Musing On The Bane Of Bean

Don't Worry, It Will All Make Sense In The End*
I gave that fillum "Johnny English: The Third One" a bit of an easy ride in my usually scathing film reviews recently, and then mentioned - for I flit about like a dancing dog with dementia when writing - Rowan Atkinson's immortal comic creation Mister Bean, who has been with us for nearly 30 years.  
     Here an aside.  That program has been sold and seen around the world, and hence everyone thinks we Brits are all either like Mister Bean or the Queen.  Conrad falls between those stools.
     Anyway, I remember seeing the first episode, which featured an unusually serious and dour Mister Sprout (do you see what they did there?), not being impressed at all by Mister Bean.  Art?

The leguminous ones

     He is, in fact, the bane of Mister Bean, which is where today's title comes from.  He is played by RIchard Briers, although given the vegetable allusions in play it would be more apt if he'd been surnamed "Briars".

Thus

     It would have suited his prickly nature.

Sticking With That Theme -
Crikey Dick Van Dykey, it's dark.  Grey overcast skies, don't you know.  Excuse me whilst I go turn the lights and oven on. 
     Okay, I have been reading more alarming yet interesting information about poisonous plants on John Robertson's very excellent "Poison Garden" website, including one dubbed "Black Baneberry".  Art?

Do not put in a pie!

     One brave/daft/desperate (delete where applicable) lady decided to test these berries and see if they were poisonous, by eating them.  Way to go, madam, you show those berries what's what!
     She started with one berry, which didn't do much, then upped the dose to three and then six, at which point her experimentation stopped, as she was hallucinating, having trouble speaking and suffering profound stomach pains.  She believed ingesting twelve berries would be fatal, not that this has ever happened anywhere and isn't going to - the taste is disgusting beyond belief and nobody would ever willingly eat more than one.
     A very definite bane of a berry.

Not a good kisser.

I Wrote Some Rules
Yes indeed.  I dug out my "Square Bashing" ruleset and the "Storm of Steel" supplement recently and have re-read them, as it's years since I played.  From reading a blog entry by one Sean Clarke, I get the impression a new ruleset has come out, because he mentions a couple of artillery barrages that are new and aircraft over the battlefield.



     This matters because although the rules above mention the points you need to expend to acquire an aircraft, there aren't any rules to do with them.   So, because every wargamer who ever lived always always but always mucks around with rulesets (the bane of every rules creator you know), I've created some for Aircraft.  If time permits and to up the word count I may bore you with the details later.

     Excuse me whilst I go stick those breaded chicken in the oven -

The Curse Of The Night Of The Demon
I used the poster of this yesterday to postulate an influence upon the design of a Balrog in "The Fellowship of the Ring", which is a moot point.
     It's an interesting poster, because of the titular demon.  If Art will stop sucking the uranium out of that fuel rod -

There you go.

     The thing is, neither the screenwriter, director nor stars wanted an Obvious Monster to appear in the film.  Dana Andrews, in an interview, stated that he thought it weakened the overall ending of the film.  The scenes featuring the demon were added by the producer in post-production, as well as stripping out 13 minutes of film to placate South Canadians with short attention-spans.

The South Canadian poster.  Subtle it is not.

     As you can see, the title was also changed for the South Canadian market, because (and here I speculate) "Night" just wasn't horrifying enough, and they couldn't get enough fright out of merely having a "Demon".  No, they wanted that title to work the audience, so we have a "Curse", which is another kind of bane, when you think about it.
     I've not seen it in probably decades, so later this afternoon, while it is still daylight and with Edna to keep me company, stiffen my backbone and be an early-warning system should any wandering demons company.

Stonehenge has a cameo

     In case you are wondering, the film is based on a short story by M.R. James, called "Casting the Runes" which is short on gore but long on fright, and should not be read last thing at night.

Right, time to see how that chicken is doing!  Oh, and to force the motley to wrap up in steel wool whilst running about in the thunderstorm!**

*  Probably. 
**  Did you think I'd forgotten?