Don't mention the 'G' word

I lay in bed this morning, listening to 'Lord Dracula' (1974) as the thunder, lightening, rain and mist did all of that outside. For some reason, this is 'Dracula Weekend' on the radio.

Then I got up and listened to Bram Stoker's version of Dracula - part one. As Lucy Harker is lying on her bed at night, waiting for the next visit from the old count and the morning transfusion from one bleeder after another, I could not understand why the cleaning maid kept getting rid of the garlic and opening the windows at night, or how they would leave her unattended after dark despite dire warnings not to do so by Van Helsing.

I had to remind myself that I first read the book as a child, and have seen/heard many adaptations of it since, so I knew how the story would unfold about 55 years in advance. Hindsight, etc.

'Lord Dracula' was based on the despotic life of Vlad the Impaler, and centred around his hatred of Christianity due to his wife dying whilst giving birth to a deformed and discoloured baby which looked more animal than human.

He first blames it on the doctors - who he immediately impales - then turns his attention to the priests in attendance. He impales one but spares the other as a witness to all the rest of his evil acts, which are intended as spit in the face of God, who he believes is ultimately responsible for the death of his beloved. I suppose, in a way, he was right. He nailed all the church doors closed and forbade the use of the word 'God' anywhere in his precinct.

Pretty soon he gets a taste for impaling, and wipes out entire villages in his lust for blood. I used to go out with a girl who was related to the real Vlad Dracul. In fact, our own dear Queen is a direct descendant.

A combination of Vlad's evil deeds and outbreaks of rabies in the Transylvanian area eventually provided material for all the details-filled in by Bram Stoker and others, including fear of Holy Water (hydrophobia is a symptom of rabies), wooden stakes through the heart, the abduction of babies, evil bats (bats are still carriers of rabies to this day), super-human strength (rabies seems to give sufferers this), the living dead in the form of vampires and probably even red eyeballs.

This Summer there is a 'Frankenstein' guided walk around Bath, given by a woman who dresses in the costume of the period. Mary Shelley wrote most of Frankenstein here in two different buildings, one of which was destroyed during the development of the Roman Baths.

On the walk, the house of a surgeon (whose lectures Mary Shelley attended as she wrote the story) is visited.

Apparently, the surgeon gave displays of the effects of electricity on the muscles of different creatures. He made many attempts to revive dead animals using it...