January 6th: Sherlock Holmes Day

The Baker Street Irregulars, a group of Sherlock Holmes fans in New York celebrate the famous fictional detective's birthday on this date every year, so how about some things about Sherlock Holmes you may not know:

1. The date of Sherlock's birthday was never made explicit in any of the stories. His year of birth, 1854, was stated – Conan Doyle refers to him as being 60 years old in 1914 – but the actual date has been arrived at by fans practicing their own arts of deduction. Some say it is because Twelfth Night is the only Shakespeare play that Holmes quotes twice; others say it is because this date was the birthday of Christopher Morely's brother (Christopher Morely being the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars); Morely himself has deducted that it must be because the final novel, The Valley of Fear, begins on January 7. At the beginning of the story, Holmes is grumpy with Watson. Why? Because he must have a hangover. If he had a hangover he must have been celebrating the night before. What was he celebrating? Must have been his birthday.
2. The inspiration for the character of Holmes came from Doyle's former boss, Dr Joseph Bell, a lecturer in medicine at the University of Edinburgh. To illustrate the importance of observation when making a diagnosis, he would pick a random person from his audience and deduce, by observing them, what they did for a living and which activities they had taken part in over the past few days. Incidentally, Bell's birthday was December 2, and because of this, some believe that this is the date that Holmes's birthday should be celebrated.
3. In none of Doyle's books does Sherlock Holmes utter the words “Elementary, My dear Watson”. He does state that his deductions are “elementary”, and he does sometimes call his friend “My dear Watson”, but the two are never combined. (Really? Well, beam me up, Scotty!)
4. Likewise, Doyle never mentions Holmes' iconic deerstalker hat. The nearest he gets to that is once describing Holmes as wearing “an ear-flapped travelling cap”. The deerstalker comes from the illustrator's interpretation of him.
5. Sherlock Holmes holds the world record for the most portrayed human fictional character – more than 70 different actors have played him and there have been 226 Sherlock Holmes films. (Dracula has done better with 236, but he isn't human).
6. Doyle originally planned to call his character “Sherrinford”.
7. Dr Watson was originally going to be called “Ormond Sacker”.
8. 221B Baker Street was occupied by an Abbey National Building Society, which at one time employed a dedicated member of staff to deal with all the letters they received from all over the world addressed to Sherlock Holmes at that address.
9. The name “Sherlock” means “blonde”.
10. Sherlock Holmes was granted Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2002 – the first fictional person to be recognised in this way.