One of my favourite online activities is corresponding with the Subgenius Mailing Lyst. The Lyst hasn't got much to do with the Church of the Subgenius any more, and that's the way we like it.
One of the copious writers on the list, Andrew Kirby, began a series of posts in the character of Alex, a severely repressed Victorian character living in a small flat in London with his "amenuensis" Watson. Watson never said a word in these episodes, he merely served as the target for Alex's ramblings and, like a good amenuensis, took every word down in a journal.
I love the Victorian style myself, so I had to join in. I wrote Alex a letter from James Peasworth, explaining that I had gone on an expedition to Sumatra in search of oBo the strange idol worshipped by the tribesmen.
Alex loves letters, and Watson dutifully filed it away in his trunk. Other people joined in, as Sally Pinafore, James jilted bride-to-be, persued her target across the world in a dirigible, and her family lawyers wrote to demand payment for the damages to their mansion caused during James stag party. Meanwhile James and Mario, the immortal wanderer, joined forces and explored the tunnels leading from the abandoned French plantation house, eventually meeting Captain Voorhis and his subteranean borer...
Andrew Kirby died January 21st 2006. His writing lives on.
The National Watson Archive