221B: FAKE NEWS!

I found myself with a few hours to spend on London's Baker Street. Why not check out the famous residence at 221B? So I walked along the street, past the Sherlock Holmes Grill, Sherlock Holmes Hotel and even the Sherlock Holmes Chemist.  I was disappointed to arrive at what I thought was the Holmes residence and find ... a Chinese restaurant.  Only then did I feel foolish because I had been looking for number 22B, not 221B.  I turned around and walked the other direction.
I should have felt foolish because I had actually expected to find the residence of  a fictitious character.  Why should there be any residence at a made up address?
At the other end of Baker Street, near Regent's Park, there is a sign indicating the fictitious 221B, because it was supposedly the first floor flat of the building at 221.

There was a line of tourists waiting to enter the very small residence, one room wide, two deep and four floors up. I bought my ticket and joined the line. On the first floor were the living room and bedroom of the famous detective. We were allowed to sit in his armchair by the fireplace and pose for pictures. Someone dressed in costume told us we could even wear the distinctive hat. "You can put that hat on; it is just prop. The real one is in the glass case," he said. We all bought it! I even took a picture of the hat exhibited in the glass case.

Everything looked so authentic, but I had to laugh when I got to the handwritten letters.  Was I supposed to believe that the correspondence of Holmes and Watson had been preserved in this museum?  All this was fake! It had to be, There was no real Sherlock Holmes.  Just the fact that this place called itself a museum led the visitors to believe we were viewing something historically accurate.
Much of the 'props' displayed in the house were indeed historically accurate.  There were scientific books, household antiques and even a Victorian toilet.  But they were all mixed in with fakes, like the enormous  stuffed and mounted head of the Hound of the Baskervilles and the severed ears of Mrs. Mary Browner.  I had to remind myself that it was all really fiction.
This is what makes fake news so dangerous. In it we recognize  something familiar, or something true.  Then we let it lead us astray.  We enjoy being led astray, down the path into fantasy land.  As long as we are able to recognize the absurdity of the thing, and laugh at being taken for a fool, then we can enjoy the experience and come back to reality.

So I left 221B and crossed the road into Regent's Park. The grass was brown from lack of rain, and the gardeners were busy digging up the flower beds. This in-between season didn't really entice one to walk in the park.  But a path led me into an inner  garden, with roses of all varieties in bud and ready to bloom.  Each was carefully labeled with names so imaginative they could only be designed to make us believe there was a true story just waiting to be made up behind each one.