BLACKOUT : tonight at 9pm Channel 4

[guineapiglet]

What would happen if the lights went out!?!

Looking forward to watching this, it has had good reviews. Good night on TV tonight with Under the Dome afterwardsmakes up for all the rubbish on Saturday night Anyone else giving it a go?

[Bowlersarm]

X post with Abra1d

[Abra1d]

Another good reason to keep a good store of wine, Bowlers.

[Bowlersarm]

Any old excuse Abra1d

[guineapiglet]

... another one who mulled over the contents of the 'emergency' food cupboard all night long... would be a healthy combination of sardines and whisky which would see us out. We also have a barbeque, but after last night will be hiding it away. Thinking about digging a well in the garden!

After watching Die Hard 4 (many times), ( and The Road) you realise that such a scenario could be possible at any time, and that our day to day lives are very fragile... but what did it say about human nature, it really is down to the law of the Jungle if everything breaks down - we would all do everything to protect our own, but would we all really be so selfish and unbothered about our friends and neighbours?

The frightening thing for me was just how quickly law and order broke down, the police simply could not be called by phone, and could not be everywhere. Lack of respect for life and property disappeared.... kept wondering how, as a generation, we would have survived during the War!

Definite food for thought.... now just off to Aldi to ahem, stock up.

[SilverApples]

'Water is the big problem.'

We have 4 five L bottles in the store, water purification kit from the camping pack and the water tank in the loft, plus two large water butts in the garden.
And lots of wine, so we'd only drink the water if that ran out.
Last us a poxy week at least.

[fussychica]

I thought the scariest thing was the riot footage was real riot footage from last year - if people were like that then, then you know they'd be worse in this kind of situation. Wouldn't want to be living in a big city if this happened.

Anyone remembers Threads - far more scary but probably less likely scenario?

[Abra1d]

My main worry would be my elderly parents 72 miles away in a London suburb. They have kind, younger neighbours, but they'd have children and family to worry about themselves. How much could they realistically do for non-family?

I would have to cycle to London to help them, if there was no petrol to drive.

[SuperiorCat]

Yes to very much every man for themselves in that situation.

I'm thinking about clearing a cupboard out to stock up on non-perishables, I know DH will rubbish the idea, so I will do it on a "ready for being snowed in" approach I think.

[farmerswifey]

I don't know what upsets me most about this, the fact that this could actually happen, or that out here in the sticks we wouldn't notice for about a week...

[twistyfeet]

check-list
wine - tick
gin - tick
timothy olyphont - not yet
other shit - must acquire

[MadameDefarge]

those astronaut meals would be useful...and easy to hide...

[guineapiglet]

Being in a blackout with sardines, whisky AND Timothy Olyphant?

Now you're talking!

ps I would have to cycle from Southampton to The Lake District to help my parents

[twistyfeet]

oi, get the queue for Timothy lady

[guineapiglet]

I know twisty he is soooooo gorgeous, especially as Raylan.... Who would need/want a generator?!?!

[twistyfeet]

I like him in Die Hard 4
Which is sort of topical to this thread so I'd best watch it again

[CoolStoryBro]

I just watched it on 4OD after seeing this thread. I thought it was bloody stupid!! And it's so depressing that tv makers always show the UK as nothing more than a nation of rioters in dramas like this. That the whole country would implode within 20 minutes of a power cut.

I know it's not the same, but we experienced, along with most of the Tri-State, long powerouts last year after Hurricane Sandy. We had no power for 10 days. Others had no power for weeks.

What does happen...
People get in long queues for petrol for the few petrol stations that have back up generators.
People use their bbqs. Seriously, who doesn't have a bbq nowadays?!
People get a bit smelly as you can't have a hot shower.
You read a lot.
You drink a LOT of wine.


We have a generator of our own and, funnily enough, we never once found people in our house in the middle of the night trying to steal it. We did find people in our garage quite regularly, but that was because we were using the generator to power the fridge/freezer in there and we invited all our neighbours to put their food in there too. I found this helped enormously in NOT finding myself looting a supermarket and smashing some guy's brains in in the middle of the night.

[twistyfeet]

'Seriously, who doesn't have a bbq nowadays?!'

me. Never owned one. But then our garden is the size of this laptop.

[THERhubarb]

Abra1d I find your reasoning of why a sink estate would be a worse place to live interesting. Do you not think that a flat or council house would actually be less of a target than a nice country house? As a general rule, the poor don't take from the poor and there is usually a greater sense of community in a sink estate than any country village. Not that it would do to generalise eh?

I think in any crisis like this, the best you can do is to secure your home and keep your head down. If you do know your neighbours then you can all form a group and pool resources together whilst protecting each other's property.

But that programme was a bit shit. It doesn't take a week to travel from Hastings to Sheffield (reminds me of 28 days later I think it was, where the characters took almost 2 days to travel on empty motorways from London to Manchester). I was also quite uncomfortable watching actual riot footage being used for entertainment purposes.

Plenty of people live day by day without electricity. If anything it just showed us what we take for granted. We are almost completely reliant on technology so that when anything goes wrong, we almost implode.

Yet I do think programme makers do Britain a great disservice. This country has pulled together over worse things. Whenever there are massive jams on the motorway I always hear of people helping each other out, sharing food and drink and even getting together to build snowmen last winter on the M6. Even after the riots many volunteers came together to help clean up and whenever people are affected by natural disasters other people will go out of their way to help. I think that is the real spirit of Britain, not some chaos fuelled disaster. I'd like to think that we are made of tougher stuff than to fall apart during a blackout. It's not like Britain's never suffered one before!

[THERhubarb]

CoolStoryBro exactly - thank you. But I guess the truth wouldn't make a Channel 4 drama would it?

[Bowlersarm]

.....also a BBQ s only useful as long as you have meat to cook on it. The meat in the freezer would last about, ooh, a day? Maybe two for the five of us.

[Bowlersarm]

I like your positivity THERhubarb

Let's hope we don't find out if you are tight!

[Bowlersarm]

Gah.......sorry.........'right'......I'm sure you are a very generous person!

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

' As a general rule, the poor don't take from the poor'

That's not true from statistics I've seen. If you're poor you're far more likely to be a victim of burglary than if you're rich.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

I agree there's no reason to believe community would be worse in a sink estate, though.

[THERhubarb]

Really Tunip? Well in our estate I don't know of any burglaries at all and none of us have alarms, yet in the wealthier village down the road nearly all houses are alarmed and many have suffered break-ins.

Round here criminals tend to come from the surrounding cities and they target either student houses or commuter belts where they know that many homes are going to be empty because they are all at work.

Also it makes sense to target properties you know have something worth stealing which is why so many students get hit as they have laptops, ipods, money, etc. Elderly people are also targeted as they are most likely to keep large amounts of cash around. (Can you tell that I watch a lot of programmes about crime?)