The Mushroom analogy

Yes you're going to have to bear with me on this one....

There seems to have been an awful lot of conflict in the Sherlockian world of late. Well it's certainly true if the social media stories I've seen recently are anything to go by. My blog post is not a reaction to any of these incidents specifically as I don't really know enough about each case to comment. My post is more a reaction to Sherlockian conflict in general with no specific form of that conflict in mind.

So here we go.

I don't care for mushrooms. I've tried them in many forms and they are not to my taste. I deal with this fact by keeping out of their way.

My wife loves mushrooms.

I don't challenge her on this or get angry about it, nor do I seek to dissuade her from eating them. If I had the power to eliminate all mushrooms I would not exercise it because I realise that my wife, along with millions of others, gets pleasure from them.

Now, substitute the mushroom in this story for an aspect of the Sherlock Holmes fandom that you don't care for. Can it not be handled in a similar fashion?

The banquet we know as Sherlockiana consists of a very large table with a great many dishes. No one is going to like them all. Instead of spitting out something you don't like and angrily thumping the table demanding to know who had the nerve to serve up such a dish - just accept that it's there because someone round the table likes it and leave it to them to enjoy. There will still be plenty at the table to your taste and enough enjoyment for everyone if they just agree that they like different dishes and focus on the likes they share rather than the dislikes they don't.

Is this a plan that we could all buy into? I do hope so as the skirmishes and outright conflict I'm all too often reading about is getting me down and affects my enjoyment of the dining table I've been sat at for thirty-four years.

Come on people! Let's give it a go.

Written by Alistair Duncan Buy my books here