Author: Michele Lopez

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7th Annual Treasure Hunt – Results

Dear all, thanks for your patience in waiting more than expected to get the results of the Hunt. Between some personal problems (I might hint that perhaps the machinations of a certain “M” are behind an unfortunate recent string of events) and the fact that many of you sumbmitted alternative answers that required a lot of time for checking and evaluation, I’m some days late: it took me twenty days when I though ten would be enough. I can only offer my humble apologies. Here are the results:

Individual Competition 

Michael Ellis (“Lobo”) has once again achieved the highest score, winning the High Honors with 56,5 points of the 60 available. Second place goes to Enrico Solito (“Devon”), who earns Honors in this category with 53 points.

Following the leaders, we have Carmen Savino with 51,5 points, Joanna Freeman (“Mia”) with 49 points, and Mark Doyle with 48 points. A mention for Alessandro Melillo, who only 24 hours before the end of the hunt realized that time was almost over and put in a valiant effort, scoring 9,5 points out of the only 10 answers he submitted.

Team Competition

Only two teams competed this year and it was a very close call. I had to examine carefully every single alternate answer and decide. The High Honors go to “The Quartered Flag” with 58,5 points; team members are Paul Thomas Miller (“Buck”) and Brad Keefauver (“Calder”).  Honors go to “The Sound of the Baskervilles” team with 57,5 points; team members are Sheila Holtgrieve (“Daisy”), Cameron Brandon, Sunny Even, Ron Lies (”Chips”) and Nancy Holder (“Diana”).

I have prepared a list of the alternative answers that have been accepted and some of those that, in spite of their sometimes wonderful and most entertaining mental effort, I had to reject. See below for the link to the file.

Let me thank all the participants for their contribution. If I were prone to exaggeration, I could say that it took me almost the same amount of time to check the many ingenious alternative answers than it took me to prepare the Hunt! But that forced me dive deep into the Canon again, and that’s always a good thing.
I must also say that I have gained some important hints from this year’s experience. Some questions were too broad and generic, others were good but could have been better worded. I hope that next time that I’ll act as Quiz Master I will remember to make use of what I’ve learned.

I hope you enjoyed the Hunt anyway and to see even more participants next time!

With my warm congratulations and regards,
Michele Lopez (“Reggie”)

Alternate_answers_acceptedDownload
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7th Annual Treasure Hunt – Answers

Hunters, dear fellow Watsonians, quiz fans,

The 7th Annual Treasure Hunt is now officially closed. I hope you had fun and you liked the questions that I have tried to put together.

We had a good number of participants; perhaps not many groups (only two answers received in that category) but we had six participants for the individual competition.

Hereunder you will find the answers enclosed. I will check the answers in the next days and the results will be posted here by the 12th of September.

The John H Watson Society 2019 Treasure Hunt – questions and answers
The John H Watson Society 2019 Treasure Hunt – questions and answers

With my best regards,
Michele a.k.a. “Reggie”
2019 Treasure Hunt Master



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The 7th Annual Treasure Hunt is open!

Hunters, dear fellow Watsonians, quiz fans,

The 7th Annual Treasure Hunt has officially opened at midnight, July 31st, PDT. I have chosen the hour as an homage to our other Treasure Hunt Master, Margie Deck a.k.a. “Mopsy” and to our Beth Gallego, a.k.a. “Selena Buttons”, who both live on the Pacific coast. You can submit your answers until midnight, August 31st, PDT. For further details, please check the Rules page.

A forum has been opened on the Quiz page for questions, clarifications, complaints, etc.  I will try to respond to any postings as quickly as possible. I will also answer to the email address treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.
Clarifications and answers to requests will be posted to the forum.  Please check it for updates every now and then.

As I have already said, the hunt is scored on a very simple point system; 1 correct answer = 1 point, for a maximum of 60 points available. However, many questions are composed of multiple parts, so if you know part of a question (e.g. Who?), but not the other part (e.g. When? Where?), please add the part you do know to your document.  You will receive credit for each individual part of the question that is answered correctly, so 0.5 points will be awarded for partly answered questions.

I have uploaded the Treasure Hunt both in Microsoft Word (.doc) and in .pdf.
Please see the rules page for instructions for submitting your answers.

The game, ladies and gentlemen, is afoot. Happy Hunting!

Michele a.k.a. “Reggie”
2019 Treasure Hunt Master

The John H Watson Society 2019 Treasure Hunt – questions

The John H Watson Society 2019 Treasure Hunt – questions

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TH7 Discussion Forum

“I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt (…) which has made him a small presentation in return.”  (HOUN)

This post is now open for clarifications/questions/discussions concerning the 7th Annual JHWS Treasure Hunt.
The Treasure Hunt will start on July 31st at midnight (PST) and will close on August 31st at midnight (PST).

This forum will remain open for the duration of the Hunt to discuss anything related to the questions.
Please do not post specific answers to any of the questions, not even as working hypotheses.
Any questions posted here for the Treasure Hunt Master will be answered as quickly as possible.
You can also get in touch directly with the THM by e-mail: treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.

Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master

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TH7: Third Warm Up Quiz – Answer

Dear friends,

the last warm up quiz was well received and, as usual, the sharp brains of the Watsonians came up easily with the correct answer.
The quickest was Beth, our “Selena Buttons”. Correct answers were also sent by Paul Miller “Buck” and by the SOB team (who, in their typical fashion, sent a more elaborate and ingenious explanation than necessary). Ron Lies “Chips” explored another possibility, and he went close but not quite on the mark.

Here is the answer to the quiz:
“It could be rampant or couchant, and it was also the victim of a fish. What are we talking about?”

The answer is: a lion. There is a rampant lion in VALL, a crouching lion in SECO and Count Negretto Sylvius, that Holmes described as a fish, used to shoot lions in Africa.
«Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars, weatherstained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Birlstone.» (VALL)
«“There is a seal of red wax stamped with a crouching lion.”» (SECO)
«“And is this Count Sylvius one of your fish?”
“Yes, and he’s a shark. He bites.”» (MAZA)
«“Come now, Count. You used to shoot lions in Algeria.”» (MAZA)

Congratulations to all and see you in ten days for the start of the Hunt!

Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master

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TH7: Tips and Tricks

Dear friends,

The seventh Annual Treasure Hunt is due to begin in less than two weeks, so I think this is a good moment to give all participants some pointers about what to expect and how to get ready to face the challenge.

The rules of the hunt can be found, as usual, on the Rules page, and there is a page with the main resources that will be necessary.

This year’s hunt will be composed of 60 questions divided in ten sections. One of these sections is composed of chain questions, like those of last year’s hunt. For some questions in this section, you will be occasionally required to skip back and/or forth a certain number of pages; therefore, a 1930 Doubleday edition facsimile (or the equivalent Penguin edition with the same page numbering) is a necessary resource. You can alternatively use one of the free online versions of the Canon where the Doubleday page number is indicated in brackets (such as http://ignisart.com/camdenhouse/canon/).

Some questions (not many) will require the use of sources of extra-Canonical informations, such as a good annotated edition, a Canonical index, or a “mainstream” encyclopedia. Your favorite Internet search engine and Wikipedia will also be very useful.

The hunt is scored on a very simple point system: 1 correct answer = 1 point, for a maximum of 60 points available. However, many questions are composed of multiple parts, so if you know part of a question (e.g. Who?), but not the other part (e.g. When? Where?), please add the part you do know to your document.  You will receive credit for each individual part of the question that is answered correctly, so 0.5 points will be awarded for partly answered questions.

Coming to a point that caused some discussions and misunderstandings in the past, there is usually a specific word or a group of words in each question that can be electronically searched, and that will lead you to the answer. This is what our other great Treasure Hunt Master, “Mopsy”, called a “hook”. However, if the “hook” was always explicit, it would take away from the fun of the game; the solution could always be found by simply putting words in a search engine and scanning the results. Therefore, the use of a synonym or a different turn of phrase will be often (not always!) used to mask the “hook”.

Let me give you a couple of example taken from last years’ Hunts:

(TH6, #40) «Many of the neighbors to [one of the houses in number 39] may have lived icily distant from it, but once Watson protested to Holmes that, as a matter of fact, it was there, and should not be tampered with. What it? [1pt] Where did Watson insist it was? [1pt]»

The answer is “Romance”, and the reference is to the passage in WIST, 882: «The other mansions belonged to prosaic and respectable people who live far aloof from romance.» In this case, “icily distant” is used as a hint to “far aloof”. Had the question included the words “far aloof”, a 10-second electronic search would have given the answer. No fun in that!

(TH5, #40) «The minister and the squire were equally able to control their rage. Name the men and the stories.»

The answer is “Lord Bellinger and Von Bork”, with reference to the passages in  SECO, 652  «“I am not accustomed, sir,” he began, but mastered his anger and resumed his seat» and LAST, 976 «Von Bork had mastered his anger» where “to control one’s rage” is used as a synonym of “to master one’s anger”.

Finally, I have tried to make a mix of easy and hard questions. On the whole, this should be an easier hunt than the one I did in 2017. So, if you find a question to which an answer seems too easy to be the correct one, the odds are that it probably is! At least five or six questions should be very transparent and straighforward to the experienced student of the Canon.

As usual, a forum shall be opened for the duration of the Hunt where you can submit requests for clarification of any doubtful point. I will also be available at the e-mail address treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.

Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master

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TH7: Third and Last Warm Up Quiz

Dear fellow members,

The game is (almost) afoot. The seventh Annual Treasure Hunt, composed of 60 Canonical questions, is almost ready. I hope that you will have fun.

The Hunt will open on midnight, July 31st, PST, corresponding to 9 a.m., August 1st, (CET) here in Italy. You can submit your answers until midnight, August 31st, PST.

As I already said two years ago, I must stress the fact that I am not a native English speaker, and so there may be obscurities and imperfactions regarding the form of the questions. I will of course be ready to help and clarify anything that might result in a misunderstanding on the meaning of certain expressions in the quiz.

In the meantime, please enjoy the third and last “appetizer” question for the Hunt:
“It could be rampant or couchant, and it was also the victim of a fish. What are we talking about?”

Since we are very near to the beginning of the Hunt, you have time to submit your answers to treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com until July 21st, 2019.

Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master
JHWS “Reggie”, BSI “Attenta, Pericolo”

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TH7: Second warm up quiz – Answer

Dear fellow Watsonians,
we didn’t receive a great response to the second “Appetizer” quiz. In fact, we only had one. I suppose that the Easter holidays kept many people away.

“An excess of frankness could make it sink. What?”

Answer: Sherlock Holmes’s “poor little reputation”.

«“I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid.”» (REDH, 177)

Congratulations to Cameron Brandon on behalf of The Sound of the Baskervilles who sent the only and correct answer.

See you for the next preliminary quiz. Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master
JHWS “Reggie”

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TH7: Second Warm Up Quiz

Dear fellow Watsonians,
here’s the second “Appetizer” quiz that will be published before the Hunt. I hope that it will be challenging and stimulating.

“An excess of frankness could make it sink. What?”

Since it’s a busy period for many of us, what with Sherlockian conventions and other things (221B Con starts in Atlanta tomorrow) you have time until after the Easter holidays to submit your answers to: treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.
Please send your email within April 23rd, Tuesday.

Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master
JHWS “Reggie”, BSI “Attenta, Pericolo”

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TH7: First Warm Up Quiz – Answer

So, here is the answer to the first Warm Up Quiz in preparation for the Annual Treasure Hunt 2019.

Three members of the family lived in the upper, and one lived in the lower. What place are we talking about?

Tredannick, in Cornwall. Brenda, Owen and George Tregeniss lived in Tredannick Wartha, and Mortimer Tregennis lived in Tredannick Wollas. In Cornish language, Wartha means “Upper” and Wollas means “Lower”.

“The nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredannick Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. …we […] had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman’s scanty resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house.” (DEVI, 956)
“…his two brothers, Owen and George, and of his sister Brenda, at their house of Tredannick Wartha, which is near the old stone cross upon the moor.” (DEVI, 956)

«The “Wollas” in the village name comes from the Cornish word goles, meaning “lower”; similarly, the “Wartha” in Tredannick Wartha means “upper”. The real village of Predannack was split into upper and lower manors owned by different families in medieval times.»
https://bakerstreet.fandom.com/wiki/Tredannick_Wollas

Congratulations to John Gehan, Sheila Holtgrieve “Daisy”, and Ron Lies “Chips”, who all gave the right answer!

I received three correct answers from three participants, so perhaps this question wasn’t so hard after all. Well, we’ll see with the next!
Regards,
Michele aka “Reggie”

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TH7: First Warm Up Quiz

“Well, it begins to define itself.” (3GAR)

So, fellow Watsonians, here we are. In about six months we’ll have our seventh Annual Treasure Hunt. I’m proud and happy to announce that I’ll be returning this year as Treasure Hunt Master.

The task, as usual, won’t be easy. Trying to make up a satisfactory set of questions means being caught between “the Scylla and Charybdis” (RESI) of making the quiz difficult enough to challenge the resources and the brains of the participants, but not too complex or convoluted, lest people lose interest and throw the towel in, wishing the quiz maker to the bottom of the Reichenbach.
Some informations: the quiz will consist of 60 questions (a Canonical number!) and part of them will probably be chain questions like those devised by our “Mopsy” for last year’s Hunt. As always, the use of a good Sherlockian Encyclopadia is recommended (Jack Tracy’s Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana, Orlando Park’s Sherlock Holmes, Esq. and John H. Watson, M.D.: An Encyclopedia of Their Affairs, Martin Dakin’s A Sherlock Holmes Commentary), as well as a good annotated version of the Canon (Les Klinger’s, Baring-Gould’s, and/ or the Oxford Annotated).

In order to raise your interest, and to test and balance the level of the challenge, here’s the first of the “Appetizers” that will be published before the Hunt. Warning: this is a difficult question. It requires not only knowledge of the Canon, but also a certain amount of Internet research and/or the use of a good encyclopedia. If I am judging correctly, this is about the highest difficulty level that you will find in the questions of the Hunt. (But then again I may be wrong and you’ll all breeze through it…) The subject here is geography.

“Three members of the family lived in the upper, and one lived in the lower. What place are we talking about?”

(N.B. The answer must be the exact name of the place, not a generic one. E.G. if the answer was “Florence”, “Italy” or “Tuscany” would not be acceptable answers.)
Please submit your answers to: treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com within February 22nd, Friday. Happy Hunting!
Michele Lopez
2019 Treasure Hunt Master
JHWS “Reggie”, BSI “Attenta, Pericolo”

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Annual Treasure Hunt: a Sequel

“A lie, Watson – a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie”
(VALL, 800)

Dear fellow Watsonians, I must confess to a heinous crime.

In giving the answers to the Annual Treasure Hunt, I lied. Shamelessly. But I did it for a good cause.

Let me explain. Among the questions for the Hunt, I devised one that, in my mind, had to be the most difficult of the lot. Unfortunately, I had totally overlooked the fact that there was a simple, straightforward and perfectly Canonical answer to that question. When the answers arrived, I found out that all participants had given that correct alternative answer. So much for the so-called ingenuity and deviousness of the Quiz Master.
And so I lied. I changed the list of the answers that I had already prepared and put the alternative answer in the place of that which I had originally conceived. The purpose was to avoid spoiling the original answer and to provide the contestants with a new challenge.

Here it is. Question # 4 in the Hunt, you will recall, was the following: The subject of this question won a blue award twice. Who or what?

You all answered “Gilchrist”, who had won the Blue for the hurdles and the long jump. But there is another answer to that question, a most difficult and complex one.

So the sequel to the Annual Treasure Hunt is: find another answer to question #4, the answer that I had originally in mind.
Hints: this question requires a little digging in external sources, such as an encyclopaedia and/or Internet search engines. The subject of the question can be a person, an animal, a company, a government or any other entity. The subject is mentioned in the Canon, but the award is not (so it is useless to search for, say, all occurrences of the word “blue”).

Since this is a hard question, you have one month to submit the answer (by e-mail to treasurehunt (AT) johnhwatsonsociety.com). The answer will be posted on October 21.

I hope you will enjoy this quiz. Happy Hunting!

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Treasure Hunt 2017: Results

My dear Watsonians,

it’s been very difficult to calculate the results of the Hunt. Not being “endowed by Nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty” I had to check and re-check my calculations before I could be sure of the verdict. The results are:

Individual competition

The High Honors go to Michael M. Ellis, with an excellent 79.5 points out of 100. Honors go to Mark Doyle, who was able, for lack of time, to complete only part of the quiz (scoring an excellent % of correct answers on those which he actually submitted), with 46 points.

Team competition

This is what compelled me to exert all my attention and to rack my brain. We had three teams incredibly close, all three with a very high score.

The High Honors go to The Sound of the Baskervilles (Margie Deck, Sheila Holtgrieve, Lauren Messenger, Francis Bond) who scored 89 points out of 100 and won by a very close shave: the Honors go to An Experience of Canon (Beth Gallego, Paul Hartnett, Ron Lies, Rob Nunn) with 88.5 points out of 100. Third place and Honors for Uno Studio in Holmes (Vera Mazzotta, Marco Grassi, Stefano Guerra, Enrico Solito and Gianluca Salvatori) who scored 84.5 points out of 100.

There were many ingenious alternate answers and I had to consider them all carefully: most of them, I am happy to say, have been accepted as perfectly legitimate answers. The participants in many cases know more about the Canon than the Quiz Master!

Let me thank you again for participating and give you my apologies for the delay in announcing the results. Let me also thank those fellow Watsonians who, due to various reasons, were unable to compete in the Hunt but wrote giving me their support and their appreciation.

It’s been a great experience and an honor to act as Quiz Master. I hope you had fun and spent some pleasant hours of Watsonian/Holmesian fun. If I’ve been able to accomplish this, that’s the best reward one could hope for.

With my best Canonical regards,

Michele, JHWS “Reggie”

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Treasure Hunt 2017: Answers

Dear All,

the 2017 Hunt ends today. Here are the answers.
I have received very few submissions. I’m afraid that maybe I’ve made the questions too hard and this has perhaps dampened the participants’ enthusiasm? I don’t know. I’ll be glad of everyone’s feedback on this.
I must also say that I have received many creative alternative answers and some of them have been accepted. I will post soon a list, so you all can take a look at the imaginative approach that your fellow participants have used.
The Honors list will be posted within the next week, I hope.
I want to thank all of you and to apologize for every mistake, misunderstanding, or simply not entertaining enough question, that I’ve made. It was a first experience and a challenging one. I must say that I’ll be glad to revert to the role of contestant for the next edition!

JHWS Treasure Hunt 2017 questions and answers
JHWS Treasure Hunt 2017 questions and answers

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I hereby declare the 2017 Treasure Hunt… open!

Gooooood morning, Hunters!

It is now 9 a.m., August 1st, (CET) here in Italy, corresponding to midnight, July 31st, PST. I have chosen the hour as an homage to our previous Hunt Master, Margie Deck a.k.a. “Mopsy”, who lives on the Pacific coast. You can submit your answers until midnight, August 31st, PST. For further details, please check the Rules page.

A forum has been opened on the Quiz page for questions, clarifications, complaints, etc.  I will try to respond to any postings as quickly as possible, but please remember that I’m living in a Central Europe time zone.
You will certainly find some error in the document, especially considering my sometimes poor English. Any needed clarifications will be posted to the forum.  Please check it for updates every now and then.

The hunt is scored on a very simple point system. I’ve tried to avoid complications since I’m not as good as our previous Hunt Master. Therefore, 1 correct answer = 1 point, for a maximum of 100 points available. However, many questions are composed of multiple parts, so if you know part of a question (e.g. Who?), but not the other part (e.g. When?), please add the part you do know to your document.  You will receive credit for each individual part of the question that is answered correctly, so 0.5 points will be awarded for partly answered questions.

I have uploaded the Treasure Hunt both in Microsoft Word (.doc) and in .pdf.
Please see the rules page for instructions for submitting your finished hunt.

The game, ladies and gentlemen, is now officially afoot.

Michele

JHWS Treasure Hunt 2017 questions

JHWS Treasure Hunt 2017 questions

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Treasure Hunt 2017 discussion forum

“We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes.” (WIST)

This post is now open for clarifications/questions/discussions concerning the 5th Annual JHWS Treasure Hunt.
The Treasure Hunt will start on July 31st at midnight (PST) and will close on August 31st at midnight (PST).

This forum will remain open for the duration of the Hunt to discuss anything related to the questions.
Please do not post specific answers to any of the questions, not even as working hypotheses.
Any questions posted here for the Treasure Hunt Master will be answered as quickly as possible.
You can also get in touch directly with the THM by e-mail: treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.

Happy Hunting!
Michele

 

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The Treasure Hunt, Second Appetizer: Answer

Dear All,

I have received many ingenious replies, but only one team gave the correct one.
The SOB Team (Margie and Sheila) hit the mark perfectly and the best I can do is to quote their answer literally:
–Place & Name of the ‘Ghost’: British Museum /  British Museum Underground Station, no longer in use
–Stories, where it is noted Holmes went to the British Museum: HOUN, WIST
HOUN–
“I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been the first to describe.”
WIST–
“One morning he spent in town, and I learned from a casual reference that he had visited the British Museum. Save for this one excursion, he spent his days in long, and often solitary, walks, or in chatting with a number of village gossips whose acquaintance he had cultivated.”
“I spent a morning in the British Museum reading up that and other points. Here is a quotation from Eckermann’s `Voodooism and the Negroid Religions’: – ”  
Wikipedia:
–British Museum was a station on the London Underground, located in Holborn, central London. It was latterly served by the Central line and took its name from the nearby British Museum in Great Russell Street.
The station was opened by the Central London Railway in 1900. In 1933, with the expansion of Holborn station, less than 100 yards away, British Museum station was permanently closed. It was subsequently utilised as a military office and command post, but in 1989 the surface building was demolished and the remainder of the station is wholly disused.
–Ghost stations is the usual English translation for the German word Geisterbahnhöfe. This term was used to describe certain stations on Berlin’s U-Bahn and S-Bahn metro networks that were closed during the period of Berlin’s division during the Cold War. Since then, the term has come to be used to describe any disused underground station actively passed through by passenger trains, especially those on an underground railway line.

So, just a little clarification: I decided to cut this question out of the Hunt because the use of the term “ghost station” is not as familiar in English as is Geisterbahnhöfe to the Germans or “stazione fantasma” to the Italians. If you search the internet for a list of former London Underground stations you will probably find them described as “abandoned stations” or “disused stations”, not as “ghost stations”. This made the question very difficult indeed.
I must congratulate my fellow members of Uno Studio in Holmes who sent incredibly elaborate answers, digging deeply in the lore and tradition of English and German ghosts, in literature and otherwise. I kept telling them that it was easier than that… 🙂
Other valiant efforts were made by Robert Perret and Richard Olken. Thanks everybody for your answers.
We’re just about one week from the start of the Hunt. Keep your wits sharpened!

Michele, JHWS “Reggie”

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The Treasure Hunt: Second Appetizer

Dear All,

as the deadline for the Hunt approaches, I have been busy in a revision process of the 100 questions. Using the feedback from the first test question, I had to come to a painful decision. One question was cut out because a certain turn of phrase would have been somewhat unfair to English-speaking people (ironically, Germans would have had significant advantages).

Since it was one of my favourite questions (and, I guess, the most difficult of the batch) I don’t want to let it die. So I submit it here for your consideration.
Hint: the solution is also the name of a London Underground station.

“No ghosts need apply”, said once Holmes. Nevertheless, he occasionally spent some time in a place that has the same name of a “ghost”. Which place? In which story or stories does he visit it?

I think that if you can guess this one, you will do very well indeed in the Hunt.

The solution will be posted at the end of next week. Have fun!

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The Treasure Hunt Test Question

Dear all,

running a test question has been a useful and instructive experience. I hope I have learned something about how to put my questions correctly in order that they may be challenging but not impossible.
The test question proved itself harder that I judged at first. I promise that feedback will be incorporated in the final revision of the questions for the Hunt.

Only one team gave the correct answer: Margie Deck, “Mopsy” and Sheila Holtgrieve, “Daisy”.
The revised text of the question:
“The two friends sat over this while talking about a man who had a turbulent relationship with a person homonymous (same first and last name) of one of them. Name the friends, the man, and what they sat over.”

Answer: The two friends: Sherlock Holmes and John H Watson; the man: Paganini; what they sat over: a bottle of claret.
“This led him to Paganini, and we sat for an hour over a bottle of claret while he told me anecdote after anecdote of that extraordinary man.” (CARD, 894)
The tricky part was the connection between Paganini and a man named John Watson. Watson was an impresario and pianist who played with Paganini on a tour. Later Paganini fell in love with Watson’s daughter, Charlotte, and asked her to marry him, but Watson prevented the marriage and a bitter feud ensued between the two former colleagues.
I honestly remembered that this was an easier information to find, but I noticed too late that it’s not mentioned on Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica online articles on Paganini and it requires some more extended internet search.
I promise that other references of this kind will not be so hard to discover. The use of a common encyclopaedia or a good reference book (such as Jack Tracy’s Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana) should be enough.
Congratulations to the winners and don’t despair, this should actually be the highest level of difficulty that you will find in the Hunt (about 10% of questions shall be of this type).

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The 5th Annual John H Watson Canonical Treasure Hunt

Dear fellow members,

as your Treasure Hunt Master for this year, it is my duty and pleasure to announce that the game is almost afoot. 100 Canonical questions are ready to be submitted to your (hopefully) eager brains. I hope that the challenge will be stimulating and fun.

The Hunt will open on midnight, July 31st, PST, corresponding to 9 a.m., August 1st, (CET) here in Italy. I have chosen the hour as an homage to our previous Hunt Master, Margie Deck a.k.a. “Gwen”, who lives on the Pacific coast. You can submit your answers until midnight, August 31st, PST.

As this is my first experience and, furthermore, I am not a native English speaker, I must admit that I’m a little uncertain regarding the form of the questions. I will be of course ready to help and clarify anything that might result in a misunderstanding on the meaning of certain expressions in the quiz.

To test this, I have a question to submit as an appetizer. You have one week to submit an answer.
“The two friends sat over this while talking about a man who had a turbulent relationship with an homonymous of one of them. Name the friends, the man, and what they sat over.”

This is one question that I would rate “medium hard” among those included in the Hunt.

Please submit your answers to treasurehunt@johnhwatsonsociety.com.

I hope to see many participants in this Hunt and that everybody will have fun!

Your Hunt Master

Michele, JHWS “Reggie”