Great British Disaster movies

Yesterday I may have perhaps suggested there was no such thing as a genre of British disaster movies, so here are a few suggestions that might make up the Genre.

Great British End of the world / Disaster movies - A list in no specific order of anything in particular

Flood (2007) - Its coming straight for us.

A Freak North Sea super storm threatens London leaving Robert Carlyle to save the day.

28 days later (2002)

Virus sweeps the UK wiping out most of the UK population, this is the story of survivors

The Day of the triffids (1962)

99% of the population go blind and rabid aliens (experimental plants in the book) take advantage and start attacking people.

28 weeks later (2007) - It all begins again.

Robert Carlyle in another disaster movie has survived the original version of the virus from 28 days later (he wasn't in the original film) gets rescued only for the virus to escape yet again.

Shaun of the dead (2004) - It's just one of those days when you're feeling a little...dead.

A now undisputed cult horror comedy, British and best, Hollywood could not write and certainly would not produce a movie like this. No list would be complete without Shaun of the dead.

Population of London catch a virus, die and then return from the dead to eat the living. Shaun and friends must survive and escape.

Conclusion

After that I cant really think of any more British disaster movies and five films hardly makes a genre, however if anyone can think of any more I shall add them to the list, over to you Bobbicus.

Gone in 90 Seconds (New Scientist)

In searching around for something to write an article about I return to an old favourite of "the end of the world". This is one that keeps popping up every so often and is about how susceptible our electricity transmission grid is to solar storms. Its not just the electricity network either, its satellites and communication systems.

Of course there is a bit of movie fake realism to the start of the article, you can imagine movie voice over man coming on and saying:

"It was a time when our best friend became our worst enemy... it was a time when the life giving light became the plague of darkness...mankind at its darkness hour... a future in which people fear the dawn... Solar Storm 2012 coming soon to a screen near you. Certificate 15 with mild violence and on screen nudity."

Any way ... returning to reality and the new scientist article they have a much more sensible scene setter:

"It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south and their fascination is short - lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs (note from zephyrist: is that as opposed to gas bulbs?) dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment (Another note from zephyrist: or in one word "blow"). Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds the entire eastern half of the US is without power."

Just like in Hollywood the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist as usual the world ends in New York. Seriously can a UK director not come up with an end of the world film set in Bristol or something that isn't cheesy or just a comedy. Why is the British film industry based on period dramas or rom-coms with Hugh Grant or cheap comedies or gritty low budget crime thrillers. Where is the British block buster disaster movie?

Any way back to New Scientist again, rather than just a ramble through a myriad of thoughts about nothing much in particular.

The article goes on to mention 3 big hits about the days and years after the solar storm when the electricity network fails in the US:

4-10 years for the US to recover
72 hours of healthcare remaining
30 days of coal left (although if no power grid why would you need coal for power stations)

A Solar storm will spew out plasma balls from the surface of the sun which will hurtle towards earth and create a massive interference with the earth's magnetic field which in turn induce currents in wires of the electricity grid. Which will in effect overload the system blowing virtually every transformer in the system. With few spares and every transformer needing to be replaced it could take up to 12 months to manufacture and replace them. In the mean time how would we survive without a fully functioning grid network. Every aspect of our lives from fuel, transport, food, healthcare, water and heat depend on the electricity grid. It would be the end of the world as we know it.

Such events have happened before all be it before technology was so embedded in life. In 1859 the Carrrington event disrupted telegraph networks across the globe. In 1989 six million people went without electricity for 9 hours in Quebec during a minor storm.

Solar storms follow a cycle and the next maximum after this current period of calm is expected in 2012 and the question that new scientist asks is are we prepared?

We do have NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer(ACE) which can give us up to 15 minutes of warning before a solar storm hits, just enough time to minimise the effects of a solar storm on an electricity grid. However, ACE is coming to the end of its life, it becomes less reliable as time goes on and eventually it will fail. With no imminent replacement on the cards our early warning system would be gone and we might loose our last chance to avoid planetary disaster and the end of the first technological age of mankind.

Until then lets face the moonlight and dance...

February and the Customer Service Manual

February

It has to be said I cant remember much of February, I have worked two Saturdays out of the last three weeks, my full time day job, two evenings and for the last week I have had a really rotten cold. It amazed me quite how much snot a human can produce, at its peak I could have been selling two pints of snot a day.

Anyway I can now feel myself returning to normal and hopefully march should not be so bad.

The Customer Service Manual

I was in homebase shopping for light bulbs in my ongoing campaign to replace all the light bulbs in my house for energy efficient bulbs. The campaign is going well, all normal bulbs have been replaced and at homebase I secured replacements for the candle bulbs in my art deco lamp which just leaves some GU10 halogens and some R50 spots to be replaced. All can be replaced its just a question of finding a shop that sells the right bulbs.

Hence my trip to homebase which I have to say if you want a 60W replacement bulb which is a standard energy efficient stick then they have enough to refurbish Buckingham Palace. Everywhere you turned there seemed to be a bottomless 1 m square bucket. If that is repeated in every homebase in the UK then homebase must have billions of them, which given they last ten years is a bit pointless. Have I uncovered the great European Lightbulb mountain, are they unable to turn off the machine that makes them and every shop in the UK is having to hide them instore to avoid a national calamity?

If you want any other kind of bulb they had a few bits and pieces but no GU10 replacements or R50 replacements. Eventually I gave up and headed to the till with two candle bulbs, a plant and a pair of oven gloves.

The Checkout assistant had obviously been on the mandatory customer service course and was well briefed on the Customer Service Manual. The Conversation went as follows:

Checkout: Did you find everything you needed today?
Me: No, I was looking for some lightbulbs but your selection is a bit rubbish at the moment.
Checkout: Yes our selection is a bit rubbish at the moment.

Great, so the trick is to agree with the customer. The manual probably states sympathise or affirm the customer's comment to give them validation.

Although in this case they actually achieved less than nothing. Good Customer Service might have been to ask me what I had been looking for and would I like them to order some for me, or hold some when the next order came in. No, they let a slightly peeved customer walk off into the sunset. I will pop back there another time to see if they have the light bulbs back in stock but chances are they wont and so I will just have to order them off the internet.

If you are trying to improve customer service a half hearted by the book attempt is worse than nothing at all.