BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Vatican cameos

Davina · February 23, 2012 9:22 pm

Well? What did you do?

kazza474 · February 24, 2012 1:49 am

I clicked the words and it brought me to this page.

Davina · February 24, 2012 3:03 pm

Ha! You didn't dive down to the ground then?

kazza474 · February 24, 2012 3:07 pm

No, I wasn't opening anything.

Davina · February 24, 2012 3:19 pm

Have you seen the stuff on YouTube?

Sherlock Holmes · March 3, 2012 2:26 am

What does Vatican Cameos actually mean?

Wait hang on...are you gonna tell me I should listen to the commentary? I downloaded them all tonight actually, gonna match them up with the episodes tomorrow in movie maker then watch them.

kazza474 · March 3, 2012 6:33 am

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
What does Vatican Cameos actually mean?

Wait hang on...are you gonna tell me I should listen to the commentary? I downloaded them all tonight actually, gonna match them up with the episodes tomorrow in movie maker then watch them.

lol!
OK, the only mention of Vatican Cameos by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

“I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.
—Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Now just as people are doing these days, fans of Sherlock Holmes have for years tried to 'fill in the blanks' when it comes to these stories.
From that, one author wrote a book on what she thought happened. I haven't read it unfortunately so I don't know if this interpretation of a booby trapped safe is what she had in there, or if this is Moftiss's idea.
It's just another wave at the original stories that would have been picked up by the totally obsessed fans, lol.

There is actually a list of all the 'untold cases' of Holmes; the ones that are referred to in the canon but are never actually written about. It will be interesting to see if other ones get referenced in future, or have been already!
Ah of course, teh Aluminium Crutch is there too!

http://www.bestofsherlock.com/ref/untlist.htm

Last edited by kazza474 (March 3, 2012 6:40 am)

Sherlock Holmes · March 3, 2012 6:37 am

Hmmm interesting! And what does it mean in the context of the story...? Is it like, a codeword that Sherlock has meaning "duck" or something, perhaps?

kazza474 · March 3, 2012 6:42 am

Obviously it meant that there was a booby trapped safe. One assumes in teh case of the Vatican Cameos, someone had their safe rigged with a gun to shoot whoever opened the door. Sherlock knew something was up because when he looked at Irene, she started to duck.
He worked it out cos he's smart as well as sexy.

Just as we don't see Sherlock tell John to start a fire to make the alarms go off, we weren't witness to him telling John about the Vatican Cameo affair. Geez come on, can't the boys have some privacy from you fans??!!!

Last edited by kazza474 (March 3, 2012 6:44 am)

Sherlock Holmes · March 3, 2012 9:42 am

Right, so he said it because he'd worked out the safe was booby trapped, which reminded him of a past case, so John would have been alerted by this and knew what was going on. All in a split second of course.

I like the fire bit. They must have planned that before they went in.

And no, I don't want them to have any privacy. In fact, less privacy would do!

kazza474 · March 3, 2012 11:39 am

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
And no, I don't want them to have any privacy. In fact, less privacy would do!

There's a name for people like you: voyeur
There's also stalking laws to consider, lol.

Davina · March 3, 2012 5:22 pm

What seems to be suggested in the scene from Scandal is that Sherlock suspects there might be something about opening the safe door that could be dangerous. Before the opens it he looks to Irene, it is her safe after all, and she motions with her eyes quickly downwards and slightly lowers her head suggesting that they should duck. The phrase itself is clearly a code word netween John and Sherlock. Irene knows the booby trap is there. They are ducking to avoid the CIA guys although Sherlock would need to avoid the immediate vicinity of the safe door.

I like the 'I really hope you haven't got a baby in there.'

Sherlock Holmes · March 3, 2012 6:45 pm

Yes, and they were already told earlier by the American guy that there was one code to open the safe and one code to deactivate it and call the police, or something like that. So Sherlock probably worked out that a booby trap might be involved in that one as well.

kazza474 · March 4, 2012 12:40 pm

Of course, such a great line has to be repeated by others due to the intense interest in it.

Here's the latest crowd to use it!

Sherlock Holmes · March 4, 2012 1:20 pm

Hehe, cool.

Davina · March 4, 2012 9:55 pm

Funny! Nice to know that Sue Vertue likes a Vatican Cameo.

Sherlock Holmes · March 8, 2012 1:31 pm

Sherlockians doing Vatican Cameos on YouTube:

Davina · March 13, 2012 1:00 pm

There's a new Vatican Cameos posting on youtube. A flashmob in Cologne (Koeln, sorry can't find out how to do umlaut!) , Germany last Sunday 11th March.

Sherlock Holmes · March 14, 2012 3:06 pm

A couple more I found today...

Some school kids doing Vatican Cameos in class:

And the one in Cologne:

I love these people!

Davina · March 14, 2012 5:35 pm

The one from Cologne is really well presented too. I like the little detective type figure who is watching.