Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Forty-Eight Hours Earlier

There are many sensible reasons why I should have found it difficult to get out of bed and go to work on Monday. Some of them are as follows:

1. It was cold.

2. It was dark.

3. It was raining.

4. I'd just come back from holiday.

5. The bed was nice and warm.

6. Also, there was a very attractive man in it.

7. My laptop was still broken.

8. I had a thrilling article to write about internal helpdesk systems for banks.


However, none of these things was going to prevent me from springing from the bed at 6am like a newborn gazelle and embracing the promise and joy of the first day back at work. Oh no. But I hadn't really bargained for reason number nine:


9. Fear of zombies.


I probably shouldn't have watched the first twenty minutes of 28 Days Later on Sunday evening. Then I wouldn't have spent the whole of Sunday night having terrible dreams about being chased across Turnham Green by the living dead and (as if that wasn't scary enough!) divebombed by zombie lapwings.

By the time the alarm went off I was still terrified, and refused to leave the flat before it got light, lest I be pursued along Chiswick High Road by shuffling yummy mummies and their undead tots.

Tonight I shall watch Season Two of the O.C., and pray that I don't have dreadful nightmares about being hounded by hordes of skinny comic book geeks sporting faintly subversive indie-band t-shirts.

Although, on second thoughts, that might not be so terribly bad...

28 comments:

Billy said...

6am? But it's the middle of the night!

DavetheF said...

For an antidote, see Shaun of the Dead a very amusing pisstake of the genre.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of when I used to work in The City - hordes of dead-eyed zombies every morning, all with the same deathly grey suits and gut wrenchingly hideous ties... *shudder*

Anonymous said...

That bloke in that film, Cillian Murphy has very blue eyes. Bloody scary though. Why do people always seem to wake up in hospital in these films

Anonymous said...

I complained all the way through 28 Days Later because of the crappy dialogue, and that ridiculous scene where they all decide to drive through the scary dark tunnel in the midst of a zombie infestation rather than just take the Westway. I may have thrown things at the screen in disgust. Pah!
(Maybe I ought to be able to suspend my requirements for realistic dialogue in a film about zombies ..., but I can't.)

Anonymous said...

Stupidest part of the film: The squaddies going all 'Apocalypse Now' less than a month after society collapses. You'd leave it at least a couple of months to see if things were likely to improve before you started with the raping and pillaging and whatnot, surely?

violet said...

You should've watched the end of the film to get some closure. I saw Stephen King's It when I was ten and was so terrified I had to turn it off after about an hour. Result? Years of nightmares and a fear of clowns that remains to this day, and fear of the film so great that I couldn't watch the rest of it to see the monster die until I was 22. I'm alright now though. Seeing Tim Curry as Frank N Furter was also a great help.

Anonymous said...

Have your read Kelly Link's short story Some Zombie Contingency Plans? It might be wise, and useful. It's in her collection Magic for Beginners...

My favorite antidote to fear of zombies is watching the episode of Spaced that has the zombie dream in it. You get to wake up and have a drink — always nicer than a zombie.

Anonymous said...

Wait, a zombie is a drink, of course:

1/2 oz rum
1 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice
1/2 oz apricot brandy
1 tsp sugar
2 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1 oz lime juice

(man, that sounds like too much work to me!)

violet said...

What kind of rum is the first kind of rum??

Anonymous said...

I can guess why you might not be too upset about your comic book geek man dreams. Ha.

Cillian Murphy's eyes were the most frightening part of that film. Very creepy indeed. They're just that bit too blue.

Anonymous said...

Another practical option: read The Zombie Survival Guide or World War Z (Max Brooks). On second thought, you might have a War of the Worlds moment (the O.W. radio version) and barricade yourself into the attic with a crowbar and sharpened spade.

GreatSheElephant said...

If you don't like zombies avoid Leicester Square at night. I was always mystified by the blank eyed youth shuffling about until I read that it was constructed over plague pits.

patroclus said...

Eeek, so many comments, so little time...DavetheF yes I have seen and enjoyed Shaun of the Dead - anything Simon Pegg-related is fine by me, especially Spaced and Big Train. I also (courtesy of LC) saw the Dawn of the Dead remake and really liked it. Perhaps it was yer man's scary blue eyes that freaked me out, after all.

GSE - plague pits, now you're talking...there's quite a bit about that in the cholera book I read, which was great. (Another insightful review from me there.)

While I am here, thanks again to everyone who has emailed me their Web 2.0 experiences, it's all very interesting. If only I had time to reply to the emails, let alone write the bloody book...bah.

Anonymous said...

P you have to go to the newsnight site on the beeb and read the article about cyberspace. There's a link on my latest post. Just up your street I would say.

patroclus said...

That is good stuff, thanks realdoc. Nice to see the media starting to ask the big questions, instead of just lazily slagging off bloggers and gamers as loners, dullards and freaks. In my mythical book there is a chapter on how the internet has changed our sense of place, time, distance, space and physicality (or so it says here in my notebook), and that article plays into it nicely. Thanks!

Spinsterella said...

DOn't worry about those dratted zombies, P, the mornings are getting brighter already.

You'll be safe getting up at 6 am by about mid-March, I reckon...

Mangonel said...

Very pretty indeed, our Cill. (D'ye think he made it up, or that his parents are to blame?) I remember thinking Nice zombies! Considerate zombies! Going somewhere else to have your bitey, splattery last-zombie-standing gore-fest, so as not to leave the streets of London cluttered with FIVE MILLION DEAD!

Puh-Leeeease.

Try Steven King's The Stand instead.

Valerie - that sounds a fabulous drink. You could make it up by the pint and keep it in a thermos for Cocktail Emergencies.

Anonymous said...

Mangonel, I don't think he made it up:
http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=cillian

cello said...

I am just wondering whther to vote for Cillian Murphy as Best Newcomer in the BAFTA Film Awards -or should I pick the gorgeous Naomie Harris?

Snap on the film-induced nightmare last night P. But instead of zombies, I was being chased through the South American jungle by a scantily clad Mayan psycho, dressed only in feathers and the bones of previous victims. Him not me I mean.

Yes, you've guessed, I had to watch Apocolyto last night because it was Mr C's turn to choose. I concede it was a every exciting cinematic experience but there was more blood and gore than Amores Perros, my previous most-sickeningly-violent film. Whatever happened to Merchant & Ivory?

cello said...

Typo alert!

Tabby Rabbit said...

Dawn of the Dead was fabulous. We never watched the other one - did we?

GreatSheElephant said...

Naomie Harris for sure, cello. Cillian Murphy is already getting chief villain parts in Batman movies so he hardly counts as a newcomer in my book.

Plus he gives me the creeps, bigtime.

Gorilla Bananas said...

Zombies are no threat because they can't run. Even if they try jogging their arms fall off. We just laugh at them in Africa. It's the lions you have to worry about in my part of the world.

surly girl said...

is that why zombies never run?

things you learn.

patroclus said...

*prepares to show off new-found zombie knowledge*

Apparently zombies *do* run now (notably in 28 Days Later) but they didn't used to. I understand that some purists consider the 'running zombie' to be something of a travesty.

All opinions on this subject are most welcome.

Anonymous said...

If their arms fall off when they run why don't their legs fall off when they stand up?

Nice to meet you at the weekend btw, hope your anonymity survived intact.

Anonymous said...

I don't think they were supposed to be the classic type of zombies in 28 Days Later. From what we saw, they weren't really resurrected/reanimated dead bodies, but infected live people who attacked other people. They starved to death, whereas 'purist' zombies are already dead and just keep on going till all the bits fall off (or someone destroys their head).