Viva la (social) Revolution! Your guide to social etiquette in a post apocalyptic world.

I realise full too well that the start of the next sentence is going to make me sound like a French revolutionary.

But come the glorious day, brother, (told you), when the dead rise, and the living take up arms against the shambling, slightly smelly threat, we're going to go through some changes. In a world where you may find yourself shooting that nice old lady from two rooms down right between the red, unblinking eyes, and having no one thinking you need locking up for it, social conventions are not going to stay the same. So here's a few rules for that time to avoid that dreadful "someone just committed social death" awkward silence.

Sleepwalking is now even more awkward.

You've watched your friends and family die horribly to hordes of stumbling necrotic flesh, you're wary about anyone walking slowly and badly and seemingly not looking where they're going. Sleepwalking is currently just awkward and embarrassing. In case of zombie apocalypse? It involves your head being blown to delicious chunky salsa.

Suddenly, everyone loves the nutters.

You know that slightly weird kid who knows all sorts of weird things about making weapons, explosives, and surviving in odd circumstances? The one who seems to spend far too much time on the internet reading up on things? Well, firstly, wave when you next pass him sitting alone in his corner. That's me. Secondly, get ready to make him your new best friend, because he's got the skills and possibly the equipment needed to survive in this zombie-eat-dog-and-then-everything-else-world. Similarly, you know the great big scary guy in the leather jacket with the shaved head and tattoos? The one who's almost certainly got illegal guns somewhere? Your best friend number two.

The Three Amigos

Basically, if you ever see someone you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, or someone wearing one of those "In case of zombie apocalypse, follow me" t shirts... follow them.

Romero will become God.

Back in the far distant past of 1968, George Romero released Night of the Living Dead, and gave our conciousness the idea of a zombie not just being the product of black magic. Due to the slight accident of forgetting to copyright the film and leaving it in the public domain, he attracted a wave of imitators, warning humanity of the threat to come. Should all this actually happen, what are the bets this man will become, at the least, a prophet - if not a God in his own right? Be prepared to run into nutty cults who end their sentences "Romero be praised!".

Oh, and one last thing:

However much you want to go there, stay away from the shopping malls.

Just remember, Max Brookes tells you how to avoid actual death with the Zombie Survival Guide. I tell you how to avoid social death. Together, we're a team.

This blog post is not about lions. Well, not much.

It was going to be a delightful nature documentary about lions filled with dreadful puns, but I had a slight problem - lions are frickin' hard to draw on paint. Maybe I should invest in some real sort of drawing package for this laptop, or, indeed, a mouse which is vaguely the right size for my hand. My MS Paint David Attenborough antics will have to wait.

It should probably be known, though, that I'm writing this post listening to the Broadway version of The Lion King - truly one of the cinematic greats of our history. The original film, obviously, not the Broadway musical as that's pretty obviously a musical. Anyway, this opinion can get me some odd looks. Imagine, if you will, that I'm at a posh dinner party. This has never happened to me, but you never know. The conversation turns to the wonderful art of cinema, and the host, a portly gentleman with a huge moustache and a monocle, begins to talk.

"... I mean, it's really gone downhill. I remember when we had real films worth waiting for. I remember The Dambusters - that was a damn good film, damn good." At this point, the rest of the room makes those particular strange noises posh people do when they agree with each other. (I wonder vaguely if it has a theme tune which goes "Who you gonna call?")

"Ayaaaaars, yaaaars" - that's the nearest I can get to notating said noise without making them sound like a drunken pirate - and, sadly, it's not that kind of dinner party.

"For instance," he says, waving his half full glass of port vaguely, and warming to his theme, "That recent 'Avatar' film. I mean, it's all very pretty, but it's hardly high art, is it?"

At this point, I feel I have to interject in this world of dinner jackets and cigars. "Why, yes," I sycophantically add, "it left me feeling a little blue." Sadly, my fellow party guests evidently have a less highly honed sense of humour than me, and my joke receives only a stony silence instead of the applause, slaps on the back, and offers of marriage from the classier sort of socialite I feel it deserved. Such is life.

Desperately trying to recover my standing in the room, I play the pseudo intellectual/complete snob card. "I mean, although it's good entertainment for the proles, it's hardly high art. It hardly stands up against the classics - Citizen Kane, Vertigo, The Lion King..."

You can imagine the reception this would have - this might be why I'm not invited to posh dinner parties like this.

On a final note, my own personal reason for avoiding Avatar is that, on getting back from watching it, I spent the next two weeks ill with Swine Flu (some time after anyone took it seriously). Now, I definitely don't want you to think that James Cameron transported me to another world where strange alien diseases infected me. That's not what I'm saying at all.

Nope, not remotely.

Look at their filthy diseased bodies.