How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse IV
Wherever
you are in the country – Snipe has your back. This week...
The Manchester Edition
This week’s instalment comes to you from
Manchester. The editorial office at Snipe Towers was split over whether or not
to bother, on the basis that Manchester is in the north, and there’s no reason
anyone would want to go there, not even zombies. However, in the end we decided
to go for it. Mostly because a> we had a reporter already there, b>
no-one had a better idea, and we’re a bone-idle lot and couldn’t be arsed
coming up with anything else, and c> Manchester is at least better than
Liverpool.
Once the decision was made, your mild-mannered Manchester reporter fished out her essential guide to zombie behaviour and set about her in-depth research. (She phoned her mum and asked the other girls in the office what they would do.)
Here's a list of the top six places to retreat to when the nightmare begins...
Once the decision was made, your mild-mannered Manchester reporter fished out her essential guide to zombie behaviour and set about her in-depth research. (She phoned her mum and asked the other girls in the office what they would do.)
Here's a list of the top six places to retreat to when the nightmare begins...
Old Wellington Inn
This pub dates back to the 1500s, and is still one
of the best spots for an evening out in Manchester. At first that might seem
like a downside, because all the zombies are going to want to head for it. It’s
got great real ale, and next door in Sinclair’s Oyster Bar there’s lots of
couples trying to spice up a stale sex life with the aphrodisiac menu – horror
movies have taught us it’s always the naughty ones who get dead the fastest, so
that’s got to be a prime zombie target.
However, unless these zombies are pretty fresh (less than a couple of years dead) they aren’t going to be able to *find* the Wellington -, because it’s not where they left it. Twice now this building has been moved, once in the ‘70s and once in the ‘90s, brick by brick down the street and round the corner, getting rotated through 90 degrees in the process once as well. If they can’t find you, they can’t kill you.
However, unless these zombies are pretty fresh (less than a couple of years dead) they aren’t going to be able to *find* the Wellington -, because it’s not where they left it. Twice now this building has been moved, once in the ‘70s and once in the ‘90s, brick by brick down the street and round the corner, getting rotated through 90 degrees in the process once as well. If they can’t find you, they can’t kill you.
Harvey Nicks
Not overly defensible, due to the large number of
glass windows on the ground floor, but since zombies aren’t exactly known for
their fashion sense it’s not going to be high on their priority list, which
gives you time to fortify it. Plus, the top-floor foodhall is known as the best winecellar in the city,
stocking some seriously upmarket plonk. How many times in your life do you get
to drink Armand de Brignac champagne worth £450 a bottle? The odds are you’re
still going to die, but if you raid the stock at least you get to die in style,
and pissed as a newt.
Old Trafford. Not the football one.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a
single man under attack in a zombie apocalypse must be in want of a cricket
bat. Now we wouldn’t for a minute want you to think that your upstanding and
honourable Snipe Towers roving reporter here in Manchester has done all her
zombie research just by vegging out on the sofa with a big bucket of popcorn
and re-watching Shaun of the Dead, but as the video below shows, the humble
willow is indeed a fearsome weapon when wielded against the ravenous revenants.
The home of the red roses is certainly worth a visit to get tooled up.
Imperial War Museum North
It's got tanks. Nuff sed.
Beetham Tower
If your knees are up to the climb, this 47 storey
monster has got to be *the* hot destination. Get in, turn the lifts off, and
build barricades on each level, retreating upwards floor by floor slowly while
fighting a rearguard action; this should give the National Guard plenty of time
to arrive, and you’ll be able to spot them coming before anyone else with
better views over the city than anywhere else can offer. Plus, there’s killer
room-service for the first 23 floors which make up the five star Hilton Hotel.
Once the zombies are dealt with, this is also the perfect place to party in the fabulously chic Cloud 23 bar, and to recover later in the luxury spa.
Once the zombies are dealt with, this is also the perfect place to party in the fabulously chic Cloud 23 bar, and to recover later in the luxury spa.
And finally,
the winner by a stonking great two votes* and this officially declared the best
place to be in the End Times when the monsters rise was…
Afflecks Palace
The windows are already boarded up, there’s only
two ways in and out, and if you’re going to find anywhere in Manchester where
the people can be scarier than the zombies, this esoteric shopping
emporium-cum-dress up parlour-cum-place to score some great dope is it.
Spiritual home of the goths, freaks and social outcasts, there’s bound to be at
least one person in there at the time of the attack who has so many tats and
piercings, and hair of such an unnatural shade, that all they’ll need to do is
appear at the door and the zombies are going to run off screaming.
Why not get a new tat yourself to mark the occasion?
Why not get a new tat yourself to mark the occasion?
The following locations
also cropped up in the course of the extensive interviews with members of the
public, but were deemed too realistic, too stupid, too completely bonkers**, or
just too boring to write about:
- Manchester Airport, in order to get a plane the hell out of town
- Royal Exchange Theatre, in order to get a spaceship the hell out of town***
- The Cornerhouse Cinema, so the zombies can eat all the poncey people watching foreign films first.
- The Town Hall, so the zombies can eat all the red-tape wielding neo-facist bureaucrats wasting our tax money first.
- The Cathedral, so God can protect you.****
- Coronation Street, so you can be on TV before you die.
* The reporter voted twice. She likes Afflecks; it features in a
lot of her most cherished teenage memories.
** For Snipe, that’s saying a lot.
*** The theory that the inside of the theatre is in fact a hidden spaceship is not one with a huge number of adherents but it’s never been officially denied by the government, so it is possibly true.
****The reporter did explain to her mother that that works against vampires, not zombies, and also that there’s no God.
** For Snipe, that’s saying a lot.
*** The theory that the inside of the theatre is in fact a hidden spaceship is not one with a huge number of adherents but it’s never been officially denied by the government, so it is possibly true.
****The reporter did explain to her mother that that works against vampires, not zombies, and also that there’s no God.
