[blumei]

….human being that I have ever known.

There’s a margin for error but I’m pretty sure there’s a 747 leaving Heathrow tomorrow at six thirty in the evening for Baltimore. Apparently it’s going to save the world. Not sure how that can be true, but give me a moment, I’ve only been on the case for eight seconds. Oh, come on. It’s not code. These are seat allocations on a passenger jet. Look - there’s no letter ‘I’ because it can be mistaken for a ‘1’; no letters past ‘K’ – the width of the plane is the limit. The numbers always appear randomly and not in sequence, but the letters have little runs of sequence all over the place: families and couples sitting together. Only a Jumbo is wide enough to need the letter ‘K’ or rows past fifty-five, which is why there’s always an upstairs. There’s a row thirteen, which eliminates the more superstitious airlines. Then there’s the style of the flight number – zero zero seven – that eliminates a few more; and assuming a British point of origin, which would be logical considering the original source of the information, and assuming from the increased pressure on you lately that the crisis is imminent, the only flight that matches all the criteria and departs within the week is the six thirty to Baltimore tomorrow evening from Heathrow Airport.
Fun trivia tidbit. The above, my favorite Sherlock deduction, consists of 225 scripted words delivered by Benedict Cumberbatch in under a minute: 48 seconds, to be precise (1:07:16 - 1:08:04). That includes, BTW, a four second pause halfway through the speech.

If my math is correct, that’s a rate of 281 words per minute. According to Wiki, auctioneers speak at about 250 words per minute. Most of us read the speech at a slower rate than he delivered it.