Why I Pray for the Zombie Apocalypse...

It's August the 9th, 2011 and Britain has seen a spate of rioting and looting on a par with that which took parts of the country back in the 80's. People are burning things, stealing, mugging and generally being total dicks. This is an extreme underline to the reasons why, quite often, I wish the zombie apocalypse upon humanity.

Like many, many people across the world I am fascinated by the idea of being suddenly thrown into a situation where society has broken down and everyone, regardless of background, culture, creed or wealth is square. The slate wiped clean. Of course, fighting zombies and acting without consequence is one of main reasons anyone fantasises about something which, in all honesty, would be quite a horrible experience. The fact that this is such an entertaining and appealing topic should really have people questioning the state of current society.

Our world is dominated and run by greedy individuals. It is also influenced by greedy corporations (I hate sounding like a hippy, but this is what I believe). In turn, they service greedy classes who want nothing more than to have one over on their neighbour. Those who experience poverty also have a greedy state of mind, many turning to a life of crime to get what they want or abuse the system in order to get something for nothing. This may seem like a scathing and unfair view of modern culture but to me, it is the truth. We live in a capitalist society so there is always going to be an element of greed involved as corporations attempt to make as much profit as possible but, like environmental issues, greed is something that should be sustainable.

If you read any sci-fi novel you see a future dominated by an elite few corporations. Whilst this is science fiction, is has basis upon predictions in science fact. Unsustainable greed -- what I see as continued revenue increase without anything being given 'back' -- is what causes this often bleak view of the future where it is not governments that dictate the way we live but corporations.

We are a long way from any such corporate-controlled future but the riots across Britain are highlighting something which is an underlying problem not just in British society but all across the globe. Any reason, however small, gives people an excuse to become disorderly and commit crime. If this is not stamped out quickly and people are seen to be 'getting away' with their crimes then this escalates. Many modern people have weak morals. Not all, but many. Use this as an example and ask yourself what you would do: You walk past the scene of recent looting and see a shop with its windows smashed. On the floor in front of you lie two unopened iPads. There is nobody around. Do you take these, thus becoming one of those looters you claim to hate or do you walk away?

This is the essence of greed. Getting something for nothing. Because of the society we live in where you are not rewarded for good actions nor punished for the bad, greed is allowed to flourish. Those individuals who are walking out of burning electronics stores with new TV's and iPads are opportunistic scavengers who are simply taking advantage of a system which doesn't know how to handle the gravity of their crimes.

More CCTV (properly monitored) and harsher approach to criminal behaviour is something that I believe would help. This is a grim view of the immediate future but may help to create brighter prospects in the long term. In addition to this, those that take (large companies included) should be asked to give a little back. With fuel and energy prices rocketing (without acceptable cause), bankers bonuses rising and spending cuts that affect the poor (but have little impact on the rich) we should expect feelings of anger to boil. These exacerbate a situation which should not be as contagious as it is.

I can't see there being an easy or quick solution to all of the problems faced by this country or even the world. But, in my mind, when I envision a perfect future it is one where corporations support the communities around them by providing jobs and invest in new, smaller companies that are starting up with shared interests. In my future, energy companies seek new forms of fuel and invest in companies developing vehicles that run on their goods. In my future, bankers don't hoard the wealth they gain and give ridiculous bonuses to those that run their company, they invest in innovative ways to help people save or just give a portion of their profits to charitable causes. In my future the compensation culture is gone and people don't get something for nothing but instead get rewarded for hard work and leading a good, honest life.

It's either that, or an apocalypse. History and prehistory have shown that humankind can only progress and can only shine in periods where it is utterly threatened. Nothing unites the world like a zombie apocalypse.

Why Look Forward When We Can Look Back?

How bad is it that we now have to look back to the past to enjoy the present? Recently, advertisers and companies have realised just how crap the present is and are beginning a revival of their past commercialt to try and usher in new profits without having to spend any effort thinking up new ways of grabbing our attention.

But there's a problem with this, because in our nanny culture present time many past adverts may be seen as a little too 'misleading' or 'cruel' to have on our modern boxes. A good example is the recent revival of the old Milky Way commercial which involves two cartoon cars racing each other. To the untrained eye, the new version of the commercial looks exactly the same... but it's not.

You see, the old commercial featured the same race to the same track however it was a slightly longer advert. In addition to the advert being slightly longer, the lyrics were different to how they are presented on the 2009 commercial. But we aren't meant to think about that... The old advert featured a hungry car that scoffed everything in his way as he raced from 'Lunchtown' across a desert. His rival was a car with more self control who instead chose to eat only a Milky Way before they ended their race in the aptly named 'Dinnertown'. Unfortunately, the hungry car eats so much during his race that he ballons in size and when the duo are met with a broken bridge, the poor car falls as his lighter companion rushes to victory as a sign flashes: Milky Way: The Sweet You Can Eat Between Meals Without Ruining Your Appetite.

The new advert is pretty much the same concept but it makes less sense. They race for an unknown reason from a place called 'Playville' across the same desert to a place called 'Light Town' and as the blue crosses the line, the sign now flashes Milky Way: Lighten Up and Play. In addition to this, the lyrics of the song have been changed to accomodate the new advertising rules. Instead of the blue car choosing the Milky Way because it 'won't spoil his appetite' he now chooses it because 'its something that tastes just right'.  And it seems his intelligence has dropped and he's no longer 'smart old blue', he's just 'good old blue'.

The red car and blue car race in the old Milky Way commercial.

So what does this teach us? It teaches us that in the twenty years since the advert was first aired, we're now fickle enough to believe that eating a chocolate bar before a meal won't spoil your dinner and now have to be protected from this claim. It also teaches us that in the last twenty years we have become stupider... This is true, at least.

Some of the best adverts of the past ten or twenty years are now no longer allowed to be broadcast. Take the fantastic Tango commercial which involved an orange man walking around with a huge rubber glove on his hand slapping people whilst the voiceover stated 'You know when you've been Tango'd'. This admittedly was copied by a lot of school kids, but did removing this advert actually make people less violent? No. In fact, since that advert was aired, gun and knife crime is up. If the people who make the advertising rules were to look at those statistics in the usual oversensitive way they look at everything else then it would be correct to say that instead of going around slapping each other kids now go around stabbing each other. You know when you've been shanked.

The Tango advert that featured the man that slapped people for fun.

So companies have realsied that there is a certain public fondness for 'blasts from the past' and in just about every industry you can see things from past years bought into the public eye. We have remixes of old songs, remakes of old movies and even some old programmes being bought back onto our TV screens. The only problem is, these things usually have to be edited for our stupider, more politically correct audience and it means that there no longer seems to be as much investment in new things that make us smile. It may seem cruel to say that we're stupider but it really does seem to be the case. Take kids TV, for example.

When I was younger I was watching programmes like Thundercats and MASK along with the hugely popular fantasy gameshow Knightmare. These programmes dealt with good and evil, where the bad guys were genunielly bad and the good guys were representing everything good with the world. When the bad guys had the shit kicked out of them, they wouldn't learn a lesson, they would just want revenge... like real life. I also remember that kids TV would opt for the more extravagent ways of describing something rather than choosing childish, easy to understand words and statements. And as for the gameshows? I watched a repeat episode of Knightmare a while back and there were questions on there that I would've been completely unable to answer when I was in the age group of the kids on the show. These kids, with barely a moments hesitation, shouted the answers out as though it was common knowledge. We really are far stupider and for some reason in modern kids shows there are never any real losers.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make with this long rant about our past is that whilst we should be proud of the programmes we watched as children and the adverts we remember so much, we shouldn't just edit them and return them to our screens we should try to better them and forget about the stupidity and sensitiveness of our modern audiences.

As final proof of public stupidity, the recent 'Manuelgate' scandal that resulted from prank calls made by Jonathan Ross and Russel Brand on a primetime BBC radio show received only a handful of complaints when it was aired. Nobody cared about what happened, but as soon as it was on the news and in the papers, thousands of people complained even though they'd not seen the show. Why go to the trouble? Idiots.

Let's all look to a bright future of entertainment and make our own judgement calls, take risks and create new material without having to constantly revert back to the 'good old days' for things to market.