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A slightly crazy post, but I’ve told a few people this story and I’m sure it’s a little entertaining. And while I had plenty of ordinary fears growing up, like the dark and spiders, the one that I find the strangest was a slight fear of lampposts that still haunts me today…

 

You see, I waas very young when I was first introduced to War of the Worlds. My parents had the audio version on record/LP/whatever-those-large-black-disks-that-are-read-by-a-needle-are-called, and I don’t know which I heard/saw first, but I also watched the film. And in the film version the martian machines are introduced brilliantly.

 

A meteor strikes the Earth and people all around go and visit the landing site. They can’t get near it though because the meteor remains so hot. After a short while and once a small crowd has built up, a noise can be heard from the meteor – it’s unscrewing. A small hatch can be seen in the top of the meteor that is slowly turning and eventuallly falls to the ground. When it does…

 

…a lamppost comes up and starts to vapourise people. And ever since then I’ve had a distrust of similar-looking lampposts. Especially the ones that haven’t lit up properly and are glowing red…