survivors 1975-77

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
o.uk...
Steve Terry wrote:

A friend used to run his Peugeot 405 1.9 diesel on up to 100% cooking oil
no problem at all, lots of 1990's Peugeots still around.

I've seen people buy cooking oil by the gallon and pour it into the tank
while still *IN* the supermarket carpark.

A couple of years ago i was in Brighton Marina Asdas and the guy in front
at the checkout had a trolley with 20 bottles of 3 litre cooking oil.
I said to him "You have a serious chip addiction" ;-)

Not rocket science to figure out what he was up to

Steve Terry

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"Steve Terry" wrote in message
...
A friend used to run his Peugeot 405 1.9 diesel on up to 100% cooking oil
no problem at all, lots of 1990's Peugeots still around.

So the future would be non electronic injection diesel, using any light
oil available, mixed with a little old petrol.
Steve Terry

The problem is really in the nature and progression of the emergency. In
Survivors the die-off was supposed to have been very rapid, over a couple
of
weeks as I remember, and anything from 99% - 99.99% depending on which
episode and which character's lines the figures appear in. That leaves a
lot
of resources for a small number of survivors. In a more likely scenario a
progressively building emergency would have seen a rapid decline in stocks
of both fuel and food due to panic buying and failure of the manufacturing
and transport facilities, because of people off work sick or too afraid to
go to work and become exposed, and perhaps problems with power supplies
due
to the same causes. The survivors would then have to have been a bit more
inventive in where they got their supplies, though of course there are
alternatives.


Yes in which case look for military installations which would have stocks of
ration packs and fuel, and places like airports, ships and warehouses at sea
ports, etc

Steve Terry

"Steve Terry" wrote in message
...

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
o.uk...
Steve Terry wrote:

A friend used to run his Peugeot 405 1.9 diesel on up to 100% cooking
oil
no problem at all, lots of 1990's Peugeots still around.

I've seen people buy cooking oil by the gallon and pour it into the tank
while still *IN* the supermarket carpark.

A couple of years ago i was in Brighton Marina Asdas and the guy in front
at the checkout had a trolley with 20 bottles of 3 litre cooking oil.
I said to him "You have a serious chip addiction" ;-)

Not rocket science to figure out what he was up to

It was rocket fuel, right?

Col

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"Fred X" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:58:03 +0100, Ophelia
wrote:
But what would you need a laptop for anyway? The internet wouldn't be
running in the UK after a week or so and unless you want to play
solitaire or write an angry letter to your MP they would be pretty
useless.

It would be necessary to innovate, so the laptop could be used for design
work. No doubt various documents would still be useful, such as leaflets
and newsletters. Records would have to be kept of crop planting and
fertilising, etc. Rotas would need to be drawn up. Birthday, anniversary,
and bereavement cards would have to be made. People would want to keep
diaries. Recreational work would include games of all kinds, artwork,
photography, and so forth.

Yes, in the post apocalyptic world forgetting your wife's birthday will
still
be a hanging offence

Col

"Steve Terry" wrote in message
...

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
o.uk...
Steve Terry wrote:

A friend used to run his Peugeot 405 1.9 diesel on up to 100% cooking
oil
no problem at all, lots of 1990's Peugeots still around.

I've seen people buy cooking oil by the gallon and pour it into the tank
while still *IN* the supermarket carpark.

A couple of years ago i was in Brighton Marina Asdas and the guy in front
at the checkout had a trolley with 20 bottles of 3 litre cooking oil.
I said to him "You have a serious chip addiction" ;-)

Not rocket science to figure out what he was up to

My son does this too

"Col" wrote in message
...

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"Fred X" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:58:03 +0100, Ophelia
wrote:
But what would you need a laptop for anyway? The internet wouldn't be
running in the UK after a week or so and unless you want to play
solitaire or write an angry letter to your MP they would be pretty
useless.

It would be necessary to innovate, so the laptop could be used for design
work. No doubt various documents would still be useful, such as leaflets
and newsletters. Records would have to be kept of crop planting and
fertilising, etc. Rotas would need to be drawn up. Birthday, anniversary,
and bereavement cards would have to be made. People would want to keep
diaries. Recreational work would include games of all kinds, artwork,
photography, and so forth.

Yes, in the post apocalyptic world forgetting your wife's birthday will
still
be a hanging offence

David wrote quite a lot about the laptop scenario. did I manage not to post
it???

"Col" wrote in message
...

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...

"Fred X" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:58:03 +0100, Ophelia
wrote:
But what would you need a laptop for anyway? The internet wouldn't be
running in the UK after a week or so and unless you want to play
solitaire or write an angry letter to your MP they would be pretty
useless.

It would be necessary to innovate, so the laptop could be used for design
work. No doubt various documents would still be useful, such as leaflets
and newsletters. Records would have to be kept of crop planting and
fertilising, etc. Rotas would need to be drawn up. Birthday, anniversary,
and bereavement cards would have to be made. People would want to keep
diaries. Recreational work would include games of all kinds, artwork,
photography, and so forth.

Yes, in the post apocalyptic world forgetting your wife's birthday will
still be a hanging offence
Col

Not if you hung her first, who would prosecute you?

Steve Terry

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"Col" wrote in message
...

..

Yes, in the post apocalyptic world forgetting your wife's birthday will
still
be a hanging offence

David wrote quite a lot about the laptop scenario. did I manage not to
post it???

Sorry?

Col

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"Steve Terry" wrote in message
...

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
o.uk...
Steve Terry wrote:

A friend used to run his Peugeot 405 1.9 diesel on up to 100% cooking
oil
no problem at all, lots of 1990's Peugeots still around.

I've seen people buy cooking oil by the gallon and pour it into the tank
while still *IN* the supermarket carpark.

A couple of years ago i was in Brighton Marina Asdas and the guy in front
at the checkout had a trolley with 20 bottles of 3 litre cooking oil.
I said to him "You have a serious chip addiction" ;-)

Not rocket science to figure out what he was up to

My son does this too

He's addicted to Chips too!!

It's an epidemic

I blame McCain's, who are working on developing more addictive chips
made from GM potatoes with human DNA added, (not kidding)

Steve Terry

"Col" wrote in message
...

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"Col" wrote in message
...

.

Yes, in the post apocalyptic world forgetting your wife's birthday will
still
be a hanging offence

David wrote quite a lot about the laptop scenario. did I manage not to
post it???

Sorry?

Apologies if I posted it already He is writing his responses on his own
computer and passing them to me

The quantity of material about everything from edible wild plants to nursing
and *basic* surgery to maintaining vehicles and a vast assortment of other
subjects is available for download now online. You would need the contents
and space of a large civic library to keep the amount of useful or
potentially vital information that you could store on a hard disk and back
up onto a few easily portable usb drives. Even if you hadn't done that in
advance of a major event, despite any warnings you might have had,
specialist shops e.g. gun shops with info on hunting and trapping, garden
centres on horticulture, health food shops, veterinary surgeries, health
centres, schools, universities and public libraries all have DVDs with
essential information. Get in early and collect them while other survivors
are still raiding supermarkets and you have generations worth of research
and experience available to you that you couldn't hope to store or transport
in any other way.

A journal and record system is also invaluable for keeping track of your
supplies and what was sown, harvested and preserved when and where, what
items of potential use you found where but didn't see the need to collect at
that time, where people with particular skills are to be found. You could do
that all on paper, but paper is as vulnerable in its own way as electronic
media and heavier and more difficult to transport. Right now you could put
scanned copies of all you important documents e.g. certificates, insurance
documents, licences, passport, family photographs and videos, etc onto a
drive smaller than a pen and keep them in a safe place in case of fire in
your home. The personal items on there might be invaluable to you in a
Survivors type scenario.

A computer also provides you with a music and DVD player, a games machine,
an ebook reader, a diary, and much more in a compact package. Don't
underestimate the effect on morale of boredom, especially among young
people. We are all now used to a constant stream of information and
activity. After getting over the initial shock and horror survivors will
look to the reassurance of some of the trappings of their previous life. The
more of these they can find, that are of value to them as individuals, the
less traumatic adjustment would be. In the 70s you might have cheered up a
group with a singsong to someone strumming a guitar, now it would take
something more exciting. Yes, eventually survivors would have to return to a
rural lifestyle with a great deal of manual work and less leisure time, and
there would be some of that even in the early days, but even in the middle
ages the lower classes had some time for recreation, particularly in the
winter months. Modern survivors making use of all those remaining resources
at first would have less to do and more time to fill.