Igenlode Wordsmith

Well, I wasn't really expecting that...

Tried the Sherlock Personality Quiz (it does say "you might be surprised who you end up getting"), and while the -- truthful -- multiple-choice answers I gave weren't the ones that I would have identified as the obvious 'Holmes set', the result was quite unambiguous.

You are Sherlock Holmes. The smartest person in any room (unless your brother is there), you frequently drive people crazy with your rude tone, frighteningly meticulous eye for detail and rapid-fire conversation. Some find your brusque demeanor and total disregard for social norms off-putting and you might have a hard time making friends. But you're shockingly loyal to the (very few) people you choose to associate with voluntarily and there's definitely a heart buried somewhere under all that arrogance. Your friend is probably right about the solar system being important, though, so maybe you should look it up.

On the whole I think I'm slightly flattered... which suggests the result is not that inaccurate!

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And on their Downton Abbey quiz, I'm apparently Lord Grantham. Which again I would not have expected -- and find more flattering than I would have thought -- but the way they put it, it actually makes sense...

Now to work out what will result when you take the intersection of those two characters! (Pride and loyalty, I suspect.)

Here's the blog entry I would have posted on MySpace, before I discovered that my ability to post there at all had apparently been discontinued...

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Wed August 18th, 2010

Apparently my last blog entry vanished into the aether -- probably just as well...

I've been watching a lot more television than usual. Decided to have a look at "Mad Men" when the BBC started re-running the series from the beginning, since everyone has been raving about it for years. In a similar situation, I never got beyond the first episode of "The Sopranos"; I've managed two weeks of this so far, but am not really hooked. Presumably it's being very post-modernist in that the (apparent) main protagonist isn't actually very likeable, but I'm oldfashioned enough to find this a barrier to being drawn in. The only person I really felt for was the immature Pete Campbell in the most recent (4th) episode; and I really can't identify with either...

"Sherlock", on the other hand, I unequivocally enjoyed. Benedict Cumberbatch is a performer whose career I've been watching with interest for some years (and I have -- somewhere -- the scrapbook clipping to prove it), so when the "Guardian" ran a big article trailing his appearance in a new TV series I was a little annoyed to discover that it was going to take place during the two weeks I was away! Managed to tape the second episode, and despite a slight disorientation during the opening scenes (who was who? where on earth are they? Watson in the supermarket?!) very soon found myself into the swing of things and thoroughly enjoying the cameraderie and wit. I was inspired enough to go to some lengths to seek out the first episode, which I ultimately managed to watch in two chunks split across the transmission of the third, and currently last, screen adventure -- the latter, unfortunately, was something of a let-down (particularly as I'd been praising it to the skies in advance to everyone who would listen), with the ending undermined by a giggling Moriarty. But returning to the closing sections of the first episode reconfirmed my initial impression; this is potentially really, really good.

(And for once I get the satisfaction of watching the media raving about something I've actually seen and liked; usually I'm either alienated or utterly disconnected!)