LSD

No!  Nothing To Do With Either Drugs Or The Beatles
Get your disgusting minds out of the sewer, you repellent rump-fed runyons!  Conrad is well aware that Lysergic Diethyl Amide exists as a drug; in fact it is known as a "semi-synthetic" because it requires the LAW-BREAKING chemists who make it to use ergotamine tartrate as a base.

Go on, go on, I'll let you have this
(From the very wonderful "Yellow Submarine")

     Where does ET come from?  Why, Ergot, and if I can replicate the entry from my Collins Concise: " a disease of cereals and other grasses caused by fungi of the genus Claviceps."  Ergot, ergo, caused ergotism in agrarian societies up until cereal crops got stored in hygienic conditions where they didn't go semi-rotten.  "What is ergotism?" I hear you queasily query.  "A Latin preposition?"

The rot.

     No, it's what you suffer when you ingest ergot, the symptoms being convulsions, burning pains and gangrene, and frequently Death.  Which is what those illegal pharmacologists are risking, too.
     Anyway, and typically of BOOJUM! that isn't what we're here to discuss today.  No.  Today I want to mention the old currency system in The Allotment of Eden, which was made up of pounds, shillings and pence.  There were - let me see, it's been a while - twelve pence in a shilling, and twelve shillings in a pound, so 144 pence to the pound.  The pound symbol "£" was often abbreviated to "L", the shilling to "S" and the pence, to "D", because <thinks> No.  You've got me there.  Hang on - <Googles> - ah, from the Latin "Denarii".  See, we managed to squeeze some of the zombie language in there.

Romans versus zombies!
(Not quite as exciting as trains versus zombies)

     This reference to "LSD" will hopefully make a passing comment about the comic "Thunder" a little clearer.
     Excuse me, I've dipped these air-gun pellets in neurotoxin and need to find the motley in the interests of - ah - scientific experimentation.  Yeah.  Scientific experimentation.
     Motley!  Come be a guinea pig!

Speaking Of Bad Weather -
For Lo! we are back to reviewing some of the strips in "Thunder", and I had a picture of the various strips as detailed by the blog "Great News For All Readers".  Allow Art -

     Yesterday I was gloating about having discovered that TTTTT was a strip that had stuck, like a soiled plaster on the sole of your shoe, to my recollections for years.
     Going back to the top of the slide list, sorry too many Beatles references, top of the list, we encounter "Adam Eterno", and if that slacker Art has gotten over his cattle-prodding -

Adam being eternal

     Adam was a sorcerors assistant way back in the 16th century, who rashly guzzled down an "Elixir of Life" his boss had whipped up, and wasn't he lucky his chief wasn't trying to create something along the lines of LSD, or Gangrene ahoy!  Catching Adam in the act, the sorceror also curses him to live forever, unless struck a fatal blow by a weapon of gold.

No, no, you dirty-minded wretches - not that kind of "Flashing" - O I despair

     In fact if Adam was impaled on a golden knife or hit by a gold-plated Rolls Royce, he still didn't die; instead he drifted into a kind of limbo, then turned up at random anywhere in time, usually getting to prevent some kind of skullduggery.  The great Eric Bradbury was definitely the best artist for the strips, given his dark and brooding artwork.

Adam a la Eric

     Don't worry, we shall come back to "Thunder".  You weren't worried?  Well, we shall still be coming back to it.

     Okay, time to -

No, no!  I said "The GORN as monster", Goon, "The GORN"!
(Don't kill me, please)

Well, I was going to go into the wonderful world of railway gradients, though now I need something that's going to divert attention from me -

Hic Haec Hoc!
Well, Your Modest Artisan has now managed to get two references to Latin into the blog, proving that we have a love-hate relationship with the undead tongue.  Mostly hate.  I don't know, perhaps I'd feel more warmth had I taken it as a subject in school*.
     This is a short quote from a "Jennings" novel, where the Third Former boarder and his friends are trying to use mnemonics to remember various Latin tenses and verbs.  Art?

Jennings to starboard, Darbishire to port

     For those unfamiliar, the novels were written from the Fifties onwards, and have been unfailingly popular, not only here in Perfidious Albion, but abroad, too.  They feature the titular Jennings, a boarder at Linbury Court Prep school, who is well-meaning but inclined to be a bit headstrong and accident-prone.  They are a kind of gently amusing timeless entertainment that PG Wodehouse would approve of, set in a world that barely ages or evolves.  They seem to be immensely popular in Norway, for some reason, where Jennings is called "Stompa".  Art?

"Stompa Accidentally Drains The School's Acid Bath", obviously

What on - Art?

     Excuse me, please.  Like I said, too much Beatles.  No, Art, not a "Stomper".  Still, it is from "Yellow Submarine" so it's permissible.  Just.
     Anyway, at preparatory schools, it was pretty much compulsory to study Latin (and Greek, too, if they were especially awful schools) and you'd have homework on parsing various verbs or translating passages from Caesar's "Gallic Wars" into English, that sort of thing.  It's "Preparatory" because it's prep for getting into a public school (which is actually private) or a grammar school (which teaches a million other things besides grammar).
      All clear now?  Splendid!

A building being attacked by killer plants A prep school

Finally -
GOOD NEWS!
     There was a hint earlier on, when Your Humble Scribe realised he'd not checked up on Eric Powell (chronicler of "The Goon") for a geological age, and then did so.
     O frabjous day! (this is an exclamation of satisfaction, lest you be unaware).  The Goon's misdeeds and misdemeanours are already collected in a trade paperback that Conrad - O.  Yes.  That Conrad cannot pop into Travelling Man or Forbidden Planet to get, yet.  Well, just you wait, you meddling kids!  Art?

Slackjaws everywhere beware!

     This will probably also tickle Darling Daughter's comic gland, as she likes The Goon, too, but not enough to actually buy copies of the trade paperback.  No.  However, next time she's up on a visit ...

     That's enough crafting words of wit, wisdom and wonder for one day.  As we hump down to the Perfume River, singing "The Mickey Mouse Song" -

     Ooops!  Wrong reality.  Ciao!

*  Probably not.  Given that I detest the flowery language of Shakeyspearey, what are the odds that I'd feel nauseous at the mere mention of Juvenal?