Death weighs in…

Before you ask, yes it is probably true that my lengthy silence has been due to the fact that I’ve been caught within a net of ever deepening gloom as I single-handedly fight off hordes of the undead in a small, fortified shack in the Scottish highlands. Also the internet signal is, like, really bad up here. And I’m nearly out of mini-pizzas.

I find myself beginning to lose hope that we will ever win this Endless War. Maybe we should have given it a more optimistic name.

But a shining beacon of hope has found me in my dank, semi-internetless cabin, and as I read this post, surrounded by decapitated corpses, I felt that this uplifting feeling must be passed on. For Death himself (yes, I will make gender assumptions here), has offered humanity the lifeline we so desperately need.

First of all, I had never thought to name my shovel. I’ve named my rifle (Carl), my chainsaw (Bertha), my last box of mini pizzas (12 Carl Jrs.), every maggot that comes within six feet of me and that head in the corner that looks like it is winking at me (I think he’s hitting on me. I can’t deny I haven’t thought about it, but really, can love be conceived in such hell? What future would our children have?).

Knuckle bones make great game pieces.

But my shovel – well that just seems so silly. But who am I to defy Death’s own personal recommendations? And so Shandy the Shovel has been welcomed into the fold.

But his key piece of advice – the idea that I think will see us all through these dark days – is entertainment. So simple and yet so brilliant. I personally have fashioned myself a set of both Jacks and Yahtzee using the teeth and various bones left scattered around me by the decomposing flesh of my enemies. With this, my new friend Shandy, and a potential love affair on the horizon, I think thinks are most certainly starting to look up!

A zombie or not a zombie: that is the question.

Time to sharpen your zombie survival skills. Take our quiz to see if you can correctly identify zombies from zombie-like individuals.

This quiz really could save your life. I think we all like to imagine that we would be able to recognise the zombie apocalypse when it happens, but the truth is that there are many encounters and situations which could easily be mistaken for a zombie uprising, or vice versa. So, it is time you asked yourself…

Good luck!

I wish you all the very best. Really, I do. Because the better you do, the less likely it is I will one day have to bury an axe in your skull.

And that’s not a prospect I particularly relish.

Political Zombieism Infiltrates Canada; Caribou “Frightened”

In the autumn of last year, the world found itself confronted with the disfigured reality of politics in the post-Economic Zombie apocalypse era. The UK (mostly England) and the United States are still poised precariously on the edge of oblivion, staring with horror into the yawning, rotten abyss day after day, waiting for that last push. But in the UK, at least, we have also been witness to the passionate response to the ideological equivalent of having the marrow sucked from your shin bones as you brandish a rusty apple-corer in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitably violent death that looms in your very-near future.

In many countries across the world the last six months have seen the people finally stand up, wrench their dismembered limbs from the slobbering gobs of the undead, and proceed to beat the political zombies roundly about the head with them. Some are still embroiled in that struggle.

But this kind of response itself actually contradicts the diagnosis of political zombieism. No, if you want to see a rising horde of political zombies, you need look no further than the maple-syrup guzzling, beaver-ridden, hockey-playing, Tim-Horton’s-chugging, apologising, baby-seal-clubbing nation of Canada, my beloved motherland. 

The Zombie Apocalypse Kicks off in Edinburgh?

Things have been pretty quiet on the zombie front these last months. No plagues or potential cover-ups, with the exception, of course, of the political zombieism which seems to have unfortunately spread to my own beloved Canada (more on that to follow later). Until today.

Now, I will admit that I was walking in to my office a bit later than usual today, but it seemed to me to be a bit unnaturally dead around town. Cafes – usually quite crowded – were sparsely populated; the hordes of students that usually mill about campus and the surrounding areas seemed by a trickle. Yes, it’s true that classes are over, but there are still exams to be had, and in my experience that usually means more students out en masse. It’s also relatively warm out today- granted, not as sunny as it was last week, but 11 degrees in Edinburgh is nothing to sneeze at, and yet the Meadows – usually packed with students playing football, people walking their dogs, frisbees winging about all willy-nilly – was nearly empty. It’s all very suspicious.

The Gambling Community be Warned: A Message in Code

Recently, I stumbled across the official website for the Federal Vampire and Zombie Association, or FVZA. Their zombie home page greeted me with what I felt was a curious message, which I quote for you now:

Not many people are aware of the risk involved when encountering a zombie. Your loss will be much greater than anything you can lose casino gambling or playing dangerous sports. A zombie can not only cause you physical injuries they can also damage your mental health. Please read more about zombies to help minimize your risk of injury if you do come in contact with one. Fighting zombies is risky business, like playing poker. You don’t want to be caught off guard while you play casino games. See how you can protect yourself or risk losing it all!

Now, this website offers substantial evidence of its expertise and reliability in its collection of useful pages, such as information on zombie biology, mythology, history, and sociology. It’s essentially like two years of secondary education utterly devoted to zombies. I find it highly unlikely that such a deep mine of brilliantly dazzling knowledge and dazzling knowledge-related brilliance would compose such a bizarrely worded communication to the world wide web. The whole thing reads like the unwanted baby of a one night stand between a highly respected Zombiologist and a leaky spam filter. So what gives?

Students Stand in Opposition to Rising Zombie Hordes…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the increasing threat of zombieism in our economy, a contagion that has taken a violent and widespread hold amongst members of the Conservative and Lib Dem parties here in the UK, and which is seeping insidiously into governments across the globe, gnawing on the kneecaps of economic policies in a most discourteous fashion.

I am proud to be able to say that in areas where this plague has begun to manifest most publicly, a fierce opposition has been established within the community. Today students in Edinburgh, Oxford, London (and here, and here), Plymouth, Essex, Cardiff, Bristol, and Newcastle continued occupations of university buildings – some which have been going on for several days – following yesterday’s national day of sit-ins, walk-outs, and protests.

Like the ever-present small band of survivors in zombie films who barricade themselves in shopping centres, desperately trying to stem the tide of rotting flesh-eaters, these demonstrators find themselves pitted against zombie hordes – albeit of a politico-economic nature. Although their focus has largely been on the Con-Dem government’s education cuts, these specific changes are but representative of a larger concern on the international economic stage.

Lord Browne and the First Wave of the Zombie Apocalypse

Recently, a friend sent me this link to Jim Jubak’s advice on how to survive a zombie economy. I’ll admit that initially I dismissed it. I mean, seriously, Triffids? Pod-people? These aren’t zombies: you can’t just make a variety of horror film references to back up your rather flimsy association between the zombie apocalypse and the current economic climate. And please, who lies awake at night worrying about an outbreak of giant worms? That’s just silly. Honestly.

But then I looked at the examples he gives of potential economic “zombies” – the U.S. debt, a global demographic wave of ageing that will soak up savings, currency issues, and global water wars, to be specific – and I started to think about the kind of effect that any one of these catastrophes would have on our society. Personally, I like to believe that maybe it would serve as the kind of crisitunity by which we could undertake the restructuring of the very fabric of our society, creating a blissful paradise without debts so large they lose entirely any meaning; a world where the concept of value actually holds some degree of relevance and there is a 77% chance that I could ride a goat without being charged for disturbing the peace.

Well, at least the economic zombies will be sharply dressed.

At the moment, it doesn’t seem like that is the case. Initially it seemed as though the signs were restricted to the UK, but recent events have made it quite clear that the symptoms are spreading to the US, and even to my beloved Canadia. There has been an outbreak in mental zombieism more terrifying and deadly than that time I unknowingly stumbled onto a local zombie walk on my way to return a chainsaw to the hardware shop up the road.

Ye who read are still among the living…

I don’t know if I have ever really mentioned my deep and abiding love for Edgar Allan Poe. There really isn’t any reason why I either should or should have, and in either case I imagine that it’s not much of a surprise. I only mention it now because during a rainy-day Poe reading session (rainy days being the best kind of day for reading and Poe being the best kind of literature for rainy days) I happened across one of his parables which I hadn’t, to my knowledge, read before – Shadow.

I am torn between overwhelming desire for the man and deep-seated jealousy of his fabulous moustache.

I think there is some possibility that Edgar Allan Poe was writing about the zombie apocalypse. In fact, I am quite sure of it.

Allow me to outline, now, a brief exploration of the text in question (see the link provided to follow along as we go) in support of my theory.

Misleading headlines cause widespread panic…

Well, when I say “widespread”, I might be exaggerating. It mostly just caused me to panic. But with good reason, I think. The headline was “Zombies come alive in new university course“*.

What an utterly horrifying thought.

Deadline…

Well, I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time working like a mad-woman lately, slowly crossing item after item off of my four page long to-do-list. Hence the radio silence. But while I work I have been working, I have also been keeping my ear to the ground, looking for any signs of zombie mobilisation. It’s made for some very uncomfortable working positions, let me tell you, but my comfort doesn’t matter when the fate of the world is at stake.

Part of my ear-to-the-ground responsibilities has involved watching multiple documentaries on apocalyptic conspiracy theories, in an attempt to learn more about the forthcoming zombie uprising. I have also had minions – sorry, friends – keeping their eyes peeled for any useful information about zombie activity. As a result of these two prongs in my overall scheme of zombie defense and world domination uh… puppies… I have uncovered two potential dates for the beginning of the zombie apocalypse – and neither are particularly far off.