I've been interested in zombies for ages, ever since I saw 'Dawn of the Dead' back in the 1980s. I wrote a literary novel about a vampire, 'Where Does Kissing End?', and another novel about a witch, 'Weird Sister', and I've wanted to write about zombies for ages. Vampires are about sex, witches are about scary powerful women, while zombies - what are they about?

Maybe zombies are about the human soul, or absence thereof, and maybe they are also about race. Marina Warner has a fascinating but short chapter on zombies in the last chapter of her new book, 'Phantasmagoria'. Zombies have made yet another comeback in the cinema of late, with 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Twenty Eight Weeks Later' lurching onto our screens. Somehow, zombies are a part of this project for me, though I've yet to figure out quite how and, perhaps, why, and I don't even know what Chris thinks about zombies.

Another thing I'm interested in is Mad Scientists. A familiar character in movies, we haven't seen all that many of late... Jeff Goldblum in 'The Fly' is a favourite, and Danny Boyle's recent movie, 'Sunshine', had a couple of them (given that all the characters were scientists, that wasn't surprising). But they are always male. Can't think of a single female mad scientist in film or fiction. The time is ripe, don't you think...?

'In the flight path' by travelinlibrarian





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBrRdIaJtw (part 1) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PJn6KDNSuU (part 2)

Animation of falling on to the Sainsbury's Richmond car park



Using google satellite images.

Flash source file: sainsburysrichmondfall.fla (1.2MB)

'Flight Paths' by dompitot

'Global Plane Flight Paths' by gletham

'Boeing 777 landing at Heathrow' by sunilr007

'How to be a Mad Scientist' by Dr SkuLL

Sound Up



From Sun Up, by Lebusque and Airport Announcement
by NOISE.INC @ Freesound.

Flash source file: soundup.fla (660KB)

Words



Click here to view full size

Flash source file: words.fla (62KB)

Duty Free by Lebusque