I know I should not have allowed myself to be dragged into the situation.
Perhaps a man better acquainted with the complications of human nature than I would be able to explain why I got involved.
Perhaps Freud's postulations on the unconscious mind or the mechanisms of repression would explain.
I was holidaying at Lake H, which my doctor suggested; the alpine air, he said, would slow the development of the early stages of consumption.
I was in my wicker chair, smoking a cigarette, and considering the vista before me - a mountain scene not unlike the best of the Swiss Alps - when the screams of nearby children aroused in me the deepest irritation.
With my walking stick raised I marched the short distance to the shore to remonstrate with the parents, and demand they keep their offspring quieter, and more suitably behaved.
I can tell you it did not end well; one would be unlucky to find a more vulgar and common couple (covered in tattoos, they were) anywhere in the South Pacific.
I was lucky to leave in one piece, but the experience left me ever more certain of a maxim with which I have always concurred.
Truman Capote said: ''I know from experience that there's always something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed.''
Quite so.
All this, of course, leads me to the picture shows due to be broadcast on the television box.
Fabulous Danish crime drama Forbrydelsen ends on Soho this Friday with a suspenseful and stunning climax.
Reykjavik: that's all I can say.
True Detective began last week, also on Soho, and it is quite excellent.
On Tuesdays at 8.30pm, it stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as suitably left-field Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division homicide detectives, working a case that is a curious marriage between The Blair Witch Project and Pulp Fiction.
True Detective jumps around in time as the boys try to find an occult-style serial killer, and features characters nuanced and deeply flawed, as all good characters should be. The show will win awards.
But I have said it before, and I'll say it again: Sherlock Holmes should be left at 221B Baker St, sometime between 1880 and 1914, and he should stay steeped in the mores and moralities of the time.
Dr Watson should be a fellow who served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, and was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand by a Jezail bullet to the shoulder.
He should be a man, by the way, and not Lucy Liu; an important point.
Most of all, Holmes should not have a back and arms covered with tattoos.
But Elementary, with all the above qualities, returns to Prime On January 29.
It's just not right.
- Charles Loughrey
