JEREMY NO SHERLOCK

Andrew Bolt -- Australia's most blogged about blogger -- has doubts about the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie:

Sherlock Holmes has been waiting a long time for a stunts-and-all modern movie makeover. So this release for Christmas may seem promising - although Robert Downey Jnr? And will Holmes be retained as the aesthete, or are his manners to be trashed to suit these coarser times?

That last sentence drawing Bolt-obsessed PP boy Jeremy Sear's attention:

Holmes’ manners were notoriously brusque and inhuman. He was brilliant - but also cold, and arrogant. And he was well-known as a cocaine and morphine addict (in a less “coarse” time when such use was not criminalised). And I must confess to being surprised by this sudden preference for aesthetism - I thought Bolt was a critic of the impractical, elitist arts.

Which of these manners represent the Good Moral Values to which Andrew Bolt wishes we corrupt moderners would return?

There would be no need for speculation had Jeremy donned his cape, activating his Crikey-endowed journalistic super-powers whereby "unlike when I was just some guy with a blog, I can now actually ring the subject of a piece and say 'it’s Jeremy from Crikey' and they’ll answer the phone." Apparently a bit shy about using the "it's Jeremy from Crikey" ploy, Bolt was not contacted for clarification.

I therefore emailed Bolt to ask him what he meant by Holmes' "manners". His response:

I of course mean his mode of social conduct, embracing such things as his courtesy, self-control, courage, compassion and selflessness. As you'd agree, our ideas of precisely how such qualities are best expressed may change, but what is important is that a life is at least guided by such ideals.

And, contrary to what Jeremy would like his readers to believe, Holmes was unfailingly well-mannered despite being a recreational cocaine user.