Frivolous Friday - Blood related holiday highlights

Now that I write for Coagulation Conversation, I seem to notice blood-related topics everywhere. So these are four blood related aspects of our recent holiday to the European Haematology Association Conference.

1. Dracula’s Cabaret

I was busy looking through the Jetstar flight magazine to see what advice it had on exercise during flights, when instead I came across this advert to Dracula’s dinner- show, subtitled “We leave bite marks.”

If you should find yourself on Australia’s Gold Coast in need of blood related entertainment, perhaps you’d visit and review this for Coagulation Conversation!

I couldn’t help myself going to their website, where I discovered that “Three million guests have taken the horrifying ride into Dracula’s bizarre and fascinating underworld lurking just behind the elaborate Gothic facades.”

2. Sanguine carving on the Vasa

Paul loved the Vasa museum, Stockholm’s biggest tourist attraction. I may or may not have spent time in the cafe while he examined the ship in great detail! The Vasa ship capsized and sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. It was salvaged 333 years later and gives a good picture of life in the 17th century. Medicine then was based around the idea that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humors – the bodily fluids blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Blood was thought to cause a sanguine temperament. The ship had carvings of the four humors.

3. Black Pudding for breakfast

This is what Paul ate for breakfast in our UK hotel. Quite apart from the cholesterol content, what do you think of the round dark substance on the right of the picture? This is ‘black pudding’, an English specialty sausage made from pig’s blood, suet and oatmeal. I couldn’t bring myself to try it but Paul liked its dry spicy taste and crumbly texture.

4. Unicorn blood (or rather the lack of it) on the Harry Potter tour

One of the highlights of our holiday was the Harry Potter tour at Warner Brothers Studios in North London. Do go if you get the chance, but you need to book months in advance. I loved Diagon Alley, but was suprised to see this sign on one of the shop doors. Of course, I then had to google ‘unicorn blood’ and discovered that in the Harry Potter books it says, “The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.”

In the first book, Voldemort possessed Professor Quirrell’s body and the professor drank unicorn blood to keep Voldemort alive.