well i has a little reminder today about the perilously fragile nature of our modern lives. the power was off all night & morn, due to blizzards. having previously lived in low tech bothies, this never bothered me as we cooked on the open fire etc.. but i realised..huddling the dog pack closer for warmth... that a whole day with out power, wouldve left my workaholism fecked; no computer, no machinery to make things, no petrol pumps to fill the car( or clear roads ) to go out & about... ARGHHHHHH ! must buy a lap top immediately ! ! ! anyone got one for under ?100 ?
But thinking on this modern world, ive always figured i was somewhat of a ray mears, i can recycle yur average mammoth tusks into a nice pair of boots & build igloos from old tin cans etc etc etc.
However theres some basic skills gaps i have, i'm not great at mechanics, so come the apocolyspse, who will convert a large truck to drive on mammoth juice for me?
i can build stoves outta old junk, but who knows how to rig up radio transmitters? solar panels to connect to the internet & communicate with other pockets of survivors?
a mate of mine is a gamekeeper, so he's rostered onto my tribe clan, as his sabre tooth tiger shooting & butchering skills will be handy. he's also built a metal work forge out of lorry parts & a hoover.. so he can get a nice high rank in the clan. ( cuteness & big motorbikes aside )
the fire brigade boys are all handy & 'knacky' at fixing & building, so they can join my tribe... tho' the wifes will have to be killed & eaten as their shopping habits are un-sustainable.
so my friends... come the ice age/ apocolyspse/ revolution / giant lemming invasion... have any of yous got any useful skills? or shall i kill you all & use your comic collections as fuel ?
"However theres some basic skills gaps i have, i'm not great at mechanics, so come the apocolyspse, who will convert a large truck to drive on mammoth juice for me?"
You could always try the A-Team...
I can build a fire and catch and skin a rabbit. Since this was military training, they never bothered to teach how to actually cook the thing, but I've got a vague idea it's something to do with sticking yer rabbit on a stick and poking it at the fire. Where you get herbs and stuff to make it taste nice, I have no idea.
Then again, I know that if there is a nuclear/environmental/Asian bird flu apocalypse that leaves me standing, I'm going to a) go to the cupboard and take out a full bottle of absinthe, b) go to the bathroom and grab every pill I can find, before c) consuming absinthe and pills together and jumping off the tallest structure left standing.
Surviving and propagating the human race? Bugger that for a game of soldiers.
Come the apocolypse, London would be first (if it was instigated by a man). Take out London and the rest of the country would fall apart (the mains strands of goverment, legal and financial are all based there), so bascially anyone who lives in London. Dont worry about it, youll all be dead in a couple of hours :)
Me Id bring some electrician skills, some DIY and some joke telling skills. Either that or become a Doomsayer. "yer all Dooooomed!!"
Yer Slips
I have an ability to make any old shite taste half-decent. And of course I could compose many ballads extolling the wisdom and bravery of my queen. In a post-apocalyptic world, the ability to shamelessly brown-nose the boss is a sure-fire survival tactic.
I'm the useless crazy guy who ends up killing everyone because they try and help him.
thought about this...best thing is to avoid all population areas for as long as possible..that way you avoid the fighting
maybe ok to pop back in a few years for stealing stuff...night raid thing
get this book
Link: how to survive by the sas
steal motorcaravan and drive for the hills bou !
take a short-wave radio...wait it out !
Link: even cheaper...1.95 to survive !
He's trying to contact the mutants!
Die traitor!
Anyone know the lyrics for "Apocalypso"?
Come the apocalypse, I'll be sat underneath an upturned sofa, painting myself white to deflect the blast.
And eating tinned beans & sausages.
Whilst wearing gloves with the fingers cut off.
>>..Come the apocolypse, London would be first (if it was instigated by a man). Take out London and the rest of the country would fall apart (the mains strands of goverment, legal and financial are all based there)
Blimey Youre all such chickens, never mind the fear of the actual downfall of the world as we know it, i'm talking about the glorious golden era which follows it...
right so ive got a bard, a jester, coupla cooks & an electrical bloke, gee whizz not looking very mad max is it? think i better do that mechanics course myself.
Queen Bou, very disappointed in modern homo sapiens.
golden era...mm...depends on cause of the apocalypse...nukes would mean loads of radiation and lots of usefull stuff in cities being wiped out
main problem would be collapse of law and order..it would be bou and gang in the castle for its defences me reckons...
btw..best defence against nukes is to run like bugger to some hilly place...natural shielding..far away from targets...secret uk defence plan was to shut the motorways, let civilians get nuked while army hide in the hills
I have useful 'berserker fury' skills- but like Dudley, I'm not sure I could be arsed with it all.
Maybe I'd stick it out for a bit if The End came about during the Spring and Summer months- but I doubt I'd be fussed with 'berserking' in the winter.
I suppose it would really depend on if I had kids or not (although I have a wife now, so I'd probably have to make *some* kind of effort).
yeahhhh beserker, thats the spirit lad ! spose you can bring your wife, have to keep the warriors occupied somehow.
Dreddd, you are forgetting that i do live in the hills, & the rate everyone is copping out i won't have much defending my tribe lands to do, and ive got a big 130cm claymore.. so you know, venison all around boys.
still no-one can rig me up a post-apocolyptic lap top then ? sheeesh.
you would have to kill or hide from the townies running to the hills bou !
crossbows ( archery requires practice )
samurai swords
guns are difficult to get hold of BEFORE 'end of da world'...after...kill and steal :)
venison !...wow..you sorted...
"post-apocolyptic laptop "
why would you need a laptop ?
...electricity generator...batteries...solar power..wind power..water power... yachting / caravan gear...
pretty expensive prior to end of world but..after..you just steal stuff from da city :)
to continue chat room antic with other surviors silly, and to communicate & barter & forwarn of incoming townies.
tho ' i don't think townies are going to be a problem frankly.. HA i laugh at their survival skills !
guns a plenty around here already boyo, could walk 200yrds & borrow a rifle anytime.
pah townies !
oh yeah or the huge cross bow my mates got...
i told you it was red-neck central here didnt i?
" i don't think townies are going to be a problem frankly.. "...depends how many..cities dont produce enough food, would be massive fighting, ..many would flee to the hills...maybe YOUR hills.......burn the bridges , take down the signs ?
the phone system,web would eventually stop working - no electricity from power stations..
short-wave radio....but dont reveal your location
if their are enough resources to go around then people would be ok, you are probably sitting pretty due to your remote location with a large natural food supply
sit it out...then scouting parties to the cities to nick some goodies..
main thing would be to avoid conflicts or ensure you have overwhelming fire power...
yes...bou stood on the back of a land rover with stolen machine gun...going..'you wanna argue ? or give me your sheep ?'
Boo,
Can I be the wizzen old Jock who says
'We're doomed Capt Boodica DOOMED I SAY'
Pte Fraserhuff
Slips: Isn't that what the Volgs did (take out London first)
Do I win a prise for getting this thread ON TOPIC?
Bou: Are you quite sure the snow and ice hasn't had an effect on you???
on the one hand bou, you would lose the web and tooth...on the other...
no more bills to pay
no more worrying about cash..as people would use barter..
you could move into big plush holiday home and say 'no tourists now !'
"guns a plenty around here already boyo, could walk 200yrds & borrow a rifle anytime.
pah townies !"
Living in birmingham and having lived in mancester I think most townies could make the same claim. Except our weapons would be semi-automatic.
Viva the new inner city wild west.
I'm in a winter wonderland and the Ray harryhausen talk tonight is postponed till summer. Just as well as I'd never get there.
the Ray harryhausen talk tonight is postponed till summer
Huzzah! I might get a chance to go to it now! Ahem...I mean, that's a real shame, Paul.
I can fly and shoot laser-beams from my eye (left)...
OK, I lie. But if there's all that radiation flying around, we could mutate into something cool...
Umm, on the practical side of things I can write computer games (arse, not useful when there's no leccy). I'm fairly good at building things out of lego so if we do a few raids on some Toys r us's... Oh and I think I can remember how to make Thermite.
Ooh, and I've played some Post Apocalyptic role-playing games so I know what stupid things not to do...
Failing that, I'll just start memorising the entire How Stuff Works website - I reckon I know how a Flintlock pistol works now...
Steve
Link: How Stuff Works
Okay well we got some more useful bods, i reckon were gonna have to make own leccy, but hydro systems not too diff to build with old motors & a bycycle ...
no i'm not having a bad reaction to the fact that i was facing a day with no computer at all...
course if society is brought down my mutant giant lemming invasion, the smell of ammonia ( rats piss ) might make my hair fall out & then my status as alpha female warrioress would be threatened... spose i could always cut some off a highlan coo to make a wig.. we are remarkably alike in colour.
At first I thought that I would be completley useless after the fall of society, but the more I think about it as a care support worker I know how to do all the old fashioned household skills that people generally don't have any more. My skills are domestic but that would be handy whilst the other folks are out hunting. I'd be a maid, essentially. So can I join your tribe Bou?
I would, admittedly, make a crap hunter gatherer.
BOU - Have you found any berries or caught any animals for us to eat?
DXB - No, but I found this lovely set of nesting tables.
I'm beginning to change my mind - might fancy joining this survivors Bou-cult after all. I may have no useful skills right npw, but by the time I'd fought my way across 800 miles of irradiated ruins filled with violent paramilitary groups, without a ready source of food, I'd no doubt have either acquired them or be dead anyway.
So, Bou - where should we all meet if this happens? Is there a convenient cave to fit 40-50 people in?
And, to think more long-term, this rather male group is going to need to recruit a tribe of savage Amazonians to help re-populate the Earth (tribal queens obviously being excused such petty concerns). How do we solve this one?
...Dudley
tsk, trust someone to bring that one up, pff we can have a few breeding heifers i suppose, but i'm not having my tribe held back by wimmin & kids oh no..
cave ? no no, ive got a whole lota ancient hill forts & crannogs sorted out, in fact i'm no bad at dry skane work, so will have built a castle by the time yous all get here.
Don't have much in the way of useful skills, unless you need any numbers crunched.
If I survive, I'm no bad at the guitar so I could provide back up to Pete's ballads. All we need now is a drummer & a bassist.
If I don't survive, you can eat me. Seeing as I'm in London, and if the apocalypse is nuclear, then I'll come ready cooked.
sorry can't join your survival cult as we'll all be busy hooning around in hot looking cars fighting over petrol, taking on murderouse bikers and stuff. "Cundalenee wants his hand back"
CU Mad Krestel
I could (predictably) steal a tank? That'd be useful and i've always wanted an excuse to get one! Failing that i could play bass in Oddboy's band, knock up a generator or build a bender? (a tent, not a robot. Unfortunately)
Is there a vacancy for "Ayatollah of rock and roll-ah" in this post-nuclear playground? Aw, go on, I've got the gimp mask and everything.
i will be hiding out the first few years in...well that would be telling...may make it up to bous hideout at some point i suppose...
BUT i got a better location scouted....
top tips for mad survivalist me...
1. hide
2. travel at night with night vision goggles
>I could (predictably) steal a tank? That'd be useful and i've always wanted an excuse to get one!
Tanks handle like shit on icy roads. Theres nothing scarier than seeing the look in a Germans eye as you slide a Challenger around a corner on the ice.
La placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.
I've resisted the temptation of saying this, but what the hell...
If you get tired of a post-nuclear apocalypse, let me know and I'll happily destroy you all!
But no-one's eating roast trout, before you suggest it, even if Pete can make any old shite taste half-decent.
- Trout
Now that sounds like a story worth hearing.
RL
Hm.. i'm reasonable at growing things. worked on a farm for years. Not a modern agri-business but a fairly old style farm.
I can plant, feed, protect and pick and ensure we don't eat the nasty stuff.
I've some hunting skills too so could help with that.
I could also rear the poultry and keep the foxed off em.
Totally crap in anything mechanical so any machinery would fail rapidly without some help.
Actually, the first thing i'd do is try and organise some explosives to take down the Tamar Bridge. That would massively reduce the ease with which the feeling masses could get into Cornwall. Leaving the resources for us country folk.
We could more easily defend the very small area of boggy land that they'd have to cross if we did this.
Since leccy is the key to modern civilisation your going to want a small wind generator backed up by a diesel for those calm cold days. Suggest you convert your diesel to run off chip fat as the chances of making your own diesel are slim. A biomass generator might be an option but tricky to do.
However, your diesel is eventually going to wear out so in the longer term you probably want to be looking at a simple water wheel or a coal or peat fired steam engine.
Solar panels are good for hot water and last for ages, but finding spares for pumps might be a problem.
Keeping ourselves warm dry and well lit needs a tame engineer - plenty of them around.
However, your need to think about getting a half decent chemist unless you already know how to make soap, tooth paste, antiseptic etc.
A sawbones with dentistry and veterinary experience would be good to.
Some one who can make paper, leather, candle wax and other household bits and bobs would be useful.
Oh and a blacksmith. And a horticulturalist. And some others...
Of course you need somebody to manage all these people, That would be me. Post - apocalyptic personnel and project management is my speciality.
Dounreay - get a lot of call for that, do you?
Oh I suppose I fit into some of Dounreays sections, not only do I do a bit of leccy. I have a chemistry degree, we could be making soap and alchohol all day. What a great job!!! Clean and P*ssed...
Yer Slips
Well it's been a bit quiet lately Dudley. Not finding any WMD in Iraq kinda knocked the arse out of the market.
Still, look on the bright side...North Korea next!
ourselves warm dry and well lit needs a tame engineer - plenty of them around.
However, your need to think about getting a half decent chemist unless you already know how to make soap, tooth paste, antiseptic etc.
Right this is coming together nicely, glad we've got a band sorted out, cos thats important...
>A sawbones with dentistry and veterinary ..
well i can do a lot of animal stuff
>Some one who can make paper,
yup
> leather,
yup
> candle wax
yup
>and other household bits and bobs would be useful.
Yup, i can even make shoes...
>Oh and a blacksmith.
yup, my mate with lorry wheel & hoover forge
>And a horticulturalist
YUp, permaculture is one of my things.
so, still short of mechanics & engineers tho...