Why Heavy Metal Is BAD For You

NO! Not In That Way
I do not mean that Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult or Deep Purple are going to make your eyes bleed, nor hatch cockroaches in the depths of your bowels, nor boil your brains in your skull like a haggis in a pan - that's quite the image, isn't it?
     Here an azide - sorry, an aside (thinking dark thoughts again! and we will come back to that) and you will have to imagine the umlauts above the "O" in "Oyster" because Blogger appears to lack diacritical marks.  Art?

Look really hard and they're in there

     I believe it was indeed BOC who were responsible for introducing the umlaut to the world of heavy metal, the swines, and we've not been free of them since.  Art?

See?  Do you see!

     If it comes to that, why an umlaut?  Why not a nice acute accent, or a grave accent, or a wonderful fluid cedilla?  Art -

Thus

     And don't even get me started on Czech ...
     Back on track.  Heavy metal.  Typically this refers to lead, although mercury is also up there (or down there, depending on your perspective) as well as cadmium, which we have covered recently, and the appallingly toxic thallium, which we may cover in future, because it's DANGEROUS!  You don't want to meet any of these things socially as they tend to go for important bits of your innards, like your lungs, kidney, liver, and especially your brain and central nervous system.  So, let us then to Dimethyl Mercury, which is vile stuff no longer in use now that there are less evil substances to substitute for it.
     It is incredibly toxic; one-millionth of a litre can kill if absorbed through the skin.  It is also highly volatile, meaning you could very easily inhale a lethal dose.  Although it was known to be highly dangerous, it actually turned out to be more dangerous than realised, because it easily penetrates rubber and plastic - which protective gloves are made of.
     Incredibly, someone inhaled enough of this murderous muck to describe it as having "a sweetish smell", presumably shortly before they keeled over dead.
     Currently the safety advice is to use heavy laminated gloves under another pair of gloves, wearing goggles and operating under a fume hood, or, even better, not to touch the damn stuff at all.

A good start

     There was, apparently, a brief flirtation with using DMM as a component in experimental rocket fuels, until the lunatic who proposed this was beaten about the head with a baseball bat to knock some common sense into them.  The Lord aloft only knows what kind of exhaust products would have been produced by burning tons of this stuff: you can imagine everyone downwind of the launch site suddenly ceasing to live.
     Well, time to put the motley in a wetsuit and hurl it into a pool of -
     - water!*

"Les Affames" A.k.a. French-Canadian Zombies
I came across an entry on Netflix for something called "Ravenous", which was nothing to do with that older fillum staring that Robert Carlyle chappie.  It did mention zombies, which immediately got my unhealthy appetite and interest up (at least I'm honest).
     Now, it's not bad, but it does revisit a lot of clichés that it - o look an accent!- that it would have done better to avoid.  Art?

I believe it means "The Hungries"

       It does set an air of tension and avoids ladling on the gore for shock value.  The fact that it's all in French is different, and there are a couple of un-nerving scenes involving - er - when I say 'erections' I refer to the structural and architectural type, of course.
     But O dear the clichés!  And because I am an anorak of the worst kind, I made notes about them.  Let us analyse:
     Trope #1:  "I shall just wander off into this wood without explaining to my partner what I'm doing.  This is because I've seen some people behaving strangely.  What can possibly go wrong!"

You had to ask

      Trope #2: A zombie appears silently out of nowhere thanks to teleportation skills, as otherwise they'd have made a noise treading on all the leaves and twigs, or been noticed thanks to their bright pink dress.
     Trope #3: "I shall just wander off into this wood without explaining to my partner what I'm doing.  Despite my other partner wandering off to their probably death doing exactly the same."
     Trope #2:  Repeated, minus pink dress.
     Trope #4: "A zombie has mysteriously appeared in the back of our pick-up truck, which is obviously again due to teleportation, since at no point were they observed climbing in.  This person also appears to have undergone zombification within seconds."
     Trope #5: "I shall just wander off into the woods without explaining to anyone else in my party what I am doing, because I don't know myself.  Also, I will leave my rifle behind, because what on earth can possibly go wrong!"

You had to ask

      Trope #6:  "We are tough and manly and hence will avoid wearing any kind of protective clothing such as robust boilersuits and helmets, for that would be sissyness personified."
     Trope #2: Substitute bright orange tee shirt for dress, and add about ten stone of bodyweight.
      Despite my carping, I would recommend it as a taut and effective thriller, done on a shoestring budget.**

And now we have gone waaaay over count, so it's time to put this pony to bed.


*  We like to keep it guessing.
**  I have to say this or Wonder Wifey will punch me.