Is this the nicest Eurovision ever?

The waterfront down by the Caspian Sea in Baku is a wonderful place. Although the sea (lake?) itself is just a little bit stinky and covered in a patchy film of oil, the strip of land that runs alongside is a beautiful boulevard of trees, footpaths, giganto fountains and hundreds and hundreds of local people taking promenading their loved ones and taking in the rarefied lakeside air and frankly stunning views of some of the strangest and most exciting atmosphere anywhere on the planet.

For instance, on the big cliff overlooking the city are three giant towers, all shaped like flames. And at night, projected across the front are the most enormous pictures of flames. It looks as though the city itself is ablaze, and it takes your breath away every time you see it.

This is a city that demands to be explored, so it was nice to see Dutch girl Joan Franka taking in the early evening air, and looking just as stunned by the cityscape as the rest of us. Her Native American head dress outfit has been criticised by some for being culturally insensitive, but taking to her this evening she’s got a lovely gentle manner, and we can only assume that her costume is all done in total innocence.

But she’s not the only sweetheart treading the boards at this year’s contest, oh no. Malta’s Kurt Calleja proved himself to be a proper gent this evening, helping introduce many of the other acts to each other at Euroclub tonight, and just being a nice kind man. We were chatting to Belgium’s impossibly young singer Iris when he came over, excused himself and then asked her how her rehearsals went, and if there was anything he could do to help her. What a sweet man.

Also really lovely was the Cypriot lass Ivi Adamou, who held court by the bar, happy to have her picture taken with just about anyone who asked. But when the DJ put her song on she led a conga to the front of the stage and conducted the biggest Euroclub singalong of the contest so far. The Swiss SinPlus boys are pretty small too. Despite being small enough to put in vole’s pocket, they made sure they put the hours in and circulated the room, chatting with practically everyone.

In fact, pretty much all the stars of Eurovision 2012 got along pretty well tonight. There was none of the usually bitchy looks and petty sniping from afar – the Greek and Cypriot girls were chatting away by the bar like life long pals, Solna from Denmark was holding a quiet court in the corner, dancing really endearingly with the rest of her delegation after spending most of the evening asleep, and even the too cool for school Israeli mob were perched on a table smiling the antics of all the fan kids and local volunteers. Their curmudgeonly singer wasn’t there mind – he looks like he could be a right grumpy sort.

All this jollity and bonhomie practically ensured that the so far ever present Safura kept herself to herself on the VIP balcony – although her dazzling gold jacket and impossibly tight spangly leggings made it almost possible to ignore her.

Unsurprisingly, the Russian grans haven’t turned up to Euroclub yet – although they were probably all tucked up in bed with a cup of whatever the Udmurtian equivalent of Horlicks is. In fact the old girls found the urban surrounds of their hotels so noisy that they’ve decamped to a rural village some hour out of town to escape all the hubbub.

This year’s Eurovision crop are for the most part as lovely a bunch of singers and dancers as I can ever remember seeing at this contest. Usually someone’s bitched off about someone else by now, or even mocked them at a press conference, but up to now they all seem like genuinely likable kids – and I include that Irish sibling twosome in that list too!

Day four tomorrow and the last set of semi-final contenders. Who’s going to be in the two lucky top tens? We’ll see if we can help you predict them after we’ve seen the full list of runners…

Jedward, Popcorn and flying bananas

So the Brothers Grimes are in town, and things just got a little bit more bonkers. The rest of Europe doesn’t have the same X Factor/Big Bro baggage that we’re stuck with, and just see them as a couple of insane kids with some half decent pop tunes and genuinely seem to love them – loads of the local Azeri volunteers in the press centre are now proudly sporting their cardboard Jedhead masks to prove it.

Their show was the usual explosion of boundless energy, only this time they appear to be standing in the middle of a fountain  as they sing their marginally more mature, One Direction-lite little pop ditty. There press conference was also something of an experience. They burst in through the doors dressed as giant popcorn buckets (no, really), chucking huge bags of popcorn at everyone and blathering endlessly in that slightly annoying but still rather endearing way of theirs.

This song almost certainly won’t win, but it’s sure to qualify, and will further confound the Jedhaters, who’d hoped their five minutes would be over a long time since.

Elsewhere in Semi-final 1, the Russian grannies delighted even the most hardened cynic with their delightfully ramshackle performance. The littlest nan has clearly no idea what’s going on, and has to rely on a man standing in front of the stage showing her what to do, and their centre-piece prop – a massive regional cooking stove – looks more like a Spanish church. But they’re so lovable, and the song is so catchy and happy-go-lucky, that it’s going to soak up the votes like a dry sponge, and unless the juries have all got their serious heads on it’s got to be the song to beat come Saturday week.

This half of the draw is so insane though that anything could happen, but among our favourites are the Austrian farm boy hip hop kids Trackshittaz, who manage to combine pole dancing, crotch thrusting and tractor driving in three minutes of fantastic nonsense, Israel’s bouncy indie pop song, that had the entire press room whistling along against their will, and Montenegro’s art rock hero Rambo Amadeus has brought a giant Trojan donkey on stage with him and is plainly frightening all the fan types who clearly don’t understand his deadpan schtick.

But of special note is Moldova’s Pasha Parfeny. His stompy little number is all about how much the ladies love his trumpet, and at one point he rides one of his backing singers like a pony. We’re not entirely sure if he’s aware of the alternative connotations of his words and actions, but the folks back home are going to love it in a Carry On kind of way.

In party news, EuroClub is picking up nicely. Last year’s winners Ell and Nikki were holding court in the upstairs VIP area, and happily chatting to anyone who came near, and the Maltese lad was an amiable early arriver. Trackshittaz turned up late, but expanded the party vibe considerably, taking over one corner and dancing like maniacs, but princess of the social calendar so far is Azeri old girl Safura, who made up for her slightly surly first night by dragging anyone with a pulse onto the dancefloor and doing that hands in the air dance that ladies at discos seem to enjoy.

Loads more of the delegations have arrived today, so things should be hotting up from here on in. In other news, we’ve managed to blag tickets to the local FA Cup final on Thursday, a city derby between Neftchi and FC Baku. Aparently it’s a proper grudge match too. Could be lively…

It’s Eurovision time again!

When Azerbaijan won Eurovision last May there were many competition regulars who promptly complained that this year’s contest in Baku would be a bridge too far for the dear old competition. “To far away,” they bleated. “Too dangerous, too hot… too Azerbaijani.” Well those withering fools are missing out on a treat, because one day in and this looks like being one of the best, most interesting Eurovisions of all times.

Admittedly we had our initial doubts when we saw a group of pre-teen children kicking a giant rat to death right outside our apartment, but those fears were immediately extinguished when a massive flower carnival commemorating the tenth anniversary of their first post-communist president’s passing kicked off around the corner, and we were treated to a feast small children dancing merrily to folksy local music, and some frankly stunning floral displays portraying important moments from the big man’s life. And it got even stranger when they begun inflating giant hot air balloons in the middle of the street.

They do appear to know how to throw a do around these parts, which bodes well for the big competition in a couple of week’s time. The hospitality and kindness of everyone you meet has been frankly astounding. As you enter the country you are walked through the staggeringly complicated Soviet style visa procedure by a gaggle of willing volunteers, and people step in to see if they can assist you with your problem the moment you look even halfway lost or confused in the street.

It’s a city that you could very easily fall in love with.

The venue for the song contest is a bit of a stunner too. Built on a little promontory into the sea, immediately behind what’s now the second tallest flagpole in the world (some tinpot South East Asian state recently pipped them to the honour) which sports a banner big enough to engulf Chiswick, they only started putting it up in November, so it’s a miracle that it’s even got a roof on and a supply of running water, let alone being ready to host a major international competition. Mind you, there’s a busy throng of workers climbing all over the place, putting in the final fixtures and fittings and chipping away at all the builder’s grime. I think they should just about have the thing finished by May 26th…

The press centre ain’t half bad either. One entire side is made of glass, giving us the most s stunning views of the dusty cityscape across the Caspian as we work. There’s also an entirely free tea bar that has beautiful women in local dress manning the samovars to keep us topped up with local tea, and endless plates of fresh fruit, nuts and berries and four kinds of Azeri cake – each one stickier than the last.

Mind you, despite the city’s enormous efforts in putting the show on, this morning’s opening rehearsals were delayed when the final stage of the Tour de Azerbaijan cycling road race was held bang smack in the middle of the city, effectively cutting off all the hotels from the two roads that reach the arena. As we speak, someone from the city council is most probably in a darkened room in the bowels of an anonymous government building worriedly awaiting to discover his fate.

But aside from that little organisational faux pas it’s all been running smoothly – although there’s been little to report on the gossip front so far. EuroClub opened to a bit of a whimper last night, as there were no stars on show in the cavernous room, and the place was mostly packed with bright young Azeri things all hoping to get their beautifully chiselled features on the local telly, who appeared to be filming every last thing that happened all night.

The only person there who could vaguely be described as a star was Azerbaijan’s 2010 singer Safura, who tottered around on the dance floor in her perilously high heels for ten minutes until she realised that there weren’t enough cameras pointing at her and swiftly did a heavily perfumed runner. The only delegation bus we saw arrive was the Macedonian mob, but quite where they were hiding at the do is unclear. Still, as the third oldest act in the contest after the Russian nans and our very own Engelbert, she had more party gumption than the supposed youth of this competition. But have no fear, once the sainted Jedward arrive tomorrow things will rapidly get more entertaining. And of course, we’ll be there to tell you about every last thing that’ll be going on.

Right then, off for another massive plate of baklava and crystalised fruit…

Pixie Lott, Dolph Lundgren and Paolo Di Canio…

OK – so they’re not ACTUALLY doing anything together. But this week all three dropped into our inbox doing really odd things.

1. Dolph Lungren

Star of The Expendables 2 (see film and tv section) is, for some reason, singing an Elvis song live on stage. And not just an Elvis song, but a high-selling remix version of an Elvis song by a Dutch DJ:

2. Paolo Di Canio

So, if you could imagine the well-dressed, Italian, self-proclaimed fascist manager of Swindon Town popping up on stage  to sing with a band, who would it be. Toploaded? Nah, thought not…

3. Pixie Lott

Poor old Pixie Lott forever seems to be roped into doing horrendously embarrassing promotional stuff for brands. And coerced into attempting unsuccessfully to start new dance trends to her songs. Put the two things together… and you get this eye-wateringly painful collaboration with Colgate. If you can get your head around the bits where she jumps down and disappears off-screen part way through the dance moves, you’re doing better than us:

Footballers and their ink

Remember when Stuart Pearce was the only player with a tattoo? Those days are gone (we blame Beckham, of course) and now you can’t move for overdone ink. It is nigh on impossible to switch on a match these days without seeing some teenage bighead who hasn’t played more than a dozen times for the first team with a full sleeve.

But which players have resisted the peer pressure and kept their skin undamaged? Here’s our first 11 of the players who’ve left well alone..

1. Joe Hart – England’s best keeper for a decade, big Joe is a nice Shrewsbury lad who’s worked his way up without being a knob to everyone. But wait, what IS that thing on his back? Joe, go on hols bromance-free next time eh?

2. Micah Richards – Hart’s right back swears he’s never worked out a day in his life. Believe him? Well, at least he’s got a chance for the Euros now ‘Arry’s not going to be the manager.

3. Ashley Cole – you’d imagine he’d have some dodgy cross (a la Rooney) but it looks like Ashley has remained ink-free. We thought he had one but can find no pix of it – do drop us a line if you have evidence otherwise…

4. Gareth Bale – I know, another left back but it’s harder to find clean-skinned central defenders than you’d think. Still, Gareth’s such a nice boy, you can’t imagine him bearing the tattoo pain…

5. Vincent Kompany – Man City’s captain fantastic is a bit of an example that not all players are boorish drunken shagging oafs. He’s married to a local girl, discusses politics, takes night classes and is a children’s charity ambassador.

6. Stuart Holden – the adorable Mr Holden has missed nearly the whole season for Bolton. We await his return, but in the meantime check out this sweet video of him getting back into shape…

7. Steven Gerrard – even though, let be honest, he’s not been at his best this season (or the last few really) he’s still a mainstay of ‘Pool and England.

8. Ronaldo – as if the perfectly coiffed Madrid player would ever ruin his perfect body with some cheap ink (and there’s no shortage of photos proving this)…

9. Xabi Alonso – Liverpool’s midfield has been bereft without lovely Xabi to sort it out, one of the players who is much missed from the PL…

10. Gonzalo Higuain – he doesn’t get much in the way of press but Higuain is still hammering them in for Real Madrid and Argentina (though he’ll do well to shift Aguero and Tevez in the latter team)…

11. Robin van Persie – and finally, a player so slim and delicate he looks like he might shatter into glass like in a Chris Cunningham video.

Anyone know any more? (or any of the above who have gone and get themselves tattooed?) hello@popbitch.com or @popbitch

Of course, while most players have gone the other way and gotten tattooed to prove how hard they are, some have really gone to the higher level of having no space left.

1. Daniel Agger – a qualified tattooist no less. Look at that Viking kings/graveyard back piece, amazing. We’re not sure about the new neck one though, doesn’t it look like a Jim’ll Fix it badge to you?

2. Marco Materazzi – remembered only as a hardman who got headbutted by Zidane, let’s face it…

3. Djibril Cisse – the Lord of the Manor of Frodsham himself. QPR fans must have wished he’d spent less time getting tattooed and more time scoring goals…

4. Raul Meireles – usually neck tattoos look dreadful (like Beckham’s sold block wings/cross) but Meireles manages to make them look ok, and then there’s all the rest…

5. Joleon Lescott – the most painful places to get tattooed are inside of the arm, feet, collarbone and ribs. Man City’s central defender has reams of text on his side, which must have hurt like hell…

Game of Crones: The Witcher 2 comes to life in London

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a computer game on PC and Xbox. It’s based on a best-selling Polish novel and is a sequel to the hugely successful The Witcher by Polish studio CD Projekt RED.

We hadn’t played the first game or read the book before the launch so we weren’t sure what to expect.

We were sent to a pub in Shoreditch. It was decorated to look like a medieval inn, full of men with beards and ladies in low cut wench dresses.

We were given some mead and told to wait until the king was ready to see us. A real king at a game launch; that’s class.

The king was upstairs with some other people. They were all pleased to see us despite being mid-banquet, but the slight awkwardness was soon dispelled when the King got poisoned and it all got exciting. We were suspected of murdering him, even though we never touched his Ribena (we tasted it before he had any) and weren’t entirely sure who he was. The king’s pals wanted to kill us, so we ran away.

Another man told us we needed to find some elves for some reason, and we had to ask people in the pub for clues.

To get clues: had an arm-wrestling contest, failed to solve a riddle and then cheated at poker dice. Eventually we found out where the elves were, and could go and meet them.

We were given the choice of stabbing them up or being friendly. We chose friendly and a man in a brown cape lead us to a park just off Hoxton Square were we met some elves (and got told off by a park warden). The elves told us that someone else probably killed the king and we went off to track them down in a bar nearby. There was a very clever bit where we had to use our iPhones to decode elf script that felt a bit like magic.

It’s hard to describe what all this was like, but if you imagine a cross between a mid-70s episode of Doctor Who and the children’s TV show Knightmare, you’ve got it right. Fun, but in a slightly shameful way.

In the bar we met the lady who had poisoned the king, but she was apparently possessed so it wasn’t her fault. A man cured her using herbs we’d won in the arm wrestling contest earlier, and we finally knew who’d really killed the king: it was one of his mates. Typical eh?

Back at the bar we faced him down and had a brief sword fight (with rubber swords).

He fell over in the rain so we let him get up before we stabbed him. Once he was dead we’d saved the day. Hurrah for team Popbitch. We got drunk and ate too much cheese.

The next day we played the game and it was a little spooky because the characters we met (gobby yet cool elves, Kings, even the arm wrestling champ) were in the game. It was dead clever.

Here’s what you need to know about the Witcher 2

·         The Witcher 2 is sort of like being in Game of Thrones – people are back-stabbing each other constantly and there are even some nude bits. If you like Game Of Thrones, or stuff like that, you’ll probably enjoy it. It’s not for kids though.

·         The choices you make in the game make things happen. We decided not to stab up a traitor prince and later on he helped us escape a castle. The game is full of choices that change the outcome.

·         Weirdly for a computer game, you start out in a relationship with a lady and she doesn’t get stolen away. We’re curious to see how this plays out; will we need to remember our anniversary and spend weekends with her parents?

·         The book it’s based on is bonkers.

·         We’re still playing it.

Click here to buy The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Monster Trucks, Drag Racing and Drifting – an exposé of the über-masculine world of car meets

Okay, fine, this isn’t an exposé in any way, shape or form – I really enjoy this type of stuff, I just thought maybe putting ‘exposé’ in the title might make more people want to read it. Sorry. But it’s too late now isn’t it? You’re reading it and there’s nothing you can do about it (apart from stop reading of course). Shhhh, just read on and I’ll show you some pictures of giant monster trucks running cars over and stuff.

Now I hadn’t been to one of these loud, drivee-drivee, crash-bang car meets since I was a kid and, to be honest, I was extremely excited to attend another one – in this case, the Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod Raceway – now that I’m an adult (the word ‘adult’ is used loosely – I watched Power Rangers: The Movie at the weekend). Either way, I didn’t expect it to be as much bloody fun as it ended up being. Let me take you through a pictorial adventure of cars that go vroom and NNNEEEAAAIIIOOOWW.

First, up we walked past the Monster Truck ‘pen’ – we’d be seeing them smash things later:

Then it was onto the drag-strip to watch some cars go extremely fast in a straight line:

Then, after we’d cleaned our ears out (it was sodding LOUD), we thought we’d have a go on some fairground rides. Obviously, I picked the Haunted House:

which, although terrible in almost every possible way, was somehow also completely shit scary. I’m sure they could hear us shouting outside. Then it was off to see a car with a jet engine for some reason:

It was completely pointless.  Looked nice though. As did the tricks that Steve Colley was pulling on a variety of motorbikes (or is it trial bikes? I’m not sure):

He even rode one without a front wheel:

Pretty good, I’m sure you’ll agree. But not as good as the Monster Trucks: Podzilla and Swamp Thing. We had a more-than-brief interview with the drivers (“OI!! I just want to see cars getting crushed!! I don’t care about your faulty front diff! I don’t even know what that is! DRIVE OVER SOME CARS FOR ME!”) before they went about their business:

***BREAK FOR LUNCH***

MENU

The shittest Burrito you’ll ever eat
The nicest milkshake you’ll ever drink/eat

***BREAK FOR LUNCH***

I went for both. Then we had a quick go on a chair swing that didn’t seem safe in the slightest, but whatever: I was playing the part of an adrenaline junkie today. After almost dying, it was back to the monster truck arena to watch Team Maximum Lock show off their drifting skills. Now I’ve seen Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift and I wasn’t too enamoured with watching some cars slide round a corner for half an hour, but boy was I wrong: it genuinely was gob-smacking. The skill these drivers have is unbelievable; they went so far beyond drifting I needn’t have worried. One guy started doing donuts in his car, then got out of the car and it KEPT ON DOING DONUTS. He waved at everyone THEN GOT BACK IN AND DROVE AWAY. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

After that, we saw the motocross guys flying off a gigantic ramp, doing back-flips and tabletops and all manner of tricks I don’t know the name of – it was fantastic. Doing a jump (let alone a trick) that high would be one of the crowning achievements of my life, yet these guys casually did it dozens of times. It was insane.

Then we caught wind of a circus show going down in the big-top so we headed over to see that. Some of it was brilliant, some of it was terrible, and some of it was anal-beard-pleatingly terrifying, namely this:

He missed so many times – this was clearly not his chosen skill. Luckily, he and his partner made up for it with a dazzling trapeze display:

Finally, we headed back to the drag-strip to watch a couple more fast, blurry things go vroom, before eventually heading home. I properly enjoyed the entire day (apart from that rough burrito) and, seeing as the Santa Pod Raceway is open all year round, I’d suggest checking the website and getting yourself down there.

The next big event is the FIA Main Event and it will be taking place from the 1-4 June 2012. Check out the website for info-doodilly: http://www.santapod.co.uk/

Popbitch survives a zombie apocalypse

I have seen A LOT of zombie films. I’ve been watching them since I can remember and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. As a result, I reckon I have a pretty good idea of exactly what to do should I ever be involved in a zombie invasion – simply stock up on ammo and food, stick together, and always shoot for the head. Easy. I most definitely wouldn’t scream like a girl, start shooting at the ceiling, almost shit myself, and run mindlessly into a pitch-black room completely neglecting to help my friends whilst they are being horribly murdered and eaten alive.

Oh, maybe I would.

I know this because the other week I went on a ‘zombie survival experience’ in a shopping mall in Reading courtesy of www.wish.co.uk. Now, I’ve been to a shopping mall in Reading before and although I was most definitely faced with a thousand zombies on that particular occasion, they weren’t actually undead monsters who were trying to eat my brain. They were just pricks who wanted to steal my wallet. Luckily, I aimed for the head like my training taught me and I kept my money.  Do not tell the police about this anecdote please.

However, the particular ‘experience’ I want to tell you about today was a full-on, immersive, professional movie-like adventure set in an abandoned shopping mall filled with ‘zombies’ (horror movie fans who dress up and do it for free) that involved me and an assorted group of other journalists careering about with BB guns like a crazed bunch of wimpy, well, journalists. IT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT. REALLY BLOODY BRILLIANT.

Let’s take you through the varying stages of boxer-brownness.

You start off in a ‘safe room’, with nice, safe things like crisps and biscuits surrounding you, before suddenly some bloke in full police combat gear bursts into the room shouting and, simultaneously, a little pocket of air bursts from your anus to accompany the word ‘SHIT’ that leaves your mouth. Brilliant: If that had made me jump, not sure how I was going to cope with undead killing-machines. These soldiers then take you through the situation (long story short – there are sodding zombies in this shopping mall and they want to rip your guts out through your arsehole) and get you trained up on the ‘weapons’. Oh, and you sign this:

Then, before you can even rearrange your privates or ask to go wee-wee, you’re thrust into the darkness AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE (obviously I would be) and things begin to slowly tighten around the gluteus maximus.  From here on in it’s a breakneck charge through the empty shopping mall whilst really fucking scary zombies burst out from behind doors and make you lose all semblance of masculinity in record time – “I DON’T LIKE YOU GET AWAY FROM ME!! MUM MUM WHERE ARE YOU MUMMMYY?”

This ‘story-driven’ episode lasted around 45 minutes, and incorporated rogue military nutcases, a makeshift morgue that smelled like eggy-gufters, a CCTV surveillance mission and, of course, the shooting of many, many zombies.  It was exhilarating, frightening but also (and luckily) hilarious – you’d not think that fearing for your life as you’re being chased by blood-thirsty bowel-hunters would be all that funny, but it really is. Mainly because they don’t actually rip your intestines out of your stomach and start chewing on them – that would be a bit much for the girls I think, so they had to cut it out.

After the first mission, it’s back to Biscuit City and the relative calmness of the safe room, where you stand about and steadfastly deny to everyone that the person crying in the corner of the old WH Smiths store was you. But you don’t have much time to gather yourself, before being thrown back into Hell in the next part of the experience: the solo missions.

Now, I’m used to solo missions, but they normally only happen in my bedroom and there are never any zombies involved, although sometimes I do end up in the corner of the room crying.  Either way, this time the police leave you on your own to go up against the zombie horde. Good one, can’t wait.

The first mission involved the retrieval of a lost laptop filled with details of the viral outbreak; they hurl you into the mall blind and somehow expect you to find this tiny box without getting spotted by the zombies. Knowing my luck, the laptop was probably hidden in a zombie’s foreskin or something – they were definitely going to notice me trying to get it. So we split into two groups (stupid idea) and headed off up the stairs to the main shop floor (stupid idea) with me at the back of the group (stupid idea). It was all going rather smoothly – the team was on their guard, covering everyone’s backs, and the overall group mentality was one of shared optimism.

Well, some bastard forgot to cover my back didn’t they? All of a sudden I heard a zombie groan, followed by the girliest scream I’d ever heard, and I started to laugh because there were no girls in my group. However, I found it physically impossible to release this laugh, because I soon found that it was, in fact, me that was screaming the girliest scream I’d ever heard. Cool. Good job there weren’t any girls in my group: that hard-man swagger I’d created earlier by downing a bottle of water really fast would have been ruined.

I didn’t worry though, because I could offset the effeminate screech by facing the danger head on and protecting my team members by destroying the zombie mano-a-mano. Oh, oops, no I can’t because I’ve sprinted past all my team mates in a desperate and cowardly attempt to get as far away from the zombie as possible. Great.

It got a bit better though – I eventually pulled myself together and confronted the zombie lurch like a pro, firing on all cylinders and landing a number of sweet kills – at one point, I even interrupted a stealth exploration mission by running in first, guns-blazing and shouting: “LLLEEEEEERROOOOYYY JEEEENNNKKIIIINNNS!”

But nobody laughed. I’m used to it.

Next up, we had another mission in which we had to protect a scientist who supposedly held the cure for the zombie plague. Fair enough, I’ll try and protect him, but the minute one of those fat, rotting sods comes at me through the wall, Mr. Scientist can suck it – it’s every man for himself. Who cares if he holds valuable information? I know all the cheats for Doom, only a handful of people know them (IDKFA – all weapons and keys, if you’re asking).

Most of this mission involved tiptoeing around dark corridors and deserted shops, trying our hardest not to encounter any zombie activity, but after a while this became rather boring so we (well, I) decided to go and pump a few rounds into some zombie scum while tensing my neck and shouting. So I did just that. Didn’t last long though, because I ran head-first into a load of zombies coming up the stairs and had to swiftly change direction and sprint into a pitch-black room and hide. This worked for a bit, but then I dropped my flipping torch and a nice beacon of bright light shone onto the ceiling, alerting all the stinky bastards to my presence – needless to say, they ‘killed’ me.

Then it was all over, and it was back to the safe room to swap stories, eat biscuits and nip into the toilets to check for skid-marks. Overall, it had been an amazing day: completely surreal and like nothing I’d ever done before, and I’d recommend it to everyone. But here’s the downside – it costs £120 for the day.

It’s a bit of a bummer, but then the full experience lasts basically an entire day (we pussy journalists got a stripped down version) with a longer, movie-style experience (around 4 hours long), and a lot more individual missions. I’d say it’s worth the money; it really is an extremely realistic and authentic experience and the fact that it’s set in a real shopping mall only adds to the overall effect – it’s like living your very own Dawn Of The Dead. I’d go so far as to say it’s a must for zombie fans: you really won’t get anything like this anywhere else.

If you fancy giving it a go (and why wouldn’t you?) then visit the website here.

Disco Dancing Irish style – the days before Riverdance

Watch and enjoy

Always thought there was something weird about Michael Flatley

Remember this version of Riverdance?