Naught Of Trains Or Banes

Though There Maybe Refrains -
 - about grains.  And brains, too; if you yark on about zombies then there's usually brains in the topic at some point.  Speaking for my own, it's usually quite unpredictable and what ends up on BOOJUM! is not always what I intended.
     Okay, last night I was watching "Night of the Demon", which turned out to be the full-length 95 minute version instead of the somewhat truncated 83 minute version I used to own on videotape.  Art?  Less of the uranium, more of the pictures!

It's behind you!

     SPOILERS AHEAD.  See how considerate I am?  It's over 60 years old but I don't want to detract from your viewing enjoyment.  


     One of the essential plot points is that the villainous Karswell hies an hideous demon onto a couple of people he dislikes, in what seems to your humble yet logical scribe to be an awful lot of trouble.  The victim has to be passed a slip of paper that they accept willingly, at which point their woes begin.  By a deadline, the demon will appear and rend them into little bits.

Make no mistake, this is one angry demon.

     The thing is, this rather dim demon goes for whoever is holding the piece of paper, which means things end rather badly for Karswell.  Couldn't he have just used a knife instead to get his own back?  Or, given that he has a lot of abject followers, send one or two of them round to deliver the glad news?

Angry and apparently invisible, too.

     You see, Karswell ends up being ripped apart by said demon - bit of an own-goal there, Karsy old chap - which stands a good twenty feet tall yet nobody notices it.
     "Ooh, ooh, how horribly mutilated the body is!  It must have been done by a train," is all the explanation we get - because guess what, the monster got added in against the wishes of everybody.*  

"Drag me away from watching the Cup Final, will you?  I'll show you!"

     Oops.  Sorry, I brought trains into it again, didn't I?  Bad brain!  Naughty brain!
     Euphonius transmogrification and the stochastic imponderability of incunabulae.**
     
Rue The Day
Yes, we are on about poisonous plants again, inspired by The Poison Garden website.  Humble Rue, A.K.A. Ruta Graveolens, is capable of causing photosensitization, as it is simply hotching with furocoumarins (which are also found in the Giant Hogweed).  Bizarrely, it is recommended as a mosquito repellent by some people who have obviously not tried it themselves.  Art?

Rue

     I believe it is effective as a cat-repellent, as our feline friends do not like the smell at all.  And here is where we get topical; folklore held that hanging up rue outside one's house or carrying a sprig on your person would ward off evil spirits and witches.  So!  All Karswell's potential victims needed to do was rub themselves raw with rue: problem solved.  Yes, you might get a rash in daylight.  Would you rather be torn into bloody fragments?

One For The Tourists
Conrad is aiming at a few hundred brownie points by posting this article.  As you know, he walks Edna on a regular basis, and regularly boasts about this, since WW is probably missing the furry pudding.  Art?

     Here she was sniffing at a pile of leaves, which worried your modest artisan, since you never know what they're concealing until an hour later Edna is violently sick because she ate something disgusting.
     After effects of having two long walks per day:  Art?

     She's probably sulking here as the laptop is where Her Rightful Place is, at least in her mind.

Because I Keep My Word
Occasionally.


     Grains.  There, are you happy now?



     In case you weren't.

Why Brains?
After all, a brain is sealed inside a skull, firmly and irrevocably.  A zombie would have less sense of smell than a live human, so how do they know to go after brains?  A skull isn't transparent and you don't (generally) ooze brains onto your pillow at night.

No, Art!

     Plus, how would a member of the rotting undead ever get at all that tasty grey matter?  They're not exactly dextrous or efficient tool users and the human jaw is not well-suited to biting through solid bone.
     Hmmmm.  One to ponder on, eh?




*  Except maybe the monster.  Roles like this are rare.
**  This sentence has no meaning and is only here to try and increase the Reading Level that Word Counter allocates to it.