#20 Being A Zombie: Seeing How The Other Half Lives

Last time I was here I was telling you about prophecies of a global apocalypse due on May 21^st. Once I had published this information, I disappeared for a while. I was off-the-grid, if you will. In the mean time, the world didn’t end. Are the two events connected? Was I, Chris Farnell, neglecting this blog because I was off on an incredibly daring and sexy mission to save the world?

I’m afraid I can’t possibly comment. All I’ll say is that ninja blood is a bitch to wash out.

Still, aside from events that may or may not have happened involving the infiltration of a subterranean blood temple, the discovery that various works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood combined under ultra-violet lighting actually reveal the blueprints for an ancient super weapon, and an eventual sword-fight in the bowels of an erupting volcano, I have also been taking a walk on the wild side. And by walk, I mean lurch. And by wild, I mean really actually quite sticky.

Yes, over the last two weeks I have found myself on two separate occasions walking amongst the walking dead. And today I shall share with you my insights from my Jane Goodall like adventure.

Zombification Number One: The Undead Uprising: Lurch For Zombie Rights

As regular readers will know, on the day of the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, I asked my good friends Hannah Eiseman-Renyard and Amy Cutling to provide me with coverage of a Royal Zombie Flash mob- a protest/alternative celebration of the wedding. This rather backfired when the pair of them, and three other zombies, ended up being held in police cells for four hours.

This was many things, including A: Scary and B: Really, really stupid. The zombie arrestees are engaged in various actions to the illegal arrests.

Of course one of the responses to seeing people arrested just for wandering around London in fancy dress, perhaps the most sane and rational response to seeing someone arrested for wandering around London in fancy dress, is to get a bunch of people together to wander around London in fancy dress.

Pictured: A rational response. Also I want make a joke about zombies and iPhone users here.

We did this. And I’ve got to admit, as I got off the tube at Leicester Square, I was pretty intimidated, seeing that huge mob of people with their wordless groaning and vacant eyes, ever on the cusp of some terrible violent act- because we had, perhaps foolishly, arranged our zombie protest lurch on the same day as the Champions League Final.

Perhaps because of this, and also the really quite appalling weather on the day, we ended up with a horde that was less close to the 92 people who’d signed up to the facebook event, and closer to, well actually, exactly 15 people. It should be pointed out that, according to our best estimates, this was almost double the people who were present at the actually zombie flash mob that the police felt the need to arrest people over.

Things I learned:

One: The first lesson I learned, in a pub toilet just before the event, is probably the same lesson that many small girls and first-time transvestites have already learned the hard way. When it comes to applying makeup, less is more. Wanting to be thoroughly unambiguous about undead nature, the white facepaint and fake blood were laid on pretty thick, so that my final appearance was a little more Heath Ledger’s joker than I originally intended.

Also- fake blood tastes minty.

Two: In the event of a zombie apocalypse, we’re pretty much screwed. London doubly so. This is something I pretty much knew already- it’s what the films have told us. As we all just heard, my home city of Leicester has admitted it is completely unprepared for a zombie apocalypse, while the USA’s Centre for Disease Control has made a valiant effort to prepare its population by advising families to meet together at the mailbox outside their house.

You should do this if you don't really like your family

In London, however, the problem was far worse. On seeing an approaching crowd of bloodied, groaning figures, the response of onlookers, both locals and tourists, was to point, laugh, and get their camera phones out.

Pictured: A relatively un-breached peace.

If we had been anything like the flesh eating zombies of the movies, we’d have had them. Faced with such a combination of indifference, or good-humoured amusement, I find myself seriously doubting the original zombie flash mob’s real potential to breach the peace.

Zombification Number Two: The Shoot For Short Zombie Movie Sola Gratia

I got back from my adventures in London, and was ready to relax, satisfied that I had single-handedly put an end to police malpractice. That was until I got an email from Alexander Gordon Smith . Now Gordon is a writer of young adult fiction (Here the phrase “Young adult fiction” apparently means stuff too pants wettingly terrifying to be read by anyone over 21) and I’m sure that before long we’ll be telling you about The Fury- his young adult zombie novel that isn’t a zombie novel (It’s definitely a zombie novel).

However, when he’s not been trying to do permanent, irreparable damage to young minds, Gordon has been writing a short zombie movie (On set the director told me that it wasn’t really a zombie movie, which I think proves it is.)

Recognising me as someone with that magical combination of expertise and contacts, Gordon asked me to bring some zombies along to his film shoot. Cue an Ocean’s 11 style montage of me jet-setting around the world (Well, Norwich) using a combination of blackmail, called in favours and sheer charisma to assemble a crack horde of four people. Including me. Fortunately Gordon had brought a few other of the undead along with him.

Among the zombies I’d brought along were Matt and Alina, from my zombie LARP adventure, and our blog’s regular butt monkey, Tom Harvey.

What they lack in numbers they make up for with vacant expressions. Note how Alina's smile is far more terrifying than if she was actually trying to be a zombie.

Were we required the play dual roles of “zombie” and “crowd member”. We really got into the role, while me and Tom were playing the part of “two people queuing for a cash machine” we were so convincing that two other people actually started queuing behind us. I think it’s because we were so method.

Things I Learned

One: Being a zombie is really, really sticky. We were pretty well covered in fake blood and it was a sunny day, and I swear by the end you hear a crackling sound if I tried separating my fingers.

From the outside he may look dead, but inside he's dying to scratch!

Also, bizarrely, the fake blood smelled of mint again. By the end of the day, peeling the thin layers of congealed gore off my hands was getting so addictive I was starting to worry there wouldn’t be any gore left on me for the final shoot- and that’s before I discovered you could peel really long strips off the blood on Tom’s neck, at which point things got sort of horribly homo-erotic.

Go on! Look at his neck and tell me you don't want a piece of that?

Two: Being a zombie involves a lot of standing around. In the movies, if there are ever zombies on screen, they’re usually groaning and lurching towards the still-living protagonists. Even the slow moving zombies always seem very into it. Now I know why- when the humans aren’t around, what do the zombies have to do? During the filming of this short there was a lot of waiting around between takes, so I feel like I have a pretty good idea now. There is a lot of standing around- mixed in with the occasional bit of weirdly homo-erotic skin peeling.

They're filming a pivotal scene here. I wasn't in it.

Three: Police brutality isn’t all bad. Like I said, there was a lot of waiting around between takes. Having been to the zombie protest lurch the previous week, I was sure a lot of my readers would be looking forward to hearing my account of that, possibly with some reports of more arrests or maybe even a bit of police brutality. Sadly, I didn’t witness any. So when I ran into two of the actors for this film playing police officers, I asked them to do a little favour for me.

It was great.

Now, it’s been a while, so I’m sure you’re all waiting for a long awaited round of the Chris Writes About The End Of The World Drinking Game. Here goes:

Do the characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building? Nah, we wandered around a lot.

Are the people coming to rescue you incompetent or more dangerous than the zombies?

Yes, but only when I asked them nicely. Two shots.

My new desktop wallpaper.

Is mankind the real monster? Nah. Mankind likes pointing and laughing and taking photos with its phone. Nothing particularly monstrous about that.

Are the zombies walking dead who move slowly and can only be killed by destroying the brain? A zombie protest sprint would have been way too much effort, and both incidents of zombying up ended in the pub, where brains were promptly destroyed. Three shots.

Instead of taking our order, the bartender poured spirits all over the bar and set it on fire.

Kiddy zombies?

And they were adorable!

Ironically, her grandmother's last words were "You're so cute I could just eat you up!"

We will back with our more regular blog next week. Until then, never stop kicking Tom.

Never stop!

Pre-Rapture Special: How To Spend Your Rapture Weekend

Well, with the end of the world as we know it fast approaching, I’m sure you’re looking for ways to avoid having to spend your last few precious moments trapped into spending time with your loved ones and family. Here are a few events you should check out this last weekend, to make the end of the world go that little bit quicker.

Friday

Eco-Horror party and DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS screening 

Shortwave Cinema, London 9pm
Remember the good old days, when we thought that the end of the world would be brought about by man’s ceaseless meddling with nature, as opposed to the almighty wrath of God? It was a purer age.

Mark the occasion with this special screening of post apocalypse and zombie move precursor Day of the Triffids, organised by our very own Amy Cutler:

“Shortwave Cinema says they’re going to let all Passengerfilms fans have an amazing reduced rate at Friday’s eco-horror party. Everyone else is paying full price at cinema rates, but if you say you’re with us you pay anything between FREE and SUGGESTED DONATION £4. Amazing. So please bring all your leafy creepy friends for a horrible night in celebration of sprouting and germination.

At 9pm in the cinema bar we will have Triffid face-painting by Muna of Artistic Strokes, a huge Triffid cake designed by Cakes & Crunk, and bright green cocktails made by yours truly. You can have one for free if you come in a good eco-horror costume, so don’t forget the green paint.

Not only that, we’ll also have (real) carnivorous plants taking over the bar for the night!”

Art Love World Live!

Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich 7.30pmSome of you may not have resigned yourself to being left on Earth to suffer through the tribulation as your more deserving friends are whisked off to eternal bliss.

If this the case, you may want to score some last minute brownie points, and there’s no better way to do that then giving money to charity, is there?

“Art Love World will be hosting its first ever live event as part of this year’s Norwich Fringe Festival at the Norwich Arts Centre on May 20th. The event is being held in aid of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and all profits will go straight to a charity providing relief for Japan. 

The event will showcase some of the finest talents from East Anglia, including fantastic live bands, comedians, poets, beatboxer, magician and DJs so you can get your groove on for the evening, in addition to a host of other spectacular treats in store on the night. 

Music acts will include the rock, funk and jazz fusion of The Fuzz, the Lou Reed-esque sound of Axel Loughrey, the stunning singer-songwriter Gracie Wright, the talented and soulful Jordan Jackson, the diverse acoustic duo Cielo and, last but not least, the fantastic Norwich Ukulele Society. 

Other acts include the hilarious and talented comic poet Tim Clare, the acerbic hippie wit of comedian Andy Bennett and Chris Farnell, one of Norwich’s finest wits. As well as some surprising walkabout performances. “

Yeah, I didn’t say that bit about being one of Norwich’s finest wits by the way.

Saturday

Saturday is the day of the actual apocalypse. I actually recommend you keep this day free, although if you start drinking at breakfast it’s not necessarily a bad idea.

Sunday

The Beta Males presents The Bunker

Kings Place, London, 7.30pmTo celebrate the aftermath of Armageddon, and mourn those of your friends who, it turned out, were leading much better lives than you, why not check out this great comedy double bill, featuring Pappy’s All Business and (more thematically) the Beta Males giving their last ever performance of post-apocalyptic sketch show, The Bunker.

“Take your place in The Bunker; humanity's last refuge beneath the scorched soil. Witness a society living in the guttering light, 30 years into a mutated future. Hilarity – but mostly doom – ensues as we sketch the last 273 humans alive, and the last punchlines they'll ever share... “

Don’t believe me? Ask Beta Male Guy Kelly: “This was my favourite show in Edinburgh last year - I saw it several times and howled with laughter each night. Now I'm in the damn thing. I can't express quite how happy that makes me. The humour is pitch-black and the pace is unrelenting: I'm so glad we get to perform it one last time. Having that last time be the day after the end of the world is the icing on the horribly, horribly irradiated cake.”

Wednesday

To be honest, if you’re still alive by Wednesday, you’ll probably be feeling a bit silly about this whole apocalypse thing. If the world hasn’t been thrown into turmoil by now (you know, more than usual) than it’s finally safe to assume that God probably doesn’t exist and write off the beliefs of everyone who isn’t Richard Dawkins as idiotic.

Just because the world is safe from Biblical catastrophe doesn’t mean you’re safe though. There’s always the risk that we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief, only to be wiped out by a Vogon Constructor Fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

That’s where this comes in handy:

Vogon Poetry Slam

The Miller Pub, London Bridge, 7pm
This event, run by Whippersnapper Press and one of our favourite zombie arrestees, Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, is to mark International Towel Day. So make sure you bring a towel.

There will be two categories:
* Nerdcore
* So-Bad-It’s-Good

There will also be:
* The most bureaucratic voting system we can devise
* Pan-galactic gargleblasters to drink
* Some damn snazzy costumes

Last I heard, the voting forms will also double up as vomit bags, so by the time the poetry’s been read, if the world hasn’t ended, you’ll wish it had.

#19 The Bible (Part Two): May 21st 2011, The Actual End of the World

(Deep booming voice) Previously, on Chris Writes About The End of the World


Yes, we’ve covered the Bible before, and the number of zombies and zombie apocalypse type events within its pages. The case for the Bible predicting all our deaths at the hands of animated, cannibalistic corpses is a slim one. Slightly more alarming however, is the apocalypse that is actually predicted in the Bible, which some people are arguing is due this Saturday. So hey, at least it’s a weekend that’s likely to have decent barbecue weather.


Here Comes The Maths
Above there’s a link to an eBible Fellowship tract that explains the thinking behind this date, however, Bible tracts have a pretty dry style, and an absolute dearth of knob gags, so I’ll do my best to summarise here.

It all starts in the book of Genesis when God says to Noah “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

You might have read about that flood in picture books as a kid, and maybe know songs about animals going onto the ark two by two, because if there’s one thing RE teachers are good at, it’s turning global, apocalyptic level acts of genocide into catchy tunes. However, by skipping forward a few books, you find this quote: 

“Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”

So, God mentions the flood, then tells us that to him, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.

The flood is dated as taking place in 4990 BC (because... Okay, I didn’t look this bit up, those websites are written in a really dry style with absolutely no knob gags). So:

-4990 + 7000 = 2010!

Okay, that doesn’t look impressive, sorry. But, due to a massive oversight on the part of our Gregorian Calendar makers, they forgot to include a year 0 because... Okay, I didn’t find that out either. The point is, the sum is actually:

-4990+7000 = 2011!!!

Then we get May 21^st from this passage:

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.”

And then... Okay, then the argument gets kind of hard to follow. It’s all up here though and involves detailed readings of Genesis, Peter, Hebrews, Matthew and others.

Basically, it is one hundred percent clear that, with detailed readings from various books written years apart, and combining that with lots and lots of sums, the beginning of the end of the world is due to start this Saturday. Because if there’s one thing we learn from the Bible, it’s that when God has a really important message to deliver to us, he likes to do it in code.

Pictured: Subtlety

Raptured
Now, don’t worry, we’re not all going to die on Saturday. The Earth isn’t destroyed in fire and brimstone until October 21^st because (Look, just read the damn tract)

However, zombie lovers, May 21^st is the day that (I’m quoting the tract, not the Bible here) “God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves. Earthquakes will ravage the whole world as the earth will no longer conceal its dead (Isaiah 26:21). People who died as saved individuals will experience the resurrection of their bodies and immediately leave this world to forever be with the Lord. Those who died unsaved will be raised up as well, but only to have their lifeless bodies scattered about the face of all the earth. Death will be everywhere.”

This is an event commonly known as The Rapture. It’s basically when God filters out all the good people, to leave the rest of us sinners to endure some of the unholy shit that goes on in Revelations.

Basically it'll look like this. I'm so sorry for reminding you of this film.

That, for those of you who mainly get your Bible teaching from the Omens movies, is where huge balls of fire fall from the sky, and the water turns to blood, among a complete host of other fucked up things.

And weirdest of all, there is a certain, very specific kind of Christian (not to confused with regular, non-insane Christians) who has an absolute hard on for this happening. Enough of them to buy 65 million copies of the books in Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series. It’s a sixteen book series, but with incredible foresight LaHaye and Jenkins got the final book in the series out in 2007. The series also spun off a videogame trilogy, which has the dubious bonus of a multiplayer mode where you get to play on Satan’s side. (Side note, am I the only one who thinks the theme music that website plays is weirdly catchy?)

Sure, you won the game asshole, but now you're definitely not getting Raptured!

One blogger far, far braver than me, has actually been trying to read the book series and pointing out just about everything that’s wrong with the writing, morals and theology of the books. Sadly, he won’t have finished reviewing the series by Saturday, so we’ll never know if it gets good towards the end.

A much better interpretation of the events of the Book of Revelation, the final word on the Biblical Apocalypse, can be found at the Brick Testament, here. I would include a picture the giant, bloodied, seven eyed lamb he build, but the guy who runs the site doesn’t like other people using his images. Which is a shame, because that photo is fucking terrifying.

So, for what will, let’s face it, probably be the final time. Let’s play the drinking game.

Do the dead rise regardless of whether they were “infected”? Ummm, maybe, kind of. Depends who you ask. Infected with God! Yeah, go on, take two shots.

Are the zombies walking dead who move slowly and can only be killed by destroying the brain?

Umm. No. No they are not.  However, what it does have is armoured fucking locusts with fucking human faces and fucking lion teeth and fucking scorpion tails, ruled by Abaddon the Destroyer. Fuck it, I’m taking a drink.

Is mankind the real monster?

No, no it is not. I’m pretty clear that the monsters here are the fucking locusts with human faces. Oh wait! No! There’s a seven headed dragon!

Have a drink anyway.

Has anybody said “They’re coming to get you Barbra!”

They’re coming to get Barbra, they’re coming to Ben, they’re coming to get you, and me, and everyone you care about. Take a drink.

Do the characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building?

No, not buildings. People scream to the mountains and the caves to hide them. Christ that’s depressing, I’m having another drink.

Are the people coming to rescue you incompetent or more dangerous than the zombies?

It’s supposed to be an all-loving, benevolent, omnipotent God doing this right? Fuck yes he’s incompetent and dangerous. Finish the bottle.

If you think there's hope in trying to avoid the inevitable, terrifying judgement of your Lord, and you happen to live in Norwich, you could gain a few brownie points this week by going to the charity gig Art Love World Live, where I, and other talented individuals will be trying to raise money for the victims of the Japan quake by performing comedy, poetry and music. Giving to charity is great, right? And it's THE DAY BEFORE THE RAPTURE. Basically, I think God is telling you to buy a ticket to this event.

#18 Call of the Dead: How To Create The Ultimate Zombie Survival Team

How you create the ultimate ass kicking zombie killing team? This question came to me, not for the first time, when watching the trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Black Ops: Escalation: Call of the Dead. There should be a joke about colons here, but I’m in a hurry, so think of your own:

Now, your first reaction to seeing this was probably the same as mine (because I find it very hard to believe that there are people in this world who think any differently from me). Wow! Awesome! Buffy, Machete, Freddy Krueger and the Racist from Walking Dead all teaming up to fight zombies! How can that not be the most awesome thing in the awesome history of the overuse of the word awesome?

And they fight George Romero! THE George Romero!

Do NOT tell him what you thought of Survival of the Dead!

Now I’m not saying my first reaction wasn’t correct- that never happens. But what I am saying is that under further consideration, this awesome team isn’t as equipped to fight zombies as we at first hoped.

Buffy- Fought vampires, and a small number of zombies in one episode, and they could all be easily killed off by breaking one mask.

Machete- Fought a corrupt senator, also, he don’t text.

Freddy Krueger- Killed high school kids. While they were asleep.

The Racist From Walking Dead- Hasn’t actually been seen to kill a zombie on screen yet, although he did saw off his own hand.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure faced with actual zombies all of these characters will dig deep and find their inner zombie murderer.

Okay, he didn't kill any traditional zombies either, but it's still a crime he didn't make the team

But here at Chris Writes About the End of the World we demand some slightly higher credentials. So today I’m going to be taking you through my own personal, carefully selected zombie survival team.

Jeremiah Kipp

Director of Contact and the up and coming The Sadist, as well as a former Chris Writes About the End of the World interviewee, Jeremiah Kipp wins a place on the team through his carefully through through zombie survival strategy:

“(a) Steal a helicopter, (b) bring a film crew and some guns, (c) take over a shopping mall, and (d) let loose the dogs of war.”

Yes, we’ll even forgive him misquoting Shakespeare.

Matt Barnes

Front and centre, smiling because he knows soon everybody else will be dead

The sole survivor of our Team Scavenger run during Zombie LARP, Matt clearly has the ruthless, no bullshit attitude, combined with a willingness to sacrifice his friends to save his won skin, that we’ll need to survive the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Honorary mentions to the rest of Team Scavenger, who are welcome to my zombie survivalist compound if they live long enough to do so.

Hannah Eiseman-Renyard

In a previous blog, I have referred to Hannah, perhaps unkindly, as our very own Jimmy Olsen. I now know this to be inaccurate. Hannah is our very own Lois Lane, in that if we send her to cover the top story, she’s going to end up getting captured and imprisoned. On a side-note, you can see Hannah, and your humble blogger, in person at the Vogon Poetry Slam this month, with details available here.

Amy Cutler

Another of our imprisoned zombies from last week’s royal shenanigans. She is also quite the scholar of zombie folklore, from more recent fare right back to the works of Daniel Defoe. I imagine she’ll fill quite a useful Giles-like roll in the zombie compound, assuming we find room for a library. You can read about the talks she and others gave during the event Everything You Wanted To Know About Zombies (But Were Afraid To Ask Daniel Defoe) here, or you can read her opinions about how the zombie apocalypse genre has a lot to say about the Royal Wedding arrests she was caught up in.

Tom Harvey

What? Can you think of a better way to store clothes pegs?

Bassist for Hello Bear, and occasional punching bag Tom Harvey. In previous blogs I have written about his complete unreliability as a team mate in Left 4 Dead, and have repeatedly and explicitly called him an idiot who is thick and an idiot when he helped me review Plan 9 From Outer Space. When the survivalist compound's defences inevitably crumble and fail due to being manned by bloggers, students, film directors and a musician, none of whom, let’s face it, have any real practical skills, it will be important to have one team member who we are willing to cripple so that the zombies can eat him alive while the rest of us flee for safety.

So, that's my zombie survival team. If you think you should have made the cut, but didn't then feel free to come round to my compound once the outbreak occurs, and pound on the door until your fists are bloody screaming "Chris you bastard! You can't just leave me out here! Not after everything I did for you!"

I'm not saying it'll help, but feel free.

Regular readers may be saying "Hey, this doesn't really count as a blog does it? You just gave us a load of links to some older blogs. Are you trying to palm us off with the blog equivalent of a clipshow?"

Of course not, I pour my heart and soul into every blog. But if I had done such a thing, it would be because this last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, and I'm knackered. Next week, we'll be back to reviewing a given book/film/video game/live action roleplay/protest/academic discussion and putting it in context of the genre. In the mean time, who would you put on your zombie survival squad?

#17: The Royal Wedding Zombie Flash Mob: Breach of the Peace (of the Dead)

This is part of a special two part blog. For the story on what happened at the Royal Wedding Zombie Flash Mob, keep reading. For an exclusive blog from Amy Cutler, something of a zombie expert and one of the zombies arrested at the event, and her views on just how the zombie genre is able to critique these events, click here. UPDATE: For a recent interview with Hannah, on how life's been for her after the arrest, and what she and others are planning to do about it, click here.

This was going to be a very silly blog. A combination of geeks, hippies and protesters had decided to mark the Royal Wedding of Will and Kate by having a picnic dressed up as zombies- some thought it was a political protest, some just thought it would be funny. We’ve done movies, books, TV, videogames, the Bible and Live Action Role Play on this site, so reviewing a zombie wedding party seemed like it would fill up our personal bingo card and maybe even rank high in google. To this end, unable to get to London myself, I asked Hannah Eiseman-Renyard and Amy Cutler to go and get photos and quotes for what I thought would be a bit of fun.

Then Hannah phoned me from the police station.

But let’s back track. A few days before the Royal Wedding of Will and Kate, of which we were all so pleased, I came across the hashtag #RoyalZombieFlashMob, which led me to this:

As you can see the invite listed various causes they wanted to raise awareness of, and had a tone that was irreverent but barely even counts as disrespectful. Seeing how this could make a silly piece for the blog, I recruited Hannah Eiseman Renyard, boss editor king of Whippersnapper Press, and Amy Cutler, who regular readers might remember as the zombie expert in our blog a few weeks back, and asked if they’d be up for popping along, taking some photos and giving me a bit of write up.

On the morning of the event Hannah headed out dressed like so:

In her defence, she's looked worse

While she was off having fun, I was stuck following events through twitter (Yes, Chris Writes About the End of the World finally has its own twitter feed @Chriszombieblog, we are at the cutting edge of 2006):

@Hannah_Chutzpah
Goddamnit I can't find my tiara! Flower girl zombie it is....#RoyalZombieFlashMob

@Hannah_Chutzpah
@ChrisZombieBlog so, I'm getting both grins & glares in my zombie bridesmaid outfit... Did a Queenly wave to one car & they looked v happy

@Hannah_Chutzpah
@ChrisZombieBlog oh fuckit! Bus stop is outside a funeral directors. Goddamn I live in a badly-written sitcom#RoyalZombieFlashMob

Around this time I saw other, slightly more menacing tweets about arrests and police vans, and heard some of the organisers had been arrested for having a mock guillotine. I retweeted, and whaggishly posted:

@chriszombieblog
Nobody tell @Hannah_Chutzpah - I'll never hear the end of it if she gets arrested. #RoyalZombieFlashMob

Then to be on the safe side texted Hannah and Amy to let them know arrests had happened, because I’m not a total bastard. Amy texted back “Should I abstain from putting blood on the flag? Is there a law against it do you think?”

Oh how we laughed.

Note: The flag is unbismirched

In her account of the day, Hannah described the “Mob” itself as:

Within Soho Square there were maybe twelve people there for the demo – one dressed as a crusader with a colander on his head, a couple of people with crowns made out of gold paper and everyone else dressed in pretty normal, boring clothes. Three film crews were milling about, bored, more photographers and journalists milling about, and a pretty obvious police presence. I decided to hang well back and stayed on the other side of the square to where anyone else was.

I heard a few chants of “one solution: revolution!”

Journalists kept approaching trying to interview me about my aims and objectives as I was pretty much the only one who looked like a zombie. I was a bit embarrassed, given that I’d come to report on it too and had no idea about aims or anything else – I just happened to have dressed up. I explained I was mainly there to report on it too. Lots of people took my picture. I couldn’t really find anyone to speak to myself. Apparently I was the story. Whoops.

It was a damp squib. It’s possibly, but not conclusively, because three of the main organisers had been arrested the previous day.

Left to their own devices, this would be a blog where my main joke would have been contrasting the gathering with this googlemaps simulation of a royal wedding zombie outbreak.

Every simulation I've run ends with Prince William running away and leaving Kate to die

Amy Cutler explains:

"We were fairly inoffensive members of the undead, who ate some homemade ‘brainnnsss’ cake earlier in the day, and travelled on to Starbucks where we sat down with some tea. At this point, four police vans (with sirens!) came round the corner and did a raid on Starbucks. We were stopped and searched under a special Section 60 for the wedding day – by sixteen police men, although there were only five zombies – and finally arrested and transported to the police station."

This is perhaps the most ridiculous part of this whole day. Sixteen police officers to arrest five zombies, when everybody knows that zombies can’t run.

And they could totally bite from there if they wanted

The zombies were arrested for “A potential breach of the peace” and were kept in a police cell up to pretty much the exact moment Will and Kate drove out of Buckingham palace past a huge baying horde that looked like a far more evocative image of a zombie apocalypse than anything some fake blood could muster.

The Royal Zombie Flash Mob was a very, very silly event. Some people there might have thought they were overthrowing the government, some people were trying to raise awareness about important issues, some simply thought dressing up as a zombie equals funny. It doesn’t matter a huge amount if you agree with their politics, or how effective you think dressing up as a zombie is as an agent of political change.

Because the silly stuff is important, it’s where we have to draw the line. The difference between the right to put on some gory make up and make a pratt of yourself in public, and the right to criticise the government and stand up for the rights we’re supposed to hold sacred, is haggling.

This is Amy's real arrest paper- not hilarious satire

There’s plenty more to this story. You can hear the zombie’s accounts of the arrests from their interviews with Mary Hamilton- one of the brains behind the Zombie LARP, who knows a thing or two about pretending to be a zombie. Here’s an interview with Hannah as well as Amy and the other zombies. You can see a zombie nun chatting to a police officer and you can watch the police evicting the remaining zombies from the park.

Read about it on the Guardian, with a photo of Amy Cutler getting escorted away in handcuffs and seven and a half minutes into this video, you can see the arrest itself.

And now, I know our regular readers will be gasping for our drinking game.

Do the characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building? Well, I don’t know, does Soho Park count? I’ll leave that one to your discretion.

Are the people coming to rescue you incompetent or more dangerous than the zombies? The police are technically there to protect the people they were arresting, so take two shots.

Is mankind the real monster? And another one for this.

Has anybody said “They’re coming to get you Barbra!” Probably, I reckon. If the protesters didn’t, they should have!

Are the zombies walking dead who move slowly and can only be killed by destroying the brain? Well, the zombies were going to Starbucks- they were clearly pretty sedantry. One shot.

Kiddy zombies? And they’re adorable! Two shots!

Do the dead rise regardless of whether they were “infected”?  Well, zombies have been spotted in Brighton and London today, and with Amy looking into arranging a protest lurch- email Amy here if you're interested in taking part- I think it’s fair to say they’ll rise.