[I'm a Little Teapot]

I'm amazed how many people don't know about triffids.

Fun fact (okay, not so much): The first time I saw 28 Days Later, I thought, "Holy carp, they ripped this opening out of Day of the Triffids!"

 

[Colin]

I'm amazed how many people don't know about triffids.

I'm told they're very good in salads!

 

[NoBlackHats]

American here, and yes, I do.

 

[I'm a Little Teapot]

I'm told they're very good in salads!

And ... now I've suddenly developed an irrational fear of salad!

 

[Colin]

And ... now I've suddenly developed an irrational fear of salad!

Sorry!

I've had an irrational fear of salad most of my life....

Probably because I was born in the Chinese year of the dog!

 

[zoe tate]

Day of the Triffids is still in copyright, surely?

I think you may need legal advice, and perhaps the sooner the better?

 

[AndrewPMayer]

I most certainly know what triffids are, but the first thing that comes to my head is:

...and I really got hot when I saw Jeanette Scott fight a triffid that spits poison and kills...

I'll be stuck singing that song for the rest of the day.

It's like a science fiction double feature...

 

[LBrent]

American, 53 years old and a horror movie fan.

I know what triffids are, but would prefer truffles! (Either the yummy candy or the yummy fungus hunted by pigs and used to flavor butter.)

 

[57280]

When I saw the film as a lad, the movie theatre gave out seed envelopes marked TRIFFID SEEDS. They were sunflower seeds, but I thought it was cool!

 

[SarahCarter]

Day of the Triffids is still in copyright, surely?

I think you may need legal advice, and perhaps the sooner the better?

The OP said triffids are "mentioned", so I don't think that would be a copyright issue.

 

[Navigator]

I had to look up the word "triffid". >_>

But hey, I like giant human eating plants! 

 

[A.A]

I'm amazed how many people don't know about triffids.

Fun fact (okay, not so much): The first time I saw 28 Days Later, I thought, "Holy carp, they ripped this opening out of Day of the Triffids!"

Yes, apparently this (and quite a few zombie) movies draw inspiration from the Triffids book/movie.

It's sure to involve a lot of pollinating.

I have had triffid porn stuck in my head since eelkat's post yesterday. Nasty lol :O

Day of the Triffids is still in copyright, surely?

I think you may need legal advice, and perhaps the sooner the better?

To clear this up, I'm not writing a book that is in any way based on Day of the Triffids. It's not a survival/killer-plants-taking-over story. I just wrote a story where I've tried to inject a bit of a 50s/early 60s horror feel, that hopefully my readers will like (I previously wrote a YA horror series).
This is the unedited first paragraph, which contains the only mention of triffids in the whole story:

Seven manors on overgrown estates stood watch around Lake Ephemeral. A leaning iron fence kept them in and away from any adventurous onlookers. Foliage grew monstrously tall-strange and fantastical like triffids. Reeds and bulrushes rose like battalions around the lake's edge, cloaked with purple capes of Morning Glory. Half of the year, the lake was a bowl-shaped parkland, with stone statues of two children in its centre. But from April to September, rainfall drowned the park and turned it into a lake-and then the statues would disappear from view beneath the water. The lake was ephemeral, fed by yearly rains and a small underground river.
I came to this valley as an eleven-year-old orphan-returned to the place from which I'd been born. A place of which I had no memory. To meet a mother I'd never known I had.
At first, the valley seemed a wild place of wonder and liberty. The five children who lived here were free to do as they pleased. Children with intense eyes and wild hearts, including the boy with the wildest heart of all-Kite.
I no longer felt quite so alone, because I was like them. Almost.
But I discovered there were worse things at Lake Ephemeral than triffids.
Carnivorous flowers grew here that were larger than a man-the people called them the coffin flower. It puzzled me that anyone would want to live in a place where such a plant had taken hold. Worse, I was soon to find that these people cultivated the flowers--for what purpose, I didn't know.

Thank you to those saying I should leave the triffid reference in - I'll think on this some more.

 

[Lisa Grace]

Yes, but I wouldn't expect anyone under the age of forty to know what one is. I'm American, and that was a staple of the Dr. Paul Bearer Show, and Elvira, (Saturday afternoon horror film shows) before the days of MTV and cable.

Modified: Just saw they had a British TV show (recently?) about The Day of the Triffids. It's available on Hulu Plus. So I guess those in the UK, and those in the US who watch sci fi on Hulu Plus would be aware of what they are too.

 

[Katherine Roberts]

UK... and I know what they are! Triffids are definitely part of my vocabulary as I'm a fantasy/sf fan, but my mum knows what they are too and she doesn't read the genre. They're fairly mainstream over here, at least for my age group.

 

[dgrant]

I have never seen the movie, didn't even know it was a book, but I know what triffids are.

Then again, I also have seen the sig line out there "Tell someone you love them. Say it with flowers. Send them triffids."

 

[Jan Strnad]

That was a d@#! nice opening! Hurry up and finish the book!