Matching the right wine to your food can make all the difference to a meal. The right red, for instance, with a steak. A chilled white with a fish-dish.
But what about today’s zombie-about-town; the urban cannibal looking for the ultimate free-range foodie experience?
Never fear: for those needing advice on the perfect wine to accompany human flesh, help is at hand. So to speak…
We live in strange days. It’s true. We have many things to worry about: the economy, the state of the planet, the near-constant assault on our ears by X-Factor finalists…
But you can consider one thing to be taken care of: come the zompocalypse, if you need somewhere to hide, you’ve got options.
I mentioned briefly before that I’ve been recruited by the amazing Adele, who runs Un:Bound (when she’s not kicking seven bells out of her kickboxing training buddies or generally taking over the world…) as one of the Apocalypse Girls.
We do cheery things like discuss how to survive an undead apocalypse, how to fight zombies, where you should shelter when the Bomb drops, what weapon goes best with a clutch bag, fashion for Fall / nuclear winter…. all those things you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.
Well, now you can ask us.
This week on the Guide, it’s movie week. So as well as talking about how to grow your own food (provided it’s not brains), we’re posting some of our favourite apocalypse movies.
I’ve just posted two of mine: The Core and The Day After Tomorrow, so if you head on over to the blog, you can join in and tell us what you think of these particular apocalypses. Apocalypsi. Apocalypso.
There’s a bunch of odds, sods and general bits & bobs I need to tidy up, I suspect.
Several are here.
The Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse anthology is now available to buy. Go here (UK Kindle edition) or here (US Kindle edition) for all your end-of-the-world needs. There are some seriously awesome stories in there. And there’s mine, too.
Next.
Solaris have put out a press release with a few more details about “Blood & Feathers”, and said some very lovely things indeed. This makes me happy and not a little nervous. But basically, if you’ve ever wondered what Alice in Wonderland would be like if it was set in Hell, I think it’s fair to say you’re in safe hands here. Or possibly insane ones.
Finally (somewhat fittingly) I’ve been recruited by the Apocalypse Girls, so expect to see me popping up on the site every once in a while, along with some fabulous ladies offering their practical tips for surviving mass annihilation. Just because it’s the end of the world, it doesn’t have to mean we can’t handle it with grace, poise, and a truckload of attitude.
Welcome to The Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse.
Over the next few months a collective of experts will be posting their top tips for survival of all kinds of apocalypse, large or small. There will be alternative takes on the best way to tackle zombies, what shoes work in the next ice age, weapons selection, care and maintenance and every thing else the modern girl needs in the end of the world.
Be ready for Zombies, Werewolves, Hell literally freezing over, Skynet and the worst hair day ever.
Lock and Load ladies, the end of the world is coming.
Big thanks, too, to @dodgyhoodoo (who you really should follow if you’re on Twitter. Less so if you’re not. Stalking’s not cool, kids) who sent me a link to this (it’s a Cafepress page, but involves “language” and Warren Ellis, so approach with caution if at work).
The Rapture may not have happened (again) but there’s a distinctly End-Timey feel about this whole business…
(Quick update! Look what’s going on over at io9: zombie week - groaning their way onto a screen near you!)
Somewhat different from the Flaming Zombies I was drinking at the launch of “Ashes”, Ilsa Bick’s new YA book for Quercus on Monday, these zombies are another animal altogether.
I’ll explain.
Brighton being Brighton, we’re not exactly a subdued bunch in the city. Brightonians take most things in their stride (take, for instance, the awful homophobic itinerant preacher prowling the streets of town yesterday. He began howling at a gay couple walking past him, and they duly stopped, looked him up & down… and one of them responded with “You’ll never get me to turn, love. Not in those shoes,” to rousing applause from passers-by). But I digress.
Yesterday was Beach of the Dead day. For the uninitiated, that’s our annual mass zombie-walk. I know. It’s hard to tell the difference between that and a regular weekend on the seafront – what can I say?
But yesterday, I was on my way home through town – not long before the walk (shuffle?) started, and I ran into a bunch of teenage zombies lurking outside Burger King. One of them was wearing a cardboard crown. Fair enough. However, what bothered me were the two girls in the middle of the group, who were adjusting their lipstick…
Yes, they weren’t just zombies. They were sexy zombies.
Now, maybe I’m getting cynical in my dotage… but isn’t this rather missing the point? Sexy zombies? Seriously? And let’s be clear – this wasn’t oh-my-god-these-girls-are-so-hot-they-even-look-gorgeous-when-they’re-part-of-a-horde-of-shuffling-undead. No. This was “Excuse me? I heard there’s a Britney circa-1998 video casting round here somewhere…” sexy.
Maybe I’m just not crediting them where credit’s due: perhaps they were channelling kids who were on their way to a fancy-dress party when they were attacked by rampaging monsters… It just seems like that option is, frankly, a bit meta.
I’m not saying you can’t have sexy monsters. Vampires are the old standard, despite being, y’know, dead. Werewolves, too: they’re all about the inner beast. Both have reasonable, logical justifications for bringing a bit of sexy back with them.
A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries – these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field.
Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient’s mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.
My knee-jerk reaction was to check the date. Nope. Not the first. All good.
My next reaction was two-part, and it went something like this: “Wait… haven’t they heard of Pax?”… followed briskly by: “So, I should start brushing up on my gun kata then?”
While I’m fairly sure this is a highly selective & leading article, it did make me think. You probably heard it: that sound like a squid swallowing a rusty chicken? That was me.
This kind of research makes me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. I’ve always been very open about the fact that I’ve been on anti-depressants in the past, several times, and while I know they definitely did their job, I hated being on them with a passion.
Or, actually, with an absence of passion. Because I wasn’t chemically capable of feeling any kind of passion for anything. That’s how they work, after all. So I can tell you from personal experience that you won’t find me lining up to voluntarily take any kind of pill that messes with my brain which – and here’s the important bit – I do not need.
My moral compass generally points somewhere in the vague direction of north-ish, I’ve been known to give up my seat on the bus, and I’ve only bludgeoned irritating neighbours to death with a blunt instrument in my mind’s eye. So, in this instance, why would I agree to take medication for the sake of making me more moral(again, -ish) than I already am?
And that’s it, isn’t it? I wouldn’t. Not voluntarily.
Meulen also suggested that moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. “These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison,” he said.
Now, you knew that was coming. We’d start by medicating the murderers…
Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply, but he suggests that if administered widely they might help humanity to tackle global issues.
“Relating to the plight of people on other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature,” he said. “This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations.”
… then we move to medicate the masses – because it’s all for the Greater Good.
If anyone wants to tell me that this is an April Fool, that’d be grand. And otherwise? I’ll get my (brown)coat and start stashing the art under the floorboards.
Without Googling, thankyouverymuch (and you… yes, you at the back, don’t think I can’t see you firing up that Wikipedia app under the table).
A witch bottle, traditionally speaking, is a small glass bottle or jar (usually, but not necessarily, blue or green) filled with odds and ends: needles, pins, hair clippings and threads–all designed to draw evil away from a witch’s target. As this is a meandering sort of post, all bits and bobs and very little coherent thought, it seemed like an apt sort of title.
Mind you, strictly speaking, witch bottles were usually topped-off with urine. So, umm, moving on.
It’s a very long list, I know, but it includes many writers far better–and in most cases, wiser–than me; people I look up to and respect immensely (as well as the author who has probably been the single greatest influence on me over the years, and who still renders me unable to string together a sensible sentence–but y’all know about my latent fangirl already. Most of the time, I just hit her with a shovel and tell her to get back in the basement.) so I’m bowled over to make an appearance.
So yeah. Big list. On it. Very pleased indeed.
Next?
Oh, yes. I just finished reading Charles Yu‘s “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe“, which is brilliant in the truest sense of the word, and which everyone should read. It’s clever and funny and geeky, and surprisingly touching, and I’ll try and talk about it in a little more detail later in the week.
Moving from SF to horror: the Zompocalypse is coming. What foodstuffs would you stockpile? That’s what The Zombie Feed were asking last week. Granted, claiming that flamethrowers were a food group was probably a long shot (I knew I should have gone for rocketlaunchers: they’re higher in fibre), but I think I came up with the next best thing; a true multi-tasker. Vodka. You know it makes sense. Although looking at the other answers, Jared from Pornokitsch has a very good point.
Cats v zombies. There’s a thought. My money’s on the kittehs and I, for one, would welcome our new feline overlords.
It’s been just over a week, and things are starting to feel… well, “normal” would be an overstatement, but it’s getting to the point where I kind of have to stop being so bloody emo and feeling sorry for myself.
So.
I’ll say thank you – genuinely, thank you – to everyone who got in touch and sent me messages, texts, DMs, carrier pigeons and virtual flowers (how modern are we? The internetz are awesome). I might not have been very good at replying, but they were appreciated more than I could possibly express. If nothing else, this has shown me what wonderful friends I have: from the ones I’ve known for years and years to the ones I’ve only really met (so far, anyway) online.
And now, I think I’m going to move on. Because if nothing else, this is an excellent way to procrastinate. Not only am I supposed to be winding up the final chapters of The Book What I Have Been Writing (and which is now leaving me going: “Why did I do that? What was I thinking???” at various points through the 90,000 odd words…. very odd words.) but I’ve got a eulogy to write. An eulogy. Whatever.
Anyway, moving on.
I think I could really get to love Brighton. On Monday, it was cold and drizzly and I took Small Boy down to the beach. Apart from a couple of dog-walkers, we had it entirely to ourselves.
Today, the sun was shining and even though the wind was freezing, I laughed at it from the safety of my snuggly new snowboarding jacket. (Three days after moving down here, I realised that my typical London-dweller’s outerwear was far more suited to hopping on and off buses than it was to dealing with February coastal winds. This was not a battle I could win. I didn’t try. I hied me to the nearest shop and bought a jacket which makes me resemble a chocolate Michelin Man. But I’m warm.)
So today we went to the beach and threw stones into the waves, and watched the seagulls being seagulls – for which read “incredibly noisy, and generally menacing”…
(it’s funny because it’s true) … and we built a series of small stone towers which will prove vital to the defence of the realm come the Zompocalypse. Or at least, they would if they weren’t made of pebbles and stood about 4 inches high.
Basically, if we’re invaded by tiny, undead pirates? Relax, I’ve got it covered. Anything else and, umm, we’re screwed.
Also, as Small Boy did his best to dig another Channel Tunnel using only a piece of driftwood which I suspect started out life as an ice-lolly stick, I vaguely recalled reading something about the beach being mined during the Second World War.
I really hope they remembered where they put them all.
So you’ve bought (most of) the presents. You’ve stocked the fridge, the wine-rack and the freezer. You’ve probably forgotten to buy batteries – that’s OK, so have I. But, ask yourself: are you prepared for a zombie attack over the Christmas period?
No?
I think we’d better do something about that, don’t you…?
Matching the right wine to your food can make all the difference to a meal. The right red, for instance, with a steak. A chilled white with a fish-dish.
