In accordance with government guidelines on social distancing and to keep the member of The Shingle of Southsea safe from the possibility of infecting himself with COVID-19, there will be no May meeting of The Shingle of Southsea.
The subject of accepting new members to The Shingle of Southsea has been raised several times by one of our members - "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller).
The general opinion of the society is that this is unnecessary, but during this period of COVID-19 related lock down, in which we are unable to hold normal meetings, it seemed an ideal opportunity to use our resources to investigate scientifically whether this is a good idea.
The goal was to establish if other people:
1. Are willing to work with The Shingle of Southsea.
2. Are correct enough to join The Shingle of Southsea.
3. There is no three.
To this end a test was devised and the following post was shared on Twitter by "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller):
"I need two replies from each of you.
1. Your top three Holmesian films
2. Your top three non-Holmesian films"
This post received 14 answers. The post clearly states that I needed a reply from everyone. At the time of writing the world population is roughly 7,782,354,992. That is a response rate of about 0.0000001799%
This is a very poor start. If we can expect 0.0000001799% cooperation from new members, it seems they may be a destabilising influence.
Next we shall examine the choices the paltry fourteen people made for the top three non-Holmesian films. Objectively it is a known fact that the correct answer should be:
Harold and Maude (1971)
Fight Club (1999)
Withnail and I (1987)
This is not a difficult question. I’ve known the answer for years and I was surprised to find anyone could struggle with it. And yet, view the appalling answers I was given:
A Hard Day’s Night, A Lion in Winter, Groundhog Day
An American in Paris (1951), A Knight's Tale (2001), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939).
Back to the Future, Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark
Bladerunner (1st edit), That'll be the Day, Raffles ( David Niven)
In Like Flint, No Retreat No Surrender, Con Air.
Inception, The Philadelphia Story, Henry V (Branagh)
Jurassic Park, Star Trek (2009), Singing in the Rain
Labyrinth, Princess Bride, Howl’s Castle
Lord of the rings, The Sixth Sense, Dickens The Man Who invented Christmas
Miller's Crossing, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Psycho, Jaws
My Fair Lady, The Holiday, Harry Potter
STAND BY ME, E. T., THE GREAT SANTINI
The Three Musketeers (1973), Death on the Nile, Mary Poppins.
While I acknowledge that My Fair Lady would have been on the list prior to 1999, the compiler of this sorry list has had 21 years now to correct themselves. Thus not one person got a single film right. We can infer, then, that 0% of new members would have anything good to add to any non-Holmesian aspects of The Shingle of Southsea. And at least 7% would reply to everything by shouting in block capitals.
Perhaps the most important consideration, though, is the Holmesian aspect of the question. Would new members contribute usefully to the Holmesian functioning of the society? The objectively correct list of top three Holmesian films is, of course:
Holmes and Watson (2018)
They Might Be Giants (1971)
Star Wars (1977)
But see the shambolic answers we received:
Hound (Rathbone /Bruce), Murder by Decree Private life of Sherlock Holmes
I'm counting all of the Granada series as a film, The Great Mouse Detective, Ritchie Sherlock Holmes
Mr Holmes, Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes (RDJ)
Mr. Holmes, Downey Holmes 1, The Great Mouse Detective (Hon mention to Young Sherlock Holmes)
MR. HOLMES, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, WITHOUT A CLUE
Murder by Decree, The Scarlet Claw, Hammer's Hound
Sherlock Holmes (2009), Hammer Hound, Woman in Green
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes and Watson
The Great Mouse Detective, Rathbone Adventures, Downey Sherlock Holmes
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Murder by Decree, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983 version)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Spider-Woman, The Hound of the Baskervilles (Rathbone)
The Scarlet Claw (1944), Murder by Decree (1979), Torpedo Pirates (1918)
The Seven-percent-solution, The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, Granada Holmes and if not, The Great Mouse Detective
Young Sherlock Holmes, Murder by Decree, Adventures of S.H. (Rathbone)
14% of respondees included TV shows in their list of films. 14% gave four answers to a three answer question. Not a good sign. Out of a potential 42 answers only one was correct. That’s about 2%. Or 0.00000006% of the amount of answers I should have had if everyone had replied.
In summary we can see that if we did open up our membership to more people, they would refuse to cooperate with the existing membership, their Holmesian opinions would be false 99.99999994% of the time and in all other matters they would be wrong 100% of the time (excepting rare occasions concerning matters over two decades old).
The final decision in this matter, then, is that we will not be opening membership up to new members. We hope this satisfies "The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) and expect to hear no more about this subject.
If Torpedo Pirates (1918) is not on your list, we must take it to appeals court. Walter Stevens as Sherlock Holmes. Plot: Mr. P. Nutt invented a rather wonderful flying torpedo, which was worth millions when it flew, but his happiness was marred by his daughter's crush on his helping hand. The president of The Midnight Thieves' Association craved the torpedo, so he sent Vampa, a well set-up young women, to find a man who looked like Sherlock Holmes. They found him in a trash-can pulling a Hoover out of the garbage. When the inventor learned the eyes of the spies were upon him, he hastened to the detective agency and besought the trash-can dweller to take the case. Father returned - they always do - delighted at his date with Vampa. She arrived with a copyrighted scheme of her own to make the old duffer jealous. She winked her pretty eyes at the helping hand, who could not withstand the temptation. The scheme worked fine, the inventor became crazy jealous. ‘You tub of lard - I could kill you - here!’, shouted the frenzied P. Nutt, slapping him on the wrist. His rough words had an awful effect on Fatty, who resorted to tears. Suddenly a tremendous noise was heard, a storm came up - big ocean waves resounded their morbid chantings - the family was eating soup. Camouflaged by his tempestuous ordeal, the gang was making away with the torpedo, when Detective Snitch smelt trouble and dashing up into the private chamber he kicked the crooks into the hallway and flew out on the marvelous torpedo. He was nearing France and the gas was giving way, when he was rescued by the inventor and the family.”
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