Baker Street - a Mistake?

I have no objection to pedantry, Sydney Grew, and should perhaps confess that I can, on occasion, be something of a pedant myself. To be honest, however, Neil McGowan, I am not particularly bothered who lives or lived at 219, 221 or 221b Baker Street, London NW1 6XE. Sherlock Holmes is ultimately a fictional character anyway, however famous. If he brings tourists to London, so much the better!



The Sherlock Holmes Museum

As a Londoner, however, I am more than familiar with the area. Indeed, I once worked in Baker Street, not far from the Sherlock Holmes Museum. What I would recommend, Sydney Grew, would be a walk to Wigmore Hall on Monday (lunchtime), 4 March 2013.



Wigmore Hall - Igor Levit- Schubert/Liszt, Schubert and Liszt

If you cannot make it in person, however, you can still listen to Igor Levit on BBC Radio 3. He is a Russian-German pianist, Neil McGowan.



Radio 3 Live in Concert - Wigmore Hall: Igor Levit

If I may address your question directly, Gerard:



According to Wikipedia, the street number 221B was assigned to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on 27 March 1990 (replacing the logical address 239 Baker Street) when the Leader of Westminster City Council, Lady Shirley Porter, unveiled a blue plaque signifying the address of "221B Baker Street." She was invited to renumber the museum's building to coincide with its official opening (and because the number 221B had not been included in the original planning consent for the museum granted in October 1989). Council officials claim that Dame Shirley Porter was not acting as Leader of the council when she unveiled the famous blue plaque on the property in 1990, despite the fact that photographic evidence shows her wearing a badge bearing the words "Leader of the Council" while she unveiled the plaque in front of international media.

A long-running dispute over the number arose between the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the building society Abbey National (which had previously answered the mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes) and subsequently the local Westminster City Council. The main objection to the Museum's role in answering the letters was the prosaic fact that the number 221B bestowed on the Museum by the Council was out of sequence with other numbers in the street: an issue that has since vexed local bureaucrats, who have striven for years to keep street numbers in sequence. In 2005, Abbey National vacated their headquarters on Baker Street, which left the museum to battle with Westminster City Council to end the dispute over the number, which had created negative publicity. After the closure of Abbey House in 2005, the Royal Mail recognised the museum's exclusive right to receive mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes.

Wikipedia - 221B Baker Street - Address controversy

I do not know whether the proprietors of the Sherlock Holmes Museum did pay large sums of money to acquire the address of 221B Baker Street, Gerard, Neil McGowan probably has inside information, but it is, pedantically, the correct address for Sherlock Holmes. If I may recommend an excellent book, I recently read 'The House of Silk' by Anthony Horowitz. It marks the first time that the Conan Doyle Estate has authorised a new Sherlock Holmes novel.



Wikipedia - The House of Silk

Writing in 'FT Weekend' today, David Crow pertinently reports that London is speckled with 850 blue plaques marking the houses where important men and women once lived – people whose influence sometimes has a profound effect on today’s residents. Such as the couple who developed a friendship with Sylvia Plath’s daughter because they live in the house where she was born. And a woman who sleeps in Fred Perry’s old bedroom thinking: “I wonder if he lay awake at night looking at the same ceiling.” David concludes thus:



FT - Star signs

May I take this opportunity to welcome you to 'The Third', Jason! I note that you have declined Sydney's request for a poet in residence, so to speak. I should add, however, that a residence in Baker Street is not what it once was. Regent's Park, of course, is just around the corner, but the traffic in Baker Street can be very noisy at times. St John's Lodge makes for a welcome retreat!



If you cannot contribute many of your matchless stanzas to 'The Third', Jason, you could, of course, attempt to help me defeat that giant of evil, Professor Moriaty, wherever he is currently hanging out!

YouTube - Sherlock / Moriarty - When You're Evil

Moriaty is wicked, man!

According to Immanuel Kant, Jason, only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness. Knowing myself as I do, I accept, in all humility, that life itself can be a very dirty game, and one does not necessarily put on one's best trousers to go out and fight for freedom and truth, Neil. As for some new Golden Age, if we look back at human history, there are a few ages which could, in my view, be regarded as golden. Classical Greece, for example, is one. The Italian Renaissance is another. The post-World War II economic superboom may just have come to an end (according to George Soros), but in certain senses, we, too, have lived through a golden age of unparalleled prosperity, Sydney.

As a new Elizabethan, I would argue that I was privileged to be born towards the end of the Cold War, although just as the twentieth century witnessed the two hottest wars in human history, the twenty-first century possibly faces even greater challenges ahead. Nevertheless, two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them, Jason: the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me. Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastical, high-flown or exaggerated notion.

Wikipedia - Immanuel Kant

It is a complement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, Sydney, necessary for the public rights of mankind in general and thus for the realisation of perpetual peace. I ought, Jason, therefore I can. In the words of Niccolò Machiavelli, a prince who desires to maintain his position learns to be good or not as needs must. I do not think that this idea excuses the malevolence of government, Jason, but it can help explain why the state needs to be amoral on occasion. I propose some toast: to the first, the second and 'The Third'! Three cheers from kleines c and the gang (Monday morning brunch)!