Benedict Cumberbatch

On Benedict Cumberbatch, the jolie laide heartthrob of my Sherlock Holmes fixation:

This week, he’s in the news because he’s voicing a “super-duper smooth wolf” in DreamWorks’ upcoming Penguins of Madagascar. He’s also playing Hamlet at the London Barbican. He’s playing Richard III, possibly opposite Judi Dench. He’s reading radio news scripts from D-Day on BBC Radio Four (in what seems to be a craven but successful attempt to get millennials interested in history) He’s photo-bombing U2 at the Oscars. He’s reading letters written by Kurt Vonnegut and Iggy Pop at the literary Hay Festival. He’s one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He’s officiating at same-sex weddings. He’s crowd-funding short films made by a production company he set up, SunnyMarch Ltd. He’s starring as Alan Turing inThe Imitation Game. He’s replacing Brad Pitt in The Lost City of Z. He’s replacing Guy Pearce as Whitey Bulger’s brother in Black Mass. He’s onBuzzFeed surrounded by photoshopped pictures of kittens. And, yes, he’s also doing a fourth season of Sherlock, the cult British series that made detached sociopaths dreamy and Cumberbatch a household name.

What newsworthy things did you do this week?

Many Happy Returns

It is true I’ve fallen in love … with “the most brilliant doomed detective in all of the UK,” to quote a friend’s assessment of my heart’s desire. Sherlock Holmes has won me over.

In my quest to absorb the greatest works of classical literature within the brief span of my lifetime, it only stood to reason that I would one day page through the dusty canon of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mortal genius. What found I there, but the scribblings of an honest but average doctor named Watson and the extraordinary feats of an arrogant pomp with a keen eye for detail and a penchant for trouble. Ah, Holmes.

Naturally, I gravitated toward the tales retold by Hollywood blockbusters and BBC mini-series. What stroke of luck! My Holmes returns to an Empty Hearse on New Year’s Day.

Meanwhile, we wish him Many Happy Returns: