Benfleet A1
Hector Of The House
I have just finished reading The Day of the Triffids for the umptenth time and it got me wondering. If civilisation as we know it came to an end how would those left survive and due to the technical world we have been brought up in, would that leave us even more worse off.
Let me explain. That book was written in the 1950's and chronicaled how those depicted survived for several years before finally joinning other survivors in a community on The Isle of Wight. In that time, apart from flame throwing triffids, the book acted almost as an diary made up of gathering food, clothes and supplies as well as keeping live stock and attempts at working the land to grow crops. I don't think that we as a species could last for more than five years and heres why.
Anyone over forty would remember their mum pushing a trolly around Wallis and loading up the weekly shop. Food lasted longer them days so if a tin of beans or soup got lost at the back of the cupboard not to resurface for five years then the attitude back then was eat it. And you could because it had a shelf life of about ten years. Now, and I just checked this out, you would be lucky to get two years out of tinned food. I just found a tin of Tomatoe Soup lurking in the cupboard which is out of date by three months. It is probably alright still but I'm not desperate enough to find out so that has been chucked out. Who remembers when a loaf of bread would last maybe a week before going mouldy. It might have been a bit on the hard side but still good enough for toasting and dunking in a mug of tea. Buy a loaf from Tesco's today and if it isn't used in two days it will be going off if not already there.
It's not just food. How are you going to get on with no electric or gas. Fuel is going to run out pretty sharpish as well. Anyone know how to get to the fuel tanks at your local BP. Just keeping warm could be hard work without coal stocks and a fireplace to burn it in. Hands up who still has an open fire at home. But then it probably wouldn't be such a good idea to be at home. Towns and cities would be nortorious breeding grounds for decease what with dead bodies laying about everywhere. So off to the country. Not a nice place either if you think about it. Spoilt crops through lack of harvest, fields of dead cows through lack of milking. Anyone know how to milk a cow by the way. Best start growing your own crops. So your starter for ten and without looking elsewhere for the answer (no electric means no WWW remember) who knows when to plant say potatoes and when to dig them up. Some will survive better than others and learn skills to keep alive, even start to rebuild but many many others would not.
So my question is this. Would we as an species have a better chance of survival if we had not all the technical know how we have and would it have been better to have been brought up learning more practical skills.
Let me explain. That book was written in the 1950's and chronicaled how those depicted survived for several years before finally joinning other survivors in a community on The Isle of Wight. In that time, apart from flame throwing triffids, the book acted almost as an diary made up of gathering food, clothes and supplies as well as keeping live stock and attempts at working the land to grow crops. I don't think that we as a species could last for more than five years and heres why.
Anyone over forty would remember their mum pushing a trolly around Wallis and loading up the weekly shop. Food lasted longer them days so if a tin of beans or soup got lost at the back of the cupboard not to resurface for five years then the attitude back then was eat it. And you could because it had a shelf life of about ten years. Now, and I just checked this out, you would be lucky to get two years out of tinned food. I just found a tin of Tomatoe Soup lurking in the cupboard which is out of date by three months. It is probably alright still but I'm not desperate enough to find out so that has been chucked out. Who remembers when a loaf of bread would last maybe a week before going mouldy. It might have been a bit on the hard side but still good enough for toasting and dunking in a mug of tea. Buy a loaf from Tesco's today and if it isn't used in two days it will be going off if not already there.
It's not just food. How are you going to get on with no electric or gas. Fuel is going to run out pretty sharpish as well. Anyone know how to get to the fuel tanks at your local BP. Just keeping warm could be hard work without coal stocks and a fireplace to burn it in. Hands up who still has an open fire at home. But then it probably wouldn't be such a good idea to be at home. Towns and cities would be nortorious breeding grounds for decease what with dead bodies laying about everywhere. So off to the country. Not a nice place either if you think about it. Spoilt crops through lack of harvest, fields of dead cows through lack of milking. Anyone know how to milk a cow by the way. Best start growing your own crops. So your starter for ten and without looking elsewhere for the answer (no electric means no WWW remember) who knows when to plant say potatoes and when to dig them up. Some will survive better than others and learn skills to keep alive, even start to rebuild but many many others would not.
So my question is this. Would we as an species have a better chance of survival if we had not all the technical know how we have and would it have been better to have been brought up learning more practical skills.
