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From
The Surrey Shore . .
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The Newsletter of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore Vol. 4, No. 3, June 2005
****A Scion
Society for All Who Enjoy Sherlock Holmes in All His Manifestations!****
. . . Or perhaps we should say the Birthday Barker, as the July 10 meeting of the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore is our annual Barker Birthday Bash (although we’re two days early this year, Barker’s actual birthday being July 12). We’ll be meeting at Lord Ashley’s Pub and Eatery, at 9439 E. Washington Street, on the east side of Indianapolis. You can come as early as 12:30 p.m., and everyone should be there by 1 p.m. so that we can order promptly at that time. Lord Ashley’s has a good variety on its menu at prices to fit just about any pocketbook, from pizza and sandwiches to seafood and steak, along with libations for all tastes. The meeting room at Lord Ashley’s is in the pub’s nonsmoking area, which you reach by going into the door to the right of the main entrance, under the sign reading “Pizza.” When you arrive, tell them that you’re with the Rivals. (The lady who took our reservations said that our full name wouldn’t fit on the pub’s reservation form.) As we dine, we’ll enjoy fine Sherlockian fellowship with all our regular members and anyone new who wishes to join us. The meal will include, of course, our de rigueur Canonical toasts, and we’ll have a brief business meeting following our repast. Finally, our own Barker, Bill Barton, will read a paper written by the Rival’s own Will Thomas, author (so far) of two Barker novels, on the topic of Barker—and Baritsu! (So just how does London’s second greatest detective figure into the art of Japanese wrestling that saved Holmes’ life at the Reichenbach Falls? Will’s paper will explain all . . .) After the meeting, which will wrap up around 4-ish or so, any who wishes may join us as we drive as a group down the street to view the new Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg film version of War of the Worlds at the brand-new cinema at Washington Square (as in “Be there or be . . . ,” well, you know). We hope to see as many of you as possible as we celebrate the birthday of our scion’s “hated” (but loved by us) namesake. (For additional information and directions to the restaurant, see the “Coming Meetings” section, located at the end of this newsletter.)
***
Well, the dog days of summer are on us in earnest—and I’m not talking about Toby here (more like the Hound of the Baskervilles!). Things are heating up for the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore as well with our July meeting imminent (as the preceding section describes). Things are so hot, in fact, that I need to cut my letter short again this time to keep the newsletter to a reasonable length. So have a go at it!
Well, the vote is in, and it appears that the Rivals
who responded to my query (about whether we should change Barker’s first name
in light of Rival Will Thomas’ published Barker novels) have spoken in a clear
voice: Barker’s first name should remain Cyrus. (You’ll recall that we pondered
changing it to the similar Cyril to avoid conflicts with Will’s version of
Barker, especially should we ever decide to publish our own Barker stories sometime
in the future.) Especially gratifying was the following response from Will
himself:
“Perish forbid if anyone should change Barker's name on my account. If the two of us both came up with the name Cyrus, there must have been a very good reason for it . . . it was his real name!”
So, at least for the foreseeable future, our scion’s namesake is Cyrus
Yarbrough Barker, Sherlock Holmes’ hated rival on the Surrey Shore. (Sharp-eyed
individuals will notice a slight change in spelling of Barker’s middle name from
what we announce previously. We decided that the two-syllable version of the
name rolled off the tongue a bit more smoothly, so made the change by fiat.)
Although we’ve had a very active page for our scion
on the Indianapolis Star’s Communities page on its Web site, those days
are, sadly, gone. The Star has retired its interactive software, so it’s
no longer possible to update the site with our bimonthly meeting events
information. That doesn’t affect most of you, of course, since you get your
meeting info from our own Web site (and this newsletter), but if you know of
anyone who has been checking out our events on the Star’s Web site,
please let them know that’s no longer available and direct them to our own Web
site. (That’s http://surrey-shore.freeservers.com, in case you may not remember
or haven’t read the newsletter’s closing blurb for a while.) Ah, the whims of
mass media . . .
Following is our last installment of Mimi’s
adventures in Uzbekistan, the reason for which will be apparent by the end of
these mini-epistles. (Or should that be “Mimi-epistles”?)
April 26: Brad, Christa, and myself arrived in a
very hot Urgench last Wednesday. Christa's Uzi Dad, Brad's counterpart, and my
NGO Director met us at the airport. I had so much baggage that I had to rent a
taxi for it all. I have a very nice home that is within walking distance from
the center of Urgench, where this Internet site is. It has been an interesting
week. We had to go the Ovir's office several times to get everything done. It
was irritating to stand around while the Ovir and his assistant asked questions
of both my host mother and my NGO director about me. He did the same with Brad
and Christa. Maybe it was just irritating that I had to register where I lived
and who I was in his office. Very different from America. I now have two bank
accounts, in sums and dollars. I have to send that information to the Peace Corps
if I want to get paid. Today, the women in the family came in to make non
(bread) and to get together a chest full of gifts for the aunt's son's
soon-to-be wife.
They need
to bring everything with them to the matchmaker's house at 5 p.m. So all of this
happened before 12 noon. Of course, I had my afternoon nap and now am on the
Internet. A busy Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow, I will go to the University for my
Uzbek language class, and in the afternoon, I go to my Director's (Nigora)
Hospital to meet everyone. Tuesday I will finally go to my NGO and see my desk
and, hopefully, my computer.
May 5: (This e-mail came after the U.S. State Department issued an alert for Uzbekistan following the outbreak of violence there.) I feel safe for now in Uzbekistan. The most dangerous is in Tashkent. Who knows—between the alert and our ongoing visa problems, you might be seeing me sooner than you think. (Plus there are many problems with my NGO site and host family.) We live day by day. Hopefully, these problems will be straightened out within the next two weeks. It is very difficult to live here. In Uzbekistan alone, we have already had ten people take ET, or early termination. They decided to go back to America for many different reasons. We will see. Take care.
May 8: Dear
family and friends, I have made a decision and I want to share it with you. I
have decided to come back home to Indiana because of the problems I’ve been
having with the Urgench NGO and my host family, plus the visa situation and,
additionally, my concerns about the safety and security in this country. It has
been an amazing trip, and I have learned so very much. I will never regret
coming to Uzbekistan. I am now at the Peace Corps office in Tashkent, and
because Monday is a holiday in this country, arrangement for my return cannot
be made until Tuesday. I will be back in Indiana sometime this week. I am
already checking into apartments, but I am hoping that someone will let me stay
with them during a short readjustment period, and any leads to a good job will
very much be appreciated. In addition, I plan to finish my Masters degree. I
feel very confident that this is the correct decision for me. When it came down
to it, did I really want to spend the next two years dealing with this very
difficult situation and playing "The Great Game" with the Uzbeki
government? The clarity of it is that I wanted to be back with my family in
Indiana, to know how they are doing everyday. I love them. So I am coming back.
More later.
May 10: Hopefully, everyone has received the e-mail that I am returning to Indiana this week. I will leave Tashkent Saturday morning, May 14, at 6:45 a.m. I will be flying to Frankfort, Germany, with a 7-hour layover. I will then be flying to O’Hare and from O’Hare on United Airlines 7774 to Indianapolis. I will be arriving in Indianapolis at 2219, or 10:19 p.m., Saturday night. All is well. Take care. Love, Mimi.
That was our final e-mail from Russell in Uzbekistan. Yours truly was on vacation the next two weeks, so it wasn’t until the first week in June that we finally heard that Mimi had returned to Indy, well and ready to rejoin the active list of the Hated Rivals. So, at our coming July meeting, look for—the Return of Russell! (Ta da da dummmm!)
And on that slightly dramatic note, I remain, till next issue, ever yours . . .
—C. Barker,
Esq.
***
It was a sunny (albeit somewhat
cool) May Day when the Hated Rivals on the Surrey Shore made the jaunt down to
Ellettsville for our May meeting. Following all the instructions on how to
reach the White Elephant—and just spotting the balloons on the mailbox in time
to make the final turn—we reached our destination in record time. We were
greeted by Chris and Terri, their beautiful (but slightly temperamental) tabby
cat, Matilda, and a potential new member. The rest of the Hated Rivals who
could attend trickled in, and the meeting began with a nice spread of cakes,
fruits, tea, and other delectables, plus great Sherlockian fellowship and
conversation as we sat in a circle around the Adventurers’ Club (i.e., the
White Elephant’s sitting room). We, of course, kept an empty chair for our
absent Russell (a tradition that we need no longer follow, as described earlier
in the newsletter). After enough of the goodies were consumed to leave all with
a satisfyingly full feeling, we took a tour of the White Elephant and its
grounds, including Chris’ workshop, where he manufactures his Engle Matrix
Games for his publishing company, Hamster Press. The program continued with a
magic lantern presentation of “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight,” with colorful
slides and a melodramatic reading of the poem by our own Barker, Bill Barton.
(The slides and reading got a bit out of sync for a while, but all came
together by the end of the show.) Additional conversation (and a bit more
munching) followed. (Among the items of interest, we learned that our own
Cheryl Ainslie has received permission to start a Sherlock Holmes club at
Purdue, where she currently attends college, beginning this fall. So the saga
of Sherlock Holmes will continue to live on at least one of our state’s
campuses in future years.) We wrapped up the meeting with fond farewells to all
as we embarked on our journey back up to Indianapolis (and parts farther
north), all the while planning to make yet another foray down to the White
Elephant for our September meeting. (See the “Coming Meetings” section for
details.)
***
As noted in our earlier section about the next meeting, we’ll be reading a paper by Will Thomas on Barker and Baritsu. Most Sherlockians believe that Doyle derived the term “Baritsu” from a customized form of martial arts created in 1901 by Edward Barton-Wright, who called his creation “Bartitsu.” (Note the difference in spelling.) Barton-Wright had traveled in Japan and studied Japanese martial arts, and after returning to England in the late 1890s, he incorporated savate (French foot-boxing) and other European forms of fighting with the Japanese techniques he’d learned. He opened a school in London and taught Bartitsu to those inclined toward such a unique fighting style. Doyle, at the time of writing “The Empty House,” had read about Bartitsu and used it (minus the “t”) in the story as Holmes’ means of thwarting Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls—although that event “occurred” a decade before the first Bartitsu school opened. Unfortunately for Barton-Wright, his creation never really caught on, or perhaps we’d be seeing martial arts movies today featuring his fighting style rather than that of, say, Bruce Lee. (But what about Barker and Baritsu? Sorry. You’ll need to come to the July meeting and hear Will’s ingenious theory to find out. And look for Will’s coming book on Baritsu as well!)
***
I Hear of Sherlock
Everywhere!
Will Thomas’ second Barker novel, To Kingdom
Come: A Novel (Touchstone, 2005; $22.95; 288 pp.), is now out in stores and
online outlets such as Amazon.com (where it’s discounted to $15.61—and used
copies are even less). After Scotland Yard’s 1884 dynamiting by the Irish
Republican Brotherhood (also known as the Dynamiters or Dynamitards), Barker
resolves to find and bring to justice the culprits—despite resistance from
Scotland Yard’s Special Irish Branch. Barker and his “Watson,” Thomas Llewelyn,
go undercover to infiltrate the Fenians in a tale that ranges from London to
Europe, encountering a number of famous Victorian personages in the process.
Check out the reviews of the book on Amazon.com—none less than five stars.
(Will tells us that his first Barker novel, Some Danger Involved, is up
for two awards, the Shamus and the Barry, plus is a Book Sense summer pick. And
Will’s third Barker novel is now at the publishers, and he’s working on number
four with number five planned out already—whew! We all wish him luck on the
awards—not to mention success with his grueling schedule.)
Sherlock Holmes references have abounded in recent stories from DC
Comics: Green Arrow #49 (June ’05) had a shape-shifting character
(named, appropriately, Shift) appear as Holmes, complete with deerstalker and
lens, during the investigation of a bank hostage crisis. DC’s currently running
four-issue mini-series Day of Vengeance features the revival of a
long-lost character from the ’50s, Detective Chimp, who is, as the name
implies, a talking chimpanzee who does detective work while wearing a
deerstalker and carrying a magnifying lens. (Some would probably prefer that
the character remained lost, no doubt, but he does show how closely the terms
“detective” and “Sherlock Holmes” are entwined in the popular imagination—even when
it comes to talking chimps.)
The name of Sherlock Holmes does turn up in some of the most unexpected places. The official program for the Cornerstone Festival 2005 (a Christian music and cultural fest, held this year from June 30 through July 3 at Bushnell, Illinois) lists a seminar entitled “Sherlock Holmes: Dark Passions and Demonic Threats,” by Presbyterian pastor Paul Leggett, described as exploring “the legend and legacy of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and why they remain as fascinating today as when they first appeared [more than] a hundred years ago.” It also describes Holmes as being “the modern incarnation of the ancient Redeemer Hero found throughout ancient mythology.” For info and updates, go to www.cornerstonefestival.com.
The book The Recent Organization of the Solar System, by Donald
W. Patten, also includes a number of Sherlockian references. Pattern, for
example, invokes Holmes’ axiom that, when you eliminate the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. He uses it to
strengthen his own rather unorthodox—but quite intriguing—views of cosmology,
which he often presents in the form of a mystery to be solved. The book is a
specialty publication of Christian Media and not available in standard outlets,
either online or otherwise. For ordering information, go to
www.christianmedianetwork.com and click the Catalog link in the upper left of
the page.
As mentioned in our previous newsletter, the eighth of Laurie R. King’s Holmes/Mary Russell series, Locked Rooms (Bantam 2005; $24; 416 pp.), is now available in local stores and online (discounted to $16.32 at Amazon.com, for example). In this installment, Holmes and Russell travel to San Francisco to settle the estate of Russell’s parents—and, of course, get involved in yet another mystery that results from some disturbing dreams of Russell’s. The novel also stars hard-boiled mystery writer Dashiell Hammett as a Pinkerton agent enlisted by Holmes to help determine who has taken a shot at Russell. (Apparently due to Hammett’s being more familiar with the city than Holmes.) The book is also available in a large print hard cover for $30.95 (for those of us who don’t own a magnifying glass) and in an audio CD edition for $39.99 (discounted to $26.39 at Amazon.com). Fans of Ms. King’s ongoing series won’t want to miss this one.
According to one source, the May 3 episode of CBS’s The Amazing Race had the racers in London where, at one point, they were to locate a man dressed as Sherlock Holmes for their next clue. (Our source didn’t know whether this “Holmes” was waiting in Baker Street or elsewhere, but noted that he didn’t look much like the “real” Great Detective.) Since Holmes was used to examining the seamier side of London’s underbelly, perhaps his presence on one example of the seamier side of TV’s underbelly isn’t totally out of line. (At least he didn’t have to eat bugs on Fear Factor or something similar.)
“Holmes Tops Zeitgeist” screamed the subhead for the Indianapolis Star’s May 6 Cool.com column, referring to the item receiving the most hits on Google.com’s Zeitgeist poll of the week’s most “googled” stories. Unfortunately, the reference was to actress Katie Holmes (who currently appears in a movie about a different type of detective, Batman Begins) and not to our favorite sleuth. Ah, well. Maybe someday . . .
Sherlock Holmes did, however, make the cut on AFI’s 100 Years 100 “Movie Quotes” special on CBS TV on June 21. Coming in at #65 was “Elementary, my dear Watson,” from the Rathbone/Bruce Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Not quite an authentic Sherlockian quote (although it is to the average TV or movie viewer), but it’ll do . . . for now.
A recent week’s series of the Mutts comic strip featured “Mooch’s Book Club,” and the book that was spotlighted in one installment was The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by A. Conan Doyle. (Asked what the book was about by the club’s attending squirrels, Mooch merely replied “It’s a myshtery!” His furry audience, of course, mistook that to mean that he didn’t know and wondered—so who did?)
Sherlock Holmes and his creator had a cameo in the Powell Books e-mail newsletter of May 18. At the top of the e-mail was the picture of a deerstalker, and the Writer’s Almanac section noted the May 22nd birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was born in Edinburgh in 1859. The write-up went on to discuss Doyle’s use of his old professor, Joseph Bell, as the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. To receive the Powell Books newsletter, go to www.powell.com to subscribe. (Or e-mail us for a copy of this issue.)
Not exactly Sherlockian, but possibly of interest to
aficionados of all things Victorian is the new Annotated Brothers Grimm,
edited by Maria Tatar (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005; $35). This volume features
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm’s authoritative edition of their fairy tales,
originally published as a collection in 1857. These are not the sanitized
versions but the same dark tales originally read by the Victorians. (The book
is offered by the Quality Paperback Book Club for only $21.99 + s&h. QPBC
also sells, by the way, a softcover edition of Leslie S. Klinger’s New
Annotated Sherlock Holmes for only $47.99 + s&h; for more information,
go to www.qpbc.com on the Web.)
Robert Rankin has written a number of novels with Victorian connections. The Witches of Chiswick (Orion Publishing Group, 2004; 434 pp.; $9.99), for example, describes a Victorian era in which all the futuristic fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells actually happened—but was covered up by a great conspiracy to keep us from learning the truth. (In actuality, according to Rankin, the events of War of the Worlds really occurred; Captain Nemo’s Nautilus is rusting at the bottom or the North Sea; Queen Victoria had an affair with—Dr. Watson!? Well, he did have a knowledge of women on several continents.) Rankin also claims (all in fun, of course, if you hadn’t already realized it) that the Elephant Man was the product of cross-breeding between humans and extraterrestrials and that Jack the Ripper was a Terminator robot from the future! Hmmm. His Knees Up Mother Earth (Gollanz, 2005; 384 pp.; $20—$13.60 at Amazon.com) features a Victorian super-computer containing the knowledge of the era’s concealed super-technology, as well as the presence of a Victorian time traveler. Rankin’s novels are all humorous, of course, in a similar vein as Jasper Fford’s Thursday Next novels described previously in this newsletter—a series of Monty Python-esque romps that often interconnect with one another, if only indirectly. (For more information, look up the books’ descriptions and reviews on Amazon.com.)
A couple of recently released books of historic fiction take place during the Victorian years as well. Triumph of the Sun, by Wilbur Smith (Dunne, $25.95) involves the British attempt to rescue hundreds of subjects trapped in the Sudan during he Mahdi uprising in 1884. The second, The Linnet Bird, by Linda Holeman (Crown, $24.95), describes the odyssey of a (how shall we delicately put it?) lady of the night from the slums of Victorian Liverpool to marriage into the genteel society of British India. Both are likely available at discounted prices at Amazon.com and other online outlets.
Our own Jon and Ronda Burroughs just returned from a June trip to London. We hope to have a short report of their trip in our next newsletter—if the busy couple have time enough to write one. (In the meantime, they report the interesting fact that the Sherlock Holmes museum is one of three in a row of such dedicated destinations, the other two being the Beatles and the Elvis museums. Coincidence? Hmmm . . .?)
War of the
Worlds News
Looks as though June has been War of the Worlds month—not only was the Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg blockbuster released on June 29, but several WotW DVDs and a new WotW book came out (although the last was probably out earlier, but not seen till June).
The Pendragon version of War of the Worlds, based closely on H.G. Wells’ original story—and set during the late Victorian period that the book described—came out on DVD on June 14. (We discussed this filmed version of the book in the newsletter earlier this year.) It retails for $14.99 (and is available from Amazon.com for only $10.49); Sam’s Club is selling it for $8.96. Apparently, the film did not make it to theaters here in the U.S. (if at all), but went straight to DVD. Reviews of the film, admittedly, are mixed on Amazon.com—ranging from 1 star to 5, depending on the reviewer. For more info about the 180-minute film, go either to its listing on Amazon.com or the Pendragon Web site at www.pendragonpictures.com.
Incredibly, we learned just a couple weeks ago of yet a third version of WotW, which was due out on DVD on June 28—one day before the Cruise/Spielberg film. We have few details on it, other than that it stars C. Thomas Howell and Jake Busey (son of Gary) and apparently takes place in modern times, like the Cruise/Spielberg film. (The cover of the DVD shows a Martian war machine attacking the U.S. Capitol building.) It retails for $24.95 (and is available on Amazon.com for $17.47). No reviews out yet of this one, although the War of the Worlds Online Web site (see below) features an interview with the director. Photos there seem to indicate that the Martian war machines are six-legged rather than three (although they are not easy to make out and may actually be maintenance walkers and not the war machines at all).
Amazon.com also offers two WotW documentaries—one is titled H.G. Wells and The War of the Worlds ($9.99), which came out on June 21 and is apparently a documentary about the book and its author. The other, titled simply War of the Worlds (Documentary) ($9.98), is about the Cruise/Spielberg movie and includes two discs—one on the making of WotW and another about Mars—although Amazon.com lists it as taking 4-5 weeks to arrive after ordering, so most people will already have seen the movie by then.
One piece of good news about the Cruise/Spielberg version is that, although it’s set in modern-day New Jersey, the Martian war machines are apparently much closer in appearance to those in the book than was the case in the George Pal version of the ’50s. Although they’re not fully shown in the movie trailers on TV, the war machines appear to be tripod in nature, with three legs and the tentacles of the Wells book. (Unless, of course, the trailers are deliberately misleading. We recall the American version of Godzilla, where it wasn’t evident in the trailers that the filmmakers had totally changed Big G’s normal appearance.) The Martians themselves, sadly, appear to be based on Pal’s three-lobed creatures rather than the octapoid aliens of the Wells book—at least from the print ads running in several publications. We’ll find out for certain, of course, following our viewing of the film after our scion’s next meeting.
The new WotW book, The War of the Worlds: Fresh Perspectives on the H.G. Wells Classic, edited by Glenn Yeffeth (Benbella Books, 2005; $17.95), is an anthology containing not only the original Wells tale in its entirety, but a number of essays about the film and its time period. Most interesting perhaps is one that describes Victorian Woking, where Wells lived at the time and near where the invasion began. Unfortunately, the editor chose to include the absolute worst of the stories first published in the anthology of original WotW stories, War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, from a few years back—one that claims to find precognitive descriptions of the Martian invasion in one of Emily Dickinson’s poems, which had to have been written years before WotW, since Dickinson died in 1886. Skip that piece of tripe and most of the rest of the book is well worth the cost if you’re a WotW fan—even though you almost certainly already own the original Wells tale. (And if you don’t, this is a great way to get it.)
For additional WotW news, check out the following Web sites: www.thewaroftheworlds.com, www.waroftheworlds.com, www.eveofthewar.com, and www.waroftheworldsonline.com.
(Oh, and if you’re wondering why we’re covering War of the Worlds in a Sherlockian newsletter, it’s because, as we’ve noted before, our scion starts with Sherlock Holmes and takes off from there to all of Victorian/Edwardian England. WotW is the quintessential Victorian scientific romance novel, so we feel it is an appropriate topic for our newsletter—especially with so many movies based on the novel out now.)
***
Coming Meetings!
Following are the details of our
upcoming meeting, plus the dates and tentative information about our other
meetings in 2005. (Check out our Web site for updates.) So please do set these
dates aside to join the Hated Rivals at the following soirées:
Our Annual Barker Birthday Bash!
Sunday, July 10, 2005, 1-4
p.m. (or thereabouts)
Lord Ashley’s Pub &
Eatery
9439 E. Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana
Directions
and Details:
To get to Lord Ashley’s, take I-465 to the Washington Street exit, on the east
side of town. Turn east (a right turn if you’re coming from the south and a
left turn if from the north), and drive until you pass Post Road, which is the
second major intersection from the highway. At the next stop light, turn right
into the strip mall, where you’ll see Lord Ashley’s. You’ll see two doors—one
under the pub’s full name and a second under a Pizza logo at the top. This
second is the nonsmoking section, where the meeting room is located. Go in and
tell them you’re with the Rivals party. Try to arrive by 1 p.m. at the latest
so that we can start ordering then. Following a hearty Lord Ashley’s meal,
Canonical toasts, and a brief business meeting, the program consists of a paper
about Barker and Baritsu. After the meeting, those who wish can accompany us
over to the new cinema at Washington Square to view the War of the Worlds
movie. (Plus—the return of Russell!)
And don’t forget to mark
your calendar for the rest of the coming year’s great meetings . . .
Sunday, September 4 or 11
[Date still TBD]: Our Second Sherlockian Cookout/Pitch-in
(Program TBD—but lots of
food and great Sherlockian fellowship)
November [Date TBD]: Our Second Holmes/A.C.
Doyle Mini-Film Fest
(Featuring Professor George Edward Challenger)
Plus our first meeting of
2006 . . .
Sunday, January 8
[Tentative]:
Our Annual Victorian Tea & Sherlock Holmes Birthday Party
(Note: Dates and programs are tentative and subject to
change as circumstances
change—but we’ll try to stick to these as much as possible!)
***
For
more information, contact us at P.O. Box 26290, Indianapolis, IN 46226-0290; or
send us an e-mail at postmaster@surrey-shore.freeservers.com (And don’t forget
to venture online to check out our Hated Rivals Web site at
http://surrey-shore.freeservers.com, for recent updates.) See you again in two
months, back on the ol’ Surrey Shore, where the game’s always afoot! (But you
already knew that—didn’t you?)