Plan 221 from Outer Spice

Most people haven’t heard of Outer Spice. That was kind of the point of her existence as the clandestine operations officer of the Spice Girls team back in the 1990s. It wasn’t her true name, of course, and she’s using a totally different name these days, as she’s no longer with Britain’s SIS. But Outer stays in touch, which came up valuable this week after she invited this blogger to meet her at Donnelly’s Irish Pub on Sunday evening for a “somebody’s got to let them know” moment of the sort we in the internet media are oh-so familiar with.

I’m tempted to play hard-boiled private eye writer here, and give you a description of Outer Spice, the most geek-attracting of the Spice Girls, had she ever been seen in public, but as Saint Joe Friday dictated, following the Master’s own philosophy, I will stick to “just the facts.”

Even that will have you doubting my sanity, of course. Which is why I think Outer contacted me, I suppose  – known eccentrics often fly under official radars. Anyway, here’s the scoop:

The British have been attempting to re-take America from practically the moment we declared our independence. All those “British invasions” the media likes to play up as they did the Beatles? Yeah, they were real invasions. All “hearts and minds,” which is the main strategy a smaller nation has to take in invading a larger one. Over the centuries, there have actually been two hundred and twenty plans for the Crown to convince America to willingly become “Canada South.” And up until now, they’ve all fizzled, including the Spice Girl plot, which Outer was such an intimate part of. (You should hear her tell of the assassination of Kurt Cobain – riveting stuff.)

But now the Brits are trying it again, and it’s a devious, devious plan. Their fingerprints are nowhere near it, which makes it all the more worrisome. And what does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes, you are probably wondering at this point?

Everything.

Plan 221 for the Britain’s reclamation of America involves slowly getting the average American to think that any random person speaking with an English accent is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, known for revealing truths and giving sage advice one surely must heed, an icon of the industrial Western world who even Americans trust.

Their plan is to slowly introduce more and more major media Sherlock Holmeses that have little to do with the original source material or any previous incarnations of Holmes, promoting the slogan, “The more Sherlocks the better!” Eventually, when the only common thread between incarnations of Sherlock Holmes is any accent native to the British isles (except Ireland, of course), the true British invasion can begin. And complicity will come so easily.

“Here, Sherlock Holmes, take my car!”

“Well, if Sherlock Holmes thinks we should ban gyms and weight-lifting that might increase our physical strength, it must be right!”

“Hey, everybody, Sherlock Holmes says putting Prince Harry on the quarter will save the economy!”

And before you know it, we’re “Canada South.”

Outer Spice risked her life, coming to Peoria and getting this word out. Now it’s up to us.

Accept no Sherlock Holmeses who possess less than 80% of the traits of the real Sherlock Holmes. Anything less, and we could be looking at the scenario from the movie Red Dawn, from a direction we never saw it coming.