uneventful as he had stated, for I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case of the papers of ex-President Murillo, and also the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which so nearly cost us both our lives.” (“The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”)

A full list is here.

| Literature

Persistence

Each of the first 18 multiples of 526315789473684210 contains all 10 digits:

526315789473684210 x  1 =  526315789473684210
526315789473684210 x  2 = 1052631578947368420
526315789473684210 x  3 = 1578947368421052630
526315789473684210 x  4 = 2105263157894736840
526315789473684210 x  5 = 2631578947368421050
526315789473684210 x  6 = 3157894736842105260
526315789473684210 x  7 = 3684210526315789470
526315789473684210 x  8 = 4210526315789473680
526315789473684210 x  9 = 4736842105263157890
526315789473684210 x 10 = 5263157894736842100
526315789473684210 x 11 = 5789473684210526310
526315789473684210 x 12 = 6315789473684210520
526315789473684210 x 13 = 6842105263157894730
526315789473684210 x 14 = 7368421052631578940
526315789473684210 x 15 = 7894736842105263150
526315789473684210 x 16 = 8421052631578947360
526315789473684210 x 17 = 8947368421052631570
526315789473684210 x 18 = 9473684210526315780

The 19th multiple, alas, is 9999999999999999990.

| Science & Math

A Book Toilet

den wolsack book toilet

In 1772, wool merchant François Adrien Van den Bogaert commissioned a garden pavilion for Den Wolsack, his house in Antwerp. On the first floor is a bibliophile’s lavatory, in which the bowl is concealed in a fancifully rendered stack of books.

The volumes on the surrounding shelves aren’t real; they’re made of wood covered with leather.

(Thanks, Serge.)

| Literature · Oddities

Mementos

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/1igjigr/leonce_evrard_is_a_skilled_marble_worker_he_was/

At midday each June 21, a shaft of light pierces the roof of a mausoleum in Brussels’ Laeken Cemetery and creates a heart of light.

It’s not clear whether this was deliberate. The tomb’s occupants, Louise Flignot and Léonce Evrard, died in 1916 and 1919, and the mausoleum was not built until 1920. Its designer, one Georges deLarabrie, is not known to have produced any other work, and the planning documents don’t mention the heart.

When Sir Lawrence Tanfield died in 1625, his wife composed this inscription for their joint monument at Burford in Oxfordshire:

Here shadows lie
Whilst earth is sadd,
Still hopes to die
To him she hadd.
In bliss is hee
Whom I loved best;
Thrice happy shee
With him to rest.

So shall I bee
With him I loved,
And he with mee
And both us blessed.
Love made me poet,
And this I writt;
My heart did do it,
And not my wit.

See Workaround, Reunion, and Early Arrival.

| Death

Associate Degrees

In 1988, traversing synonyms in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, A. Ross Eckler found his way from TRUE to FALSE:

TRUE-JUST-FAIR-BEAUTIFUL-PRETTY-ARTFUL-ARTIFICIAL-SHAM-FALSE

He found his way back again by a different route:

FALSE-UNWISE-FOOLISH-SIMPLE-UNCONDITIONAL-ABSOLUTE-POSITIVE­-REAL-GENUINE-TRUE

He was using the dictionary’s ninth edition; see the article below for his conventions regarding qualifying synonyms. Two more examples:

BAD-POOR-MEAN-PENURIOUS-STINGY-CLOSE-SECRET-FURTIVE-SLY-CUNNING-CLEVER-GOOD

GOOD-CLEVER-CUNNING-SLY-FURTIVE-SECRET-TICKLISH-CRITICAL-ACUTE-SHARP-HARSH-ROUGH-INDELICATE-INDECOROUS-IMPROPER-INCORRECT-WRONG-SINFUL-WICKED-EVIL-BAD

LIGHT-BRIGHT-CLEVER-CUNNING-SLY-FURTIVE-SECRET-HIDDEN-OBSCURE-DARK

DARK-OBSCURE-VAGUE-VACANT-EMPTY-FOOLISH-SIMPLE-EASY-LIGHT

Somewhat related: Lewis Carroll invented word ladders, in which one transforms one word into another by changing one letter at a time:

COLD-CORD-WORD-WARD-WARM

Each intermediate step must itself be an English word. Donald Knuth once used a computer to find links among 5,757 common five-letter English words. 671 of these, he found, were not connected to any other word in the collection. These he dubbed “aloof” — and noted that ALOOF itself is such a word.

(A. Ross Eckler, “Websterian Synonym Chains,” Word Ways 21:2 [May 1988], 100-101.)

| Language

Double Duty

https://archive.org/details/StrandVolume22/page/n789/mode/2up?view=theater

From the Strand, December 1901, “one of Sir John Stainer’s musical jokes, two hymns in one — in B flat or G major, according to the manner in which it is read, upside up or upside down. It was written as an autograph for a friend of his son’s.”

| Art · Entertainment

Footwork

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

FTake, for example, the structure that emerges in the D1-
D3-D4 slice of the four-dimensional phase space (Figure 5,
middle left). Thisf particular viewing angfffle reveals the
startfffffffffffling property offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffgrtoit
y[jlu;mj9jgffggggggggffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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

“The Ingenious Patriot”

Having obtained an audience of the King an Ingenious Patriot pulled a paper from his pocket, saying:

‘May it please your Majesty, I have here a formula for constructing armor plating that no gun can pierce. If these plates are adopted in the Royal Navy our warships will be invulnerable and therefore invincible. Here, also, are reports of your Majesty’s Ministers, attesting the value of the invention. I will part with my right in it for a million tumtums.’

After examining the papers, the King put them away and promised him an order on the Lord High Treasurer of the Extortion Department for a million tumtums.

‘And here,’ said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another paper from another pocket, ‘are the working plans of a gun that I have invented, which will pierce that armor. Your Majesty’s royal brother, the Emperor of Bang, is eager to purchase it, but loyalty to your Majesty’s throne and person constrains me to offer it first to your Majesty. The price is one million tumtums.’

Having received the promise of another check, he thrust his hand into still another pocket, remarking:

‘The price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater, your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armor plates with a new –‘

The King signed to the Great Head Factotum to approach.

‘Search this man,’ he said, ‘and report how many pockets he has.’

‘Forty-three, Sire,’ said the Great Head Factotum, completing the scrutiny.

‘May it please your Majesty,’ cried the Ingenious Patriot, in terror, ‘one of them contains tobacco.’

‘Hold him up by the ankles and shake him,’ said the King; ‘then give him a check for forty-two million tumtums and put him to death. Let a decree issue making ingenuity a capital offence.’

— Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables, 1899

| Literature · Society