This is LOW TAR

I am reading The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde and it has some things to say about green, which, as we’ve noticed, is used heavily in the Sherlock Special material that has been so far released, as well as the regular series

It’s not just carnations. It’s everything green.

Most importantly, Oscar, again like Wainewright, “had that curious love of green which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxitity, if not a decadence of morals.” This was a coded and deliberate reference to sex between men. There was a widespread belief in nineteenth-century Europe that one of the distinguishing characteristics of men who loved men was a preference for the colour green. Indeed, men who loved men themselves seemed equally convinced that their preference for green was in some way bound up with their sexuality.

Havelock Ellis’s Sexual Inversion details several case histories where men who love men claim that they have what Oscar called “that curious love of green.” :  “Case VII remarks that he cannot whistle and that his favourite colour is green” and “Case XII has a special predilection for green: it is the predominant colour in the decorations of his rom, and everything green appeals to him. He finds that the love of green... is very widespread among his inverted friends.”  Ellis himself was convinced that a preference for green was very marked among men who loved men, and offered an historical precedent: “It has been remarked,” he wrote, “that inverts exhibit a preference for green garments. In Rome cinaedi  where for this reason called galbanati”  Cinaedus meant “catamite” and galbanatus meant “effeminate wearer of green clothes”  As a classical scholar Oscar would have been well aware of the symbolism of the colour green in ancient Rome. And rather closer in time and space, Oscar knew too that white carnations, artificially died green, were worm as badges of sexual preference by men who loved men in Paris. “The colour green and Hell,” he said, “are both made for thieves and artists”

DAVIES: (Laughter). That's Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock.

OK, tell us about this Sherlock. What's your kind of psychological profile of this guy?

CUMBERBATCH: Well, the same as the books. You know, a very flamboyant, flawed, brilliant human being. Somebody who sacrificed a lot in order to gain an exceptional ability to interpret the world and the detail of the world around him. Someone who can look at the mundane and create pop-up adventure, potential outcomes and adventures. Somebody who is irascible, flamboyant, arrogant and bullish. Vicariously, pleasurably intolerant of mediocrity and the mundanity of bureaucracy. Somebody who underestimates the true value of kinship and friendship and being part of a world rather than just being the best in a field in the world, and gets his comeuppance and slowly matures into somebody with, you know, a humanized edge to his otherworldly brilliance.

DAVIES: Yeah, that's him. (Laughter).

Those legs though

In additional proof of the ongoing discussion of Holmes’ sexuality, Bert Coules, everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/still-time-to-play-1-91319

His other abiding passion was for Sherlock Holmes. "I became obsessed with the idea of having read all of Holmes, so I read them in a very short space of time and what I did was deny myself the pleasure of having a few left unread. I still often read bits of them, like the opening of The Greek Interpreter, where we meet Holmes's brother. The idea of Holmes having a brother is thrilling. It's so beautifully written, so economical, the way Doyle introduces it is fantastic, and it still gives me a little frisson - the idea of Watson going, 'What?!' I've known you all these years and now you tell me you have a brother?' " Who is his favourite screen Holmes? "It would once have been the most obvious answer: it's Basil Rathbone.