There are many things I dislike.

One of them is MC Dizzee Rascal, an “English rapper, songwriter and record producer whose music is a blend of garage, hip hop, grime, ragga, pop and electronic music, with extremely eclectic samples and more exotic styles” (according to Wikipedia).  A modern-day poet, you’ve probably heard the works of this “boy in da corner”: they include the songs I Luv U, Hold Ya Mouf and U Can’t Tell Me Nuffin’.

There’s a lot about this creature I don’t understand: why he’s so obscenely famous; why he’s always playing gigs like Reading Festival when there’s absolutely nothing indie, rock, or otherwise ‘alternative’ about him; why he chose a stage name he can’t pronounce… but the question that tops them all is what the hell is he saying??

If a song has good lyrics I can appreciate it no matter what the genre.  To me, lyrics are the most important part of music and even the greatest guitar solo on earth won’t be enough for me to overlook an atrocious lyric (Sting, I’m looking at you).

Anyway, in an attempt to become more ghetto I’ve been listening to the lyrics of Mr Rascal this evening and wish to share my musings with you, dear Internet.

Below is his timeless classic Stand Up Tall.  It reached number 10 in the charts, and all three words in the title are spelled correctly.  I have taken the time to write the lyrics down, as you may have trouble making them out if this is your first time hearing the song.  In purple I have added my interpretation of these insightful lyrics, although welcome fellow scholars to contribute to my analysis as it got a little too much for me nearer the end.

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DON’T DEAD, OPEN INSIDE:

Rules For Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse

I’ve just watched the pilot episode of The Walking Dead. My first impression was “28 Days Later with a Hollywood budget, made into a TV series” (which certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing) but a number of things annoyed me. These are things which are becoming increasingly common in zombie apocalypse scenarios and, considering one of the primary appeals of a zombie apocalypse is its delightfully Darwinian ability to weed out the slow and the stupid, I am concerned that the media are unfairly representing idiots as “worthy survivors” in this increasingly popular genre. As a public service I’m going to list the Top 10 rules that survivors (and scriptwriters) should adhere to. 1) Do not underestimate the importance of clear communication

I realise you’re probably in a hurry, but without attention to detail and a spot of foresight you’re not going to last long. Clear communication is important and saves lives.

Look at this: no punctuation and confusing layout. Atrocious. Imagine you were being chased by zombies and had to make a split-second decision about which locked door to hack open. “DONT DEAD OPEN INSIDE” is a bit puzzling, and I wouldn’t put it past some simpleton to remove the plank and start on the padlock before going “Oh, wait, I think it’s saying OH GOD A ZOMBIE IS CHEWING ME.”

I would advise “DON’T OPEN! ZOMBIES!!!” (preferably in red) for clearer emphasis.

Of course, it’s not just post-apocalypse that communication is key. Look at the scientist talking to the animal rights terrorists at the beginning of 28 Days Later. Instead of smiling manically and saying “Rage” in an evil way, he could have said: “These chimpanzees are contaminated with a highly contagious strain of rabies which is fatal to humans. If you let them out they’ll spread the infection everywhere and we would surely die.” I reckon that would’ve had a better chance at persuading them not to let the chimps loose.

2) Don’t walk around in the dark, you massive tool

If you need an explanation for this one, you deserve to get your brain eaten. Although I doubt it would provide much of a meal.

3) When you find an abandoned military base, take a tank. Not a bicycle.

Yes, I realise that bicycles don’t need fuel. But there’s probably room in the armoured jeep / tank / helicopter to fit the damn bike for in the future when that’s an issue. Anyway, you’re more likely to find fuel on the road than a puncture repair kit.

4) Unless your ammunition explodes, don’t bother

While the details of exactly how to kill the zombies depends on a number of factors (slow, shuffling zombies needing a single bullet to the temple are the most desirable ones to face), it’s generally a safe bet that they’ll keep on coming even if you’ve blown their limbs off. Emptying a 9mm clip into their chest isn’t enough to stop one, and when you’re faced with THOUSANDS it’s pretty standard maths to work out that shooting them repeatedly with a pistol is ineffective, no matter how great your aim is. Both standard and armour-piercing rounds are a total waste against the undead and will just make a lot of noise which is something one should generally avoid in such a scenario. The only ammunition to seriously consider is hollow-point and shotgun shells.

Just use a goddamn axe.

5) When you find a better base, stay there

“So this is the police station. It has its own heating and power, a huge armory, cages, thick walls, vehicles and broadcasting equipment.”

“Cool. Let’s have a shower, grab a handful of stuff and then head back to our exposed house in the suburbs.”

6) Put morality on the back-burner

“Welcome to our military fort. We have a minefield, heavy artillery, months of supplies, armoured vehicles, explosives, weapons aplenty, an army, and even a pet zombie so we can study them.”

“Wow. That’s perfect. What’s the catch?”

“Well, some of the soldiers are right cunts and would like to rape those two girls you picked up.”

Yep, that’s pretty damn horrific. But you know what else is pretty damn horrific? Being eaten by zombies. There’s hardly a moral high ground in situations like these, but out of all the possible ways you could resolve this problem I think the absolute worst has to be “Well then I’m setting the infected prisoner loose to infect everyone in this building, even the people who weren’t overly fussed on the whole raping idea, because while rape is abhorrent me murdering you all is somehow morally justifiable. Once I’ve finished killing you all, I’m taking the girls and we’re leaving. On foot. Without a weapon. Where our life expectancy will drop to approximately two hours.”

7) Most humans aren’t actually worth saving

When faced with the “do I risk my own neck to save that person?” dilemma, ask yourself “Were we not in a zombie apocalypse, would I give that person the time of day?” If the risk is greater or equal to the reward (it cannot be denied that you are more likely to rescue someone if you’d like to sleep with them), use their dilemma as a means to make your own safe getaway.

8) This includes people in your team

The dumb racist fuck, the crazy one who puts the group in jeopardy, the fussy one who complains about your fried rat but won’t offer to cook anything better, the ditzy blonde who runs in heels… sooner or later your team will contain one of these people.

While it may seem wise just to kill them before they get you killed, I would actually advise shooting them in the knees and using them as bait when you need a diversion.

9) Camping in the woods is dumb

I get staying out of the big cities, that’s wise. But that nylon tent isn’t going to provide much of a defensive structure if the zombies do find you. A cave or a mountain, with a good vantage point and difficult climbing involved (get a rope ladder), is a much better choice.

10) The dead ARE DEAD, you friggin’ moron

It doesn’t matter how emotionally attached you were when they were alive/uninfected: they’re gone. There is no cure, no sanctuary, and no God. Shoot them in the head with an axe. No exceptions.

The manager squinted in my direction.

“So… what exactly is the problem, sir?”

“The apostrophe button,” I repeated, more firmly this time.

“It’s broken?” he enquired.

“It isn’t there.”

He stared intently at the telephone, a baffled expression crawling across his face.  After a few moments of careful scrutiny his eyes returned to me, nervously.

“Just to confirm, sir, when you say apostrophe you mean…?”

I sighed a little and raised my hand.

“The little flying comma thing,” I elaborated, tracing its outline in the air with my index finger. The manager relaxed a little, foolishly thinking we were now on the same wavelength.

“Ohh, you don’t need to worry about those anymore; this is the new model.  Much easier to use. Just click on ‘symbols’ and it brings up a list of all the different faces…”

He’d lost me completely.

“Faces?”

“Yeah, you know… ‘emoticons’.”

As he said the last word, his thumb and outer fingers balled up while the remaining digits formed those cringe-worthy animated quotation marks, and I wondered if my earlier display had made him think all punctuation had to be acted out for greater emphasis.

He held the phone up to demonstrate. The screen contained a disjointed amalgam of brackets, commas and hyphens which – if you craned your head in the right direction and closed at least one eye – faintly resembled a set of faces.

“So you see,” he continued confidently, “there’s nothing wrong with it; they’ve just phased out the apostrophe key because the faces now come pre-assembled. You can have animated faces, audio and picture messaging–”

“Do you mean to tell me that the only way to type an apostrophe on this phone is to insert a smiley face and then delete its mouth and eyes?”

“Well,” answered the man, puzzled as to why I was so insistent about this matter, “or nose and mouth. Depends if he’s winking.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m afraid I need a phone that will let me use apostrophes for more than drawing smiley faces.”

“But…”

I gritted my teeth and dreaded the words I somehow knew were coming.

“…why else would you need one?”

*

So this is me: emissary of the downtrodden apostrophe; Grammar Nazi; pedantic prick. I’m that guy who holds you up in the queue because he feels the need to tell the checkout girl that, technically, the sign on the express lane should read ‘Ten items or fewer’. The precocious little sod who berates you for saying ‘could of’ instead of ‘could have’ or who just can’t keep it to himself when he spots a lowercase ‘i’ or a hyphen where there should clearly be a dash. My ideal job would involve travelling across continents with a red marker pen, thwarting linguistic injustice wherever it lurks, be it billboard or subtitle. I place linguistic ability above every other quality I look for in my companions, and could not even consider dating a girl who doesn’t read or can’t spell properly. And while it may seem so, it is never a masochistic decision to become hated by those around me; it’s a compulsion that has gripped me since the day I learnt to read, and has shown no sign of relinquishing its grasp ever since.

Let me tell you how it started.

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Our school only brought in the interesting subjects like Philosophy & Ethics, Psychology, Sociology, et al once you reached A-Level, so naturally I dropped the subjects I’d spent my whole life forced to learn in favour of these new and interesting ones.

At some point in Year 12 I decided I wanted to read Creative Writing at university.  As universities accept people onto Philosophy degrees even if they have no prior knowledge of the subject, I imagined the same rule would apply for the much simpler choice of an English degree.  Turns out I was wrong, and as I hadn’t taken English as an A-Level I couldn’t take the course I wanted come university, and the teachers advised me to spend my planned gap year attending night school Eng Lit lectures instead of backpacking around Thailand.

Well fuck that, I thought.

Against the advice of the teacher, in Year 13 I took both AS and A2 English Lit together, primarily because I fancied a girl in the AS class.

I didn’t finish any of the books in time for the exams.  I didn’t even try.  I put in one sleepless night of hard work the night before Big Exam Day and bluffed my way through every paper, throwing in long and important-sounding words wherever possible and doing my utmost to sound like I knew what I was writing about.  As different schools studied different texts, the exam booklets contained questions for multiple books — we just had to answer the section on whichever book we’d studied.  In our case it was Jane Austen’s Emma.  As I hadn’t read it, found the lectures dull and didn’t feel like bluffing about old-fashioned women I skimmed through the other sections and found Death of a Salesman — at least I had seen the play — and proceeded to blag about anti-Capitalism and McCarthyism for a few pages.

And where did this laziness get me?  Well, I got an A.

I carried this technique of not giving a shit, writing essays on books I hadn’t read, and only putting a load of work in at the last minute over to university, where I got a First. 🙂

I know, I know, I’m a cunt.  But I’ve never once had to prove that I actually got the grades I did [and would be screwed if I had to, as I’ve no idea what my mum did with the certificates], so the moral of the story is: stop caring, enjoy life, and if you didn’t get the results you had hoped for, lie on your CV and no one will ever know.