Category: News

Care to spare Watson fifteen minutes or so out of your Week? Well, here’s another episode of the world’s only all-Watson-centered podcast for the Watson lover in you.

https://watsonianweekly.libsyn.com/june-6-2022-fielding-watsons-abernetty-business

Sure, next Saturday is a holiday weekend in the US, but what’s more important, family, friends, cook-outs, and travel? Or talking about John H. Watson and eggs? (And the usual random off-topic chat that fills up the last hour and a half.) Join your fellow bull pups and friends for a Saturday hang that always goes where no Sherlock Holmes society will go. (Because we’re a Watson society!)

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Saturday, May 28, 2022 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMldeCsqTgjE9z1Y_jOOkZcAQEBMCdOVmWR

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

This Saturday, April 23, the bull pups and friends will be gathering on Zoom once again to discuss John Watson’s relationships with horses and whatever else we ramble on about. (Maybe we shouldn’t make bull pup Maddy talk about 221B Con — she’s done two podcasts on it already.) Think there’s not much of an equine Watson to discuss? You might be surprised — but you have to saddle up for Saturday’s Zoom to find out!

You are invited to a Zoom meeting, then!
When: Apr 23, 2022 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvd-isqD4oHd3Ir3RXmIfRN4texBj0UFjl

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Are you a past, present, or future member of the John H. Watson Society in Atlanta this weekend for 221B Con 2022? Want to see your fellow Watsonians live and in person? We’re getting together for a couple of casual gatherings before the pre-and-post con Zooms mentioned earlier, and you’re invited!

We’ll be gathering for lunch in the hotel bar at 1:00 PM on Friday, and pulling together a second event Sunday night (pizza maybe?) about 6. Drop by, drop in, drop over, but if you want to be sure we save you a seat, DM @BradKeefauver on Twitter to let us know you’re coming. Hope to see you soon!

It’s the week before 221B Con, and with bull pups on panels, the John H. Watson Society is going to be well represented. Somebody should have taken notes on that at our last meeting, but the latest Watsonian Weekly wanders through the schedule even though the host doesn’t remember who is on what panel.

https://watsonianweekly.libsyn.com/april-4-2022-will-watson-be-at-221b

There are also going to be two John H. Watson Society zooms, Friday afternoon and Sunday evening, hosted by Madeline Quinones. Here are the links to reserve your spot for those:

Friday, pre-con:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvde2pqz0vHNVUn3JnWDpcROkoAIPC-QlX

Sunday, post-con:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpdeiqqzMvE9Q9LWcU9ipG9r3r2TMyNUW_

We hope to see you somewhere next weekend!

You know the drill — join your fellow Watsonians for an hour or two of chat on whatever topics we wander into. This month’s theme “The Toys of John H. Watson” is whatever those words bring to mind — hopefully nothing dark or murderous after last month! March is rolling by at the speed of a hoop and stick being played with by a little Johnny Watson, so take a minute to catch your breath with us.

You are invited to THE Zoom meeting.
When: Mar 26, 2022 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada — who knows what that is in Portsmouth after we did the Daylight Savings switcheroo!)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAodeyrpz8jHtMvLiyA1q0Dpd3CLN59_S2C

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Remember the movie “Without A Clue,” where Watson was the secret genius of Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes was a foolish actor? So take that premise, but keep the Sherlock Holmes we know at full genius level. THEN make Watson a criminal mastermind of a level that Holmes did not even suspect — Eurus Holmes level. How many hidden crimes documented in plain sight in the Canon could he have been responsible for?

“The late Irene Adler?” “The late Elias Whitney?” Paul Thomas Miller has opened up a Pandora’s box, a can of poisonous worms, a horrific possibility that simply must be examined by the John H. Watson Society, whether we want to believe it or not, and your JHWS meeting host is running with it.

You are invited to a Zoom meeting to discuss the full ramifications of this dark path.
When? Feb 26, 2022 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada), 6:00 PM Portsmouth Time (UK and Bullpup Buck), and whatever works for the rest of the zones to match those.

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrf-yrqT0jHdLVvqFXIPQcY-jnYFzaP5Fd

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Since last weekend was a very special “Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend” gathering of the John H. Watson Society and friends, and since our actual monthly meetings tend to happen without speakers, agendas, or much planning . . . well, why not have a meeting on our normal weekend of the month?

So here’s our last minute meeting details for any of you Watson fans who just want to show up and see what happens:

When: Jan 22, 2022 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsf-2upz8iG9ONAvF0THmQOsSVOqh6sHzI

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We were pleased to see so many folks at our Zoom sessions over the Weekend of Birthday Festivities. Much fun was had!

So much fun, in fact, that our Shopkeeper (that would be me) is a little bit behind in processing the membership orders that came in over the weekend.

A thousand apologies for the delay! Rest assured, your order has been received, and you will see a Welcome email very soon.

This week’s Watsonian Weekly is a whole lot of talk (but not all of it, sad to say) from Saturday’s meeting of the John H. Watson Society. Enjoy!

https://watsonianweekly.libsyn.com/january-17-2022-a-whole-lotta-watson-for-ya

This Saturday, at a very abnormal time for us, the John H. Watson Society will be joining in on the weekend festivities with a 2:30 PM EST Zoom gathering to celebrate the birthday of John’s best friend (and etc.) Sherlock Holmes. It’s a little hard to play “Pin The Tail On Holmes or Watson” on Zoom, even if they both identified themselves on the animal in question (Watson in “Reigate Squires,” Holmes in “Bruce-Partington Plans.”) but we’ll figure out something appropriate, especially if you help in the comments below.

When: Jan 15, 2022 01:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqduGoqzwrEtfhaa86i5ltHAcskecexI4F

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

An occasional feature about the places in the John H Watson Canon

It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular house to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early Georgian edifice with a flat brick face broken only by two deep bay windows on the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our client lived, and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of the huge room in which he spent his waking hours. Holmes pointed as we passed to the small brass plate which bore the curious name.

              —’The Adventure of the Three Garridebs’

Tyburn was the main place of public execution in London from at least 1388 until 1783, when it was replaced by Newgate. It takes its name from the Tyburn stream, which ran from Hampstead to the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge, and was so well know that the word became, for a time, synonymous with gallows. Tyburn gallows stood close to where Marble Arch is now, and the approximate site is marked by a stone in the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road. An iron plaque is located about fifty yards west of Marble Arch.

From London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World’s Most Vibrant City by Steve Roud, Arrow Books, 2010, p. 80

We know, you’ve got all that Christmas shopping to do, family showing up so as not to compete with some other side of the family next weekend, Spiderman: No Way Home matinees, and a thousand other virus-prone things to keep you busy this Saturday, but your good doctor Watson would surely want you to stay inside and come to the John H. Watson Society zoom gathering at the usual time.

Will there be a program? Will bull pup Calder just try to get you to help him plan the Sherlock’s birthday weekend zoom party (and potential Saturday JHWS event)? You just never know with our merry band.

But, all that said, you are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Dec 18, 2021 12:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvc-2upj0sG90upFLyfo1Kw-U697Afd5XM

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

An occasional feature of published pages about John Watson

Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own, to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. A confederate who foresees your conclusions and course of action is always dangerous, but one to whom each development comes as a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closed book, is, indeed, an ideal helpmate.

–Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier’

Rather than waiting to call upon Sherlock Holmes AFTER Christmas, the John H. Watson Society will be avoiding a holiday conflict by moving our meeting up a week to December 18. And here’s the registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvc-2upj0sG90upFLyfo1Kw-U697Afd5XM

Join us for some unexpected Blue Carbuncle fun and all the usual Watsonian chatter, in directions even more unexpected — you don’t even have to be a JHWS member to attend!

Did we ever mention that you don’t have to be a card-carrying member of the John H. Watson Society to attend a meeting of the JHWS? (Hint: We don’t have membership cards.)

Our next meeting is tomorrow (Saturday, November 27th at) at the magical hour of 10 AM PDT, 11 AM MDT, 12 Noon CDT, 1 PM EDT, 6 PM BST, 7 PM CEST, etc. , and in the grand tradition of the best pub trivia we’ll be testing Watson knowledge while we share some as well. Calculate and double-calculate what time that happens in your time zone and join us for some fun.

The registration link is  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vduihrj0tHdI1bceHd20aq5eKeP8XxO2n

Here we go again! Yes, it may be a holiday weekend in one of the countries we’re based in, but when is a meeting of the John H. Watson Society anything but a holiday? We’re going to have some fun little Watson pub trivia that you can enjoy even if you don’t have his immortal words memorized, along with the usual chatter, so take a break last Saturday of the month for a visit.

When is it happening? Saturday, November 27th at 10 AM PDT, 11 AM MDT, 12 Noon CDT, 1 PM EDT, 6 PM BST, 7 PM CEST, etc. — and be sure to double check that time against your local time zone. Need a reminder? Get a Watson reminder buddy!

If you haven’t got a Watson reminder buddy, if you’d like to get invited to the Zoom, and or if you haven’t gotten the link already from some back-alley source, just email podcast@johnhwatsonsociety.com to get in on the event.

Born October 21, 1947, Hilton was a Shakespearian actor who would go on to found Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory. In 1986 he performed as Doctor Watson in two episodes for BBC Radio 4 – The Mystery of the Reluctant Storyteller and The Valley of Fear.

An occasional feature of published pages about John Watson

Several people have addressed the question of who wrote “His Last Bow”, “The Mazarine Stone” and the second half of A Study in Scarlet because they are written from an unusual third person perspective. For many, the obvious fact is they were written by someone other than Watson, and, therefore, they are not to be trusted. But there is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact.

These stores were all written by Watson. However, he makes it clear when he is not reporting from personal experience by turning to the third person. It is his way of letting us know that while the facts are accurate to the best of his knowledge, that knowledge is second hand and may be liable to error.

From Watson Does Not Lie, Paul Thomas Miller, Wildside Press, 2019, p. 12

West was born on October 20, 1934. He acted on both Coronation Street and EastEnders. He portrayed Doctor Watson in the 1981 production of Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula.