Preparedness...

While digging around for something important that "I've put somewhere safe," I have just rediscovered the very useful government leaflet, as delivered to all households, "preparing for emergencies."

Curiously, the booklet contains absolutely no information at all about what to do in the event that a large airliner ends up straddling your desk at work, but does advise you to listen to the radio and stay indoors should some kind of disaster occur. Well I'll be okay then, no great change from my normal lifestyle... Anyway, I was thinking, what they should do is get Ray Mears on the job. A proper survivalist, a man who can make fire from sticks, catch fish using nothing more than a cunning tickling action, and probably, if the batteries on your radio go flat, recharge them using only two pieces of wire and a potato.

Of course, this whole thing has been done before, with the legendary Protect and Survive campaign of the early eighties. Although also greeted with derision at the time, Protect and Survive has one point in it's favour - it actually does mention the fact that people could die. And that was it's downfall. Frankly, Protect and Survive was a pointless idea because in the event of nuclear war, we were all going to die, or at the very least wish we were dead. I might well have prepared a temporary toilet using a bucket, plastic bags and a chair with the seat removed, and have labels for attaching to anybody that died, but most likely I'd be a sticky, bloody, burnt corpse and not have a lot of use for them.

But nothing really changes. Nowadays, I can have as much tinned food, bottled water and as many batteries for my radio as I like, but if that jetliner does land on my desk, they, and "preparing for emergencies", will still only be as much use as a ice bucket in hell.