As part of my fascination with all things Cold War (when I finally get my new car, I'm taking it for a run out to here), I've spent a chunk of the weekend and today watching Protect and Survive videos on You Tube. Jesus, they expect you to get busy in the lead up to a nuclear attack, don't they? For a start they expect you to start thickening the walls of your home. Do you know how to lay bricks?Then they want you to start a fallout room in your home, preferably a room with no outside walls and windows. The only room in my home which fits that description is a cupboard where I keep the Hoover, shoes, manbags, mops and the such like. I'm never going to be able to live in there for weeks at a time, it's too small. Even smaller when you see the list of stuff they want you to take in there. They also expect you to bolster the room by placing suitcases around it, I have one suitcase. What else am I supposed to use? And how am I supposed to heat up the dozens of tins of soup they want me to eat without gas or electricity? I'm sorry but I can't eat cold soup, I'm not Spanish.
The clincher for me though are the toilet arrangements. You have to go for no.2s in front of other people. I'm prepared to make some sacrifices in the event of nuclear Armageddon but come on! How can you poop in front of someone else? I know some people find it a turn on (I'm NOT one of them, incidentally) but I couldn't possibly do that. And an ex-boyfriend of my sister used to drive tanks in the army, they had to practise nuclear conditions and shut themselves in the tank for days on end, pooing in front of each other, but I'm guessing there must be hidey holes in a Chieftain tank somewhere. I'd just have to live on the tins of pop in my cupboard and forgo the soup.
I reckon these guidelines need thinking through again. Now where did I put that What To Do In a Major Terrorist Attack leaflet they pumped out in 2002 (I never did buy a wind-up radio, although I have a wind-up torch)? It's probably with the Swine Flu advice and precautions leaflet.
7 comments:
Let me know when you're going 'there' and if you want some company. It's only about five miles from my house.
Have you ever seen the film "The Atomic Cafe"? Basically a collection of US Public Information films from the 50s mostly dealing with Nuclear War. It's excellent. The jingle "Duck and Cover" that they made for schoolchildren really sticks in the mind.
Channel 4 showed it in the 80s. Of course they did.
VS - Sounds like a plan, but you will have to prepare yourself for me getting rather over excited at the sight of all three V Bombers under the same roof. Vulcans are old hat, there's one parked up about a mile from here, but the Victor and Valiant? Oh God...
Thumps - That's the tin-hatted turtle, isn't it? The school desks they wanted kids to cower under weren't really going to offer much protection from Kruschev's finest, were they?
Have you read 'Revolution 1989'? A fascinating roundup of Eastern European history during the death throes of Communism. I'd highly recommend as a sequel to your museum visit.
Have a nice time with VS, and take no notice if he throws a tantrum when you won't let him sit on the V-8 rocket.
That book sounds right up my strasse, I'll look out for it. I've been meaning to read the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning Stasiland for bloody ages.
I love that. I bought the DVD. The music's terrifying for a start.
What made me laugh in the booklet was that once you got the all clear you could 'go about your normal business', like it was perfectly natural.
You certainly see where those two who did Look Around You got a lot of ideas from.
"Go about your normal business" forgetting about the devastation, massive loss of life and the fact you'll never see loved ones again.
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