You Only Live Twice

Buckle Up, It's Going To Be A Bumpy Ride!

For we have a lot of zombies to ride over and knock down.  Yes, today Conrad's slaving over a crackling monitor with the video speed cranked down to 0.25 and his camera at the ready is going to bear fruit.  Hideous shambling undead fruit, yes; still it's fruit.

CAUTION! Murderberries can seriously impact your health

     For Lo! we are going to take a look at "Dawn Of The Dead".

PART ONE: This horror film is judged by many to be one of the best zombie films ever made.  Conrad, mostly agreeing with that verdict YET pedantic hair-splitter that he is, will be doing a little critique as we go along.  Firstly, the reference to today's title: because the walking dead in this film are supposedly dead (the clue being in "the walking dead"), meaning they have already lived.  And yet, they bimble around that shopping mall for months, entirely unrotten, yielding up bright red arterial blood when limbs or heads are chopped off, even resorting to a fumbling use of tools.  Clearly they are not merely getting a second wind; they are living a second life.

Under a blood-red shirt-and-tie*

     Conrad's query was about the biker gang that assaults the mall.  How many of them were there?  How many get scragged?  How many escape?

     I shall continue with my forensic analysis, although we have to consider a couple of points before going over plot and process.  Firstly, DOTD was done on a shoestring budget for what it was: £385,000.  They didn't have the time, money, stunt people or equipment to do any relatively expensive crashes involving motorbikes, especially considering the biker gang were nearly all real bikers, who would probably have gotten quite acerbic if Mister Romero decided to destroy a couple of their choppers.  Art!

     The first problem is seeing how many of them there are, and how many vehicles they have, because their approach is done at night, being filmed from a distance and with trees obscuring the view.  Art?

     From counting headlights, I think there are about 20 vehicles, including the two vans you see above.  One van had no room in the back for passengers, as it was stuffed full of weapons, and several of the bikes either have room for two or have someone riding pillion, so Your Modest Artisan's guess is about 30 bikers.

     Now, Peter rashly declares this lot to be " - a professional army -" which Conrad rather jibs at.  For a start, they wait until night to begin their attack on the mall, meaning that they are creating noise, movement and LIGHT, which latter wouldn't be the case in daytime.  Up they drive to the store front, ENGINES ROARING, rather than freewheeling in as quietly as possible, which would have kept the zeds from hearing and paying close attention.  They use grenades to blast a clear path to the doors - again, like ringing the dinner gong for the ravenous hordes.

     Of course, I could be overthinking this a bit ...

Though zombies and brains do go together

Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra AGAIN**

You may recall Conrad's Frothing Nitric Ire earlier this month, when he came across the solution to a crossword clue "Small portion or share".  Art!

MOIETY

     Bear in mind that's the first time I've ever seen that word, which probably went out of use in the early 18th century.  What did I see posted today on Twitter but the following.  Art!

     WHAT BUT THE FRENCH EQUIVALENT!  

     What are the chances of that happening, hmmmm?

Making A Big Sisyphus About Things

We here at BOOJUM! did cover some of the Greek legends years ago, specifically Tantalus, Prometheus and <drum roll> Sisyphus.  All three of them were very bad lads, so bad indeed that the gods punished them severely.  Sisyphus' punishment was to roll a huge boulder uphill, and being as it was a magic, enchanted and peculiarly wilful big rock, once he's got it to the top - it rolled all the way to the bottom.  Art!

     Of course Conrad cannot simply leave it there.  Sorry but there you are.  So - he has to roll this thing uphill for eternity?  Conrad ponders.  Well well well, so he has to roll it in all kinds of weather?  

     Erosion.  A slow yet relentless process.  Every time Ol' Sis rolls it uphill, it will abrade.  Every time it rolls downhill, it will abrade.  Rain, snow, hail, sun, wind, ice, fish - all will contribute to erosion.  If he doesn't roll it in exactly the same way each time it will erode unevenly and at some point it will split, creating smaller unsymmetrical stones that will erode even quicker.

     A few centuries go by and all he'd be left with would be this - 

     A quick chuck uphill and his job's done.

     Of course, I may be overthinking this ...

     WHAT!  Are you telling me that there's a James Bond film called "You Only Live Twice"?  I don't believe you.  Go on, prove it!  

Damn.  You were right.

     Look, it's not my fault that a series of obscure films from the Sixties that nobody's ever heard of happen, by wild coincidence, to share the title of my blog, it's the Coincidence Hydra mucking about in the background, honestly.  Look - there it goes, slinking off again -

From Fuss To Isthmus

Yet another lesson in geography for you, as we educate everyone a factoid at a time.  No, not the Isthmus of Corinth today - we shall have more of that at a later date - instead today it is the turn of the Isthmus of Kra, which sounds like a character in the third season of "Star Trek" when their plots had gotten silly.  Art!

No, Art.  The geographical feature, please

     

See me afterwards, Art.

As you can see, the isthmus is a pretty narrow neck of land and there have been plans over the years about cutting a canal through it in order to save marine voyage time.  Nobody had ponied up and actually put down money for it yet as they seem to be waiting for the other feller to make his move.

     And with that we are done!

*  Yes yes yes, I know none of them have ties; it wouldn't rhyme otherwise, would it?  Hair-splitting pedants.

**  Why can't the Dog Buns thing go vegan?