Zombie Apocalypse

I think I'd be quite handy come the zombie apocalypse. I have kids. I know a lot of party games and card tricks. I'd be good in a siege situation. Or really annoying. And I would have no qualms separating a zombie's head from it's body. Particularly if it's my neighbours who insist on playing loud music at two in the morning. 

I bring this up as I've been considering news coverage recently for a project. Every time I turned on the television during the swine flu panic, I felt like I was in a George A. Romero wet dream. 

"This is how the pre-credit sequence for zombie movies always start," I thought as a news anchor rattled off a list of countries while terrifying graphics showed a red tide sweeping across the planet. Never has Hollywood's influence on news media been more apparent. 

With all the hyperbole and confusion, I was reminded of the bluster about the Y2K problem. According to the media, at midnight on 1st January 2000, aeroplanes would fall out of the sky and hospitals would explode in a shower of orphaned puppies. 

Zero hour came and went and the worst thing that happened that night was that I was thrown out of a nightclub that I'd paid a lot of money to get into. 

Nobody really knows whether the work that went into fixing the problem actually solved it, or if everything would've been okay if we'd all just sat back and waited. 

So, no zombies. Yet. But come the winter, I'll be sharpening the shovel and boarding up the windows. 

There was a point to this entry when I began writing it.

Oh! Yes! Remembered!

News coverage has been replaced by the M.P.s expenses scandal. Now, I understand that all these claims have been with the realms of the rules, if not within the realms of human decency.

But I'm concerned by the two cases of M.P.s claiming expenses for mortgages that had been paid off. They have referred to these as "unforgivable errors" and paid the money back. 

I'm pretty sure that if I were claiming housing benefit, paid my mortgage off and "forgot" to tell Social Services, I'd be hauled up in front of the courts. I believe it's called fraud. 

What it comes down to is that either these Honourable Members knew what they were knowingly defrauding the electorate, or they're simply fuckwits who can't add up and shouldn't be allowed near a position that doesn't require asking the question "Do you want fries with that?" 

But please don't all this force you into apathy. It's at times like these that your vote counts more than ever. The local and European elections take place on 4th June.

If you've not done so, you can register here

Once you've done that, you can go here to the Vote Match website. It's kind of like a dating site for you and political parties. But without the embarrassing profile pictures. Though I believe the Lib Dems like "walking in the rain and writing poetry".

In a rare flash of melodrama, can I just say that - to this day - people around the world are literally dying for the right to democratic free elections. "Not being bothered" to take 10 minutes of your day to tick a couple of boxes doesn't wash with me.