https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/...epper/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Prepping is decidedly uneasy, in the sense that contemplating an infinite variety of appalling futures is gnawingly toxic for the soul
By Anonymous author 20 March 2020 • 7:00am
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A radiation detector, a hazmat suit, a gas mask, plastic sheeting and tape to seal draughty windows, and a jar of potassium iodide (which Chernobyl viewers will recognise as the inexpensive difference between life and death in nuclear scenarios). Such were my first, tentative purchases as a ‘doomsday prepper’. It was 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, when everyone thought Islamist terrorists might attack Western capitals with anthrax or radioactive dirty bombs.
That particular Armageddon has, thankfully, not arrived – and I was recently horrified to find the gas mask and hazmat suit had disappeared during a house move nearly a decade ago. Doomsday prepping isn’t easy – and I don’t just mean that it’s an organisational challenge. It’s also decidedly uneasy, in the sense that contemplating an infinite variety of appalling futures is gnawingly toxic for the soul. As Nietzsche said, “when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. The psychic price of ever-readiness is high.
There have been other drawbacks. My friends long ago discovered the radiation detector, stash of bottled water, tinned food and my other survival gewgaws, and have been lampooning me as a nutjob for nearly two decades now. Not that being proven right after all this time helps much – they long ago forgot why they think I’m a nutjob.
Back in 2001, I was single and only needed the one gas mask. Now, I’m married, but my wife doesn’t really ‘get’ crisis preparedness. Two weeks ago, I asked her to put together a mega Ocado order to get us through the coming months. But all she ordered was a large bag of rice and a lifetime supply of cat food. Now, our next available Ocado delivery slot is in April, and my panicked wife is spending her days in the purgatory of its website’s ‘virtual queue’.
Deciding when to pull the rip cord hasn’t been easy, either. This time last week, I was sitting in a Notting Hill pub with an Oxford maths grad friend. My friend is an asthmatic, and my own health history is best described as ‘complicated’ - neither of us wishes to be a victim of Covid-19 herd immunity.
Our local council area, Kensington & Chelsea, already had the highest Covid-19 infection rate in the UK – albeit there were still fewer than twenty reported cases. But, compound arithmetic suggested K&C would suffer the same level of infection as Italy within a week – and Italy had already closed itself down. Our quandary: should we respect the government’s advice to ‘keep calm and carry on’, and keep sending our children to our local primary school? Or skip town for our respective country lairs, and risk a three-month prison sentence for removing our children from school without permission?
Reader, we chose criminality. My friend is now in deepest Dorset. I’m ensconced in rural Surrey, where my survivalist stash includes mountains of paracetamol, catering-sized tins of baked beans, and money in the form of cash and gold sovereigns (the latter trading near an all-time high thanks to the collapse of Sterling). Before they shut down, some state schools reported 30% unauthorised absence rates. I doubt they will bother building new prisons to house all the miscreants.
Yet, having enacted my cunning plans, I instantly found them lacking. My aim had been to follow the example of the well-off during plagues since time immemorial: leave London for the country and pull up the drawbridge, thus avoiding infection until after the threat passes.
That means that when the pandemic is at its peak out here in a few weeks’ time, I won’t want to be visiting our local shops. But it turns out I don’t much fancy the prospect of eternal baked beans and rice. So, the past twenty-four hours have included a mad dash to acquire apparently the last chest freezer available for sale in England (if you don’t believe me – try to buy one today).
Mine is cheap, unbranded and looks more likely to burn my house down than to last a day longer than its two-year guarantee. But two years will be more than enough, and an arkful of animals is currently being slaughtered to fill it.
Many of those currently derided as ‘panic-buying’ don’t deserve the abuse they are receiving. We have become used to a world where, thanks to finely-tuned supply chains and 24-hour supermarkets, nobody needed to store more than a few hours’ food at their home. What we are currently seeing is a one-time stocking up – a reversal to the status quo ante of our grandparents’ generation, where a well-supplied larder was the mark of a gentleman. That isn’t irrational, unless you want to wander crowded supermarkets at the peak of the pandemic.
To date, we have survived five days of self-isolation, and are still all on speaking terms. Well, more or less: my wife is traumatised that strict quarantine management means I have refused the cleaners access to our house (they’ve been repurposed to some light gardening, and I will continue paying them throughout the crisis).
My son is distraught that my disaster prep included buying some home learning books – he is working every morning, and his ‘holiday’ will not begin any earlier than it would have. Our ski trip has been replaced with a trampoline. There is open countryside nearby, and for now at least we can go on long walks with friends – conversing at a sensible distance, of course.
I am hopeful of getting through this crisis without having recourse to my electricity generator, the least appetising of my tinned food (corned beef and spam), or my rifle. And for all I know, the Islamic terrorists are still out to get us. But at least they’ll struggle to fly to London this week.
Prepping is decidedly uneasy, in the sense that contemplating an infinite variety of appalling futures is gnawingly toxic for the soul
By Anonymous author 20 March 2020 • 7:00am
Premium
A radiation detector, a hazmat suit, a gas mask, plastic sheeting and tape to seal draughty windows, and a jar of potassium iodide (which Chernobyl viewers will recognise as the inexpensive difference between life and death in nuclear scenarios). Such were my first, tentative purchases as a ‘doomsday prepper’. It was 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, when everyone thought Islamist terrorists might attack Western capitals with anthrax or radioactive dirty bombs.
That particular Armageddon has, thankfully, not arrived – and I was recently horrified to find the gas mask and hazmat suit had disappeared during a house move nearly a decade ago. Doomsday prepping isn’t easy – and I don’t just mean that it’s an organisational challenge. It’s also decidedly uneasy, in the sense that contemplating an infinite variety of appalling futures is gnawingly toxic for the soul. As Nietzsche said, “when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. The psychic price of ever-readiness is high.
There have been other drawbacks. My friends long ago discovered the radiation detector, stash of bottled water, tinned food and my other survival gewgaws, and have been lampooning me as a nutjob for nearly two decades now. Not that being proven right after all this time helps much – they long ago forgot why they think I’m a nutjob.
Back in 2001, I was single and only needed the one gas mask. Now, I’m married, but my wife doesn’t really ‘get’ crisis preparedness. Two weeks ago, I asked her to put together a mega Ocado order to get us through the coming months. But all she ordered was a large bag of rice and a lifetime supply of cat food. Now, our next available Ocado delivery slot is in April, and my panicked wife is spending her days in the purgatory of its website’s ‘virtual queue’.
Deciding when to pull the rip cord hasn’t been easy, either. This time last week, I was sitting in a Notting Hill pub with an Oxford maths grad friend. My friend is an asthmatic, and my own health history is best described as ‘complicated’ - neither of us wishes to be a victim of Covid-19 herd immunity.
Our local council area, Kensington & Chelsea, already had the highest Covid-19 infection rate in the UK – albeit there were still fewer than twenty reported cases. But, compound arithmetic suggested K&C would suffer the same level of infection as Italy within a week – and Italy had already closed itself down. Our quandary: should we respect the government’s advice to ‘keep calm and carry on’, and keep sending our children to our local primary school? Or skip town for our respective country lairs, and risk a three-month prison sentence for removing our children from school without permission?
Reader, we chose criminality. My friend is now in deepest Dorset. I’m ensconced in rural Surrey, where my survivalist stash includes mountains of paracetamol, catering-sized tins of baked beans, and money in the form of cash and gold sovereigns (the latter trading near an all-time high thanks to the collapse of Sterling). Before they shut down, some state schools reported 30% unauthorised absence rates. I doubt they will bother building new prisons to house all the miscreants.
Yet, having enacted my cunning plans, I instantly found them lacking. My aim had been to follow the example of the well-off during plagues since time immemorial: leave London for the country and pull up the drawbridge, thus avoiding infection until after the threat passes.
That means that when the pandemic is at its peak out here in a few weeks’ time, I won’t want to be visiting our local shops. But it turns out I don’t much fancy the prospect of eternal baked beans and rice. So, the past twenty-four hours have included a mad dash to acquire apparently the last chest freezer available for sale in England (if you don’t believe me – try to buy one today).
Mine is cheap, unbranded and looks more likely to burn my house down than to last a day longer than its two-year guarantee. But two years will be more than enough, and an arkful of animals is currently being slaughtered to fill it.
Many of those currently derided as ‘panic-buying’ don’t deserve the abuse they are receiving. We have become used to a world where, thanks to finely-tuned supply chains and 24-hour supermarkets, nobody needed to store more than a few hours’ food at their home. What we are currently seeing is a one-time stocking up – a reversal to the status quo ante of our grandparents’ generation, where a well-supplied larder was the mark of a gentleman. That isn’t irrational, unless you want to wander crowded supermarkets at the peak of the pandemic.
To date, we have survived five days of self-isolation, and are still all on speaking terms. Well, more or less: my wife is traumatised that strict quarantine management means I have refused the cleaners access to our house (they’ve been repurposed to some light gardening, and I will continue paying them throughout the crisis).
My son is distraught that my disaster prep included buying some home learning books – he is working every morning, and his ‘holiday’ will not begin any earlier than it would have. Our ski trip has been replaced with a trampoline. There is open countryside nearby, and for now at least we can go on long walks with friends – conversing at a sensible distance, of course.
I am hopeful of getting through this crisis without having recourse to my electricity generator, the least appetising of my tinned food (corned beef and spam), or my rifle. And for all I know, the Islamic terrorists are still out to get us. But at least they’ll struggle to fly to London this week.
