A Deep Dive Into The Un-alive

You May Want To Skip This If Zombies Aren't Your Thing

Or if they very much are your thing but you adhere to the internal logic of films or television and that magic word CONSISTENCY.

     Also, Hom. Sap. is very much a tool-using species, as evinced by Ol' Stan in '2001: A Space Odyssey', which we will come back to and it also permits me to use an illo from said film.  Art!

     That ought to act as click-bait.  

     ANYWAY I thought I'd do a critical analysis of a Sork zombie drama that I'd never heard of before yesteryon, namely 'Zombieverse'.  Art!

     Now, be warned that this whole Intro is nothing but a massive SPOILER before we continue on our nit-picking hair-splitting plot-analysing journey.  

     Before we go any further, be advised that this series is set in South Korea, hence the 'Sork' description, which is pertinent - up to a point.  There is hardly any gun crime in Sorkland, because Sork gun laws make those of the UK look lax and tolerant.  Guns are simply not part of Sork civilian culture, even if every male over 18 knows how to use an assault rifle, thanks to conscription.  The irony.

     Well, the gimmick for ZV is that it tries to combine the format of a reality TV show and video game, where the cast try to survive by carrying out tasks.  Then the Zombie Apocalypse arrives in Seoul and everything turns to bat-guano.  Art!

     This is Zombie Zero, who turns up at the 'Love Hunter' television studio looking a bit peaky, then turns full zombo and goes biting mad, lending a new meaning to the term 'necking'.  The time-count at this point is 06:33 MAKE A NOTE OF THIS.  Art!

     Victim One now becomes Zombie Two, after - count it - 50 seconds.  Yes, the transmogrification is that fast.  Our central cast manage to make it into a studio car, which coincidentally has a driver and sound technician already present, and drive off.  Art!

Dindin, Na-Rae, Hong-Chul, Si and Tsuki

     Not for long.  They need petrol as their car's indicator shows that it's running on fumes, so they stop at the nearest open garage.  Art!

     Notice the background here.  UTTERLY DEVOID OF ZOMBIES.  Despite the minivan driving up onto the forecourt and everyone inside jabbering away.  
     What do you know, Sork garages are even worse than UK ones for patronising and needlessly protracted fuelling procedures, as the pumps Tannoy system broadcasts so loudly it could be heard in Pyongyang*.  Art!

'Please select the payment method and a zombie will shortly arrive to eat your brains'

     Then we have one of Conrad's pet peeve about zombie films: The Incredible Teleporting Zombie, where a flock of the un-alive mysteriously appear from out of the woodwork where there were none a mere fraction of a second ago.  Art!

And Lo! suddenly there were zombies

     One of them sneaks up on the driver, who is so wholly engrossed in pumping diesel that he cannot see or hear anything else.  The cast in the car can see the zombie, of course, and sit there discussing what to do.

     DUH! WARN THE DRIV - too late.  Art!

Timer stands at 16 minutes

     He staggers off and dies.  The problem for the survivors after this is that 1) he never got to put any more fuel in the car and 2) he was a distrustful and paranoid bumbletuck who took the ignition keys with him.  This leads to a lot of running about, throwing things to distract the undead, and - what's this?  Art!

     The driver reanimates as one of the slavering undead horde, after 18 minutes lying on a car bonnet.  Because the plot calls for it <sigh>.  Remember my lament about consistency?  No, neither do the scriptwriters here.

     Also, referring back to Moonwatcher and his bone club, during the 20 minutes our survivors are stranded in the garage, they deliberately avoid trying to find anything to use as a weapon.  It's a garage, you could expect to find wrenches, spanners, hammers, crowbars, screwdrivers, perhaps a fire-axe, yet there seems to be an unspoken agreement that zombies are a rare and endangered species that must not be harmed in any way, not even by being run down when Hong-Chul gets another car running.  O noes.  That would be - well, it would be sensible and clever, hence it doesn't play any part in the ZV version of reality.  Art!

      Another zombie opus with the same bizarre rationale.  Yes, it's the one with the land-travelling zombie shark.

    ANYWAY this is only the first episode and we're already over 700 words in, so my analysis of Episodes 2, 3 and 4 will have to come at a later date.  I bet you can hardly wait.
     Of course, I could be overthinking this .....


A Holiday In Mordorvia

To paraphrase Jello Biafra, whom you may know as the singer of the Dead Kennedys, a group not named in any tasteful way because youth and rebellion and all that.

     Well, chaos and disorder has arrived in Barad-Dur and it's airports, as Ukrainian drones fly hither and yon all over Ruffian airspace around the capital.  Art!

 - only because you didn't bed down on the more comfy parts of Sheremetyevo, matey.  Another woman complained that she had to pay an extra $980 for each of three new tickets thanks to the originals being cancelled.

     This, lest you be unaware, is the Ruffian authorities trying to protect their citizens, as there is far too high a chance of a civilian airliner being shot down by their defences after being mis-identified as a drone, were they still flying.  Any shutdown like this costs tens of millions in compensation and insurance pay-outs, rising to hundreds of millions if it takes place over several days.

     Bring on the popcorn.  Art!

They Continue To Do It, The Pikers

The guilty party this time is, once again, the 'Daily Express', and when I take over O! their editors and sub-editors are going to regret trying clickbait tactics.  Art!

     The only face Conrad recognises here is Simon Callow on the starboard side, and it's not a recent photo, so I'm guessing that they mean 'No Man's Land', dating back to 1990, set during the civil unpleasantness in Yugoslavia..  Art!

     Now you know, and there's no need to click on the yellow rag's website.

Gold Is A Heavy Metal Too

You normally encounter heavy-metal poisoning with elements like mercury, which is insanely dangerous in compound form, or thallium or polonium.  Thallium-laced cigars were a plot point in an episode of "N.C.I.S." I'll have you know.  Art!

     Here we have the Farting Felon with a pair of his incredibly tacky sneakers, made with gold.  Because every tasteless oaf thinks more gold makes everything better, although King Midas kind of sussed out the truth about that.  One presumes Orange Land Whale got a minion to put his feet into a pair of these and lace them up, since his physique makes it impossible for him to bend over.  Art!

     Tiny hands but fat swollen ankles, what a parlous combination.

     There is a considerable split on how people not overly fond of Trump are approaching this apparent health condition, which is 'Mendacious Veiny Very Old Man Syndrome' or similar.  Some, cruelly, want him to suffer until the end of his term and then go into a care home; others, even more cruelly, want him to keel over dead in his chair.  BOOJUM! will sit on the fence, only noting that if the Prez plods off this mortal coil, who but J. D. Vance will become Prez.

     Gold: always believe in your sole.


Talking Of Which -

The boot is on the other foot.  The talking heads on Ruffian state television have long been threatening, whilst slavering with delight, about using a fictional underwater thermonuclear torpedo to create a tsunami what would end Perfidious Albion.

     Yeah yeah right.  That sounds like the plot of a pulp Thirties sci-fi story.  Art!

     How do you like that species of Malum, Ruffia?  Even Mother Nature detests you.

Finally -
Time for a lunch that includes Raspberry and Yoghurt ice cream.  Toodles!

*  Korean internal border joke.