Don't Forget To Pack A Pinch of Salt (Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook - Joshua Piven, David Borgenict)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook - Joshua Piven, David Borgenict
Date:	15/09/08 (91 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some valid information

Disadvantages: How can you take a book that advises on alien abduction seriously?

When the original Worst Case Scenario Survival handbook was published, it covered emergencies many of which were only the kind experienced by Ray Mears and that ilk. The issue of a "Travel" version or sub-section makes all kind of sense, since most of the scrapes that the Man On The Clapham Omnibus will get into are more likely to occur whilst travelling to, or actually being in , foreign climes.

I think someone gave me this book as a stocking filler at a past Christmas (well it certainly wasn't NEXT Christmas), and as such it's lain around in the bed-side table just waiting to come to the top of the pile as a bit of 'loo-time' reading. Any book thus designated must know that if found wanting, its pages may get used for something else.

In fact, since this is the 'Travel' edition of the "W-C S S H*", it even suggests doing this in the section on lavatorial emergencies.

*(If you think I'm going to type out 'Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook' every time, think on.)

There is an air of "Hitchhiker's Guide to The Universe" about this book, with perhaps a dash of "Boy's Own Paper" and "Ripping Yarns" thrown in for good measure.

After all, a note on the rear cover that states, "Caution: Book may not be used as a flotation device" does rather indicate an element of the 'thongue' set firmly 'in theek'. Incidentally, it doesn't work as a flirtation device either - trust me I've tried.

Just when you thought the dramatic visa-style slanting stamp on the front cover looked serious, you realise that this book contains advice on how to get off a runaway camel, avoid an alien abduction, all alongside loftier stuff like escaping a high-rise fire or getting leeches off. To avoid an alien abduction in the UK, just make sure the H.M. Immigration Services don't know where you are. In the case of leeches, I'd just tell them to *?@$ off and take their invite to view a time-share in Lanzarote with them.

Of course, you might think that knowing how to dismount a runaway camel WAS sensible information. Having ridden one once, and I do mean once, my advice would be never to get on one in the first place. Whoever it was called them "The Ships Of The Desert" was having trouble differentiating his 'Ps' from his 'Ts'. Another good way of calming a male camel at least, is to start rattling the two bricks in your rucksack........

HOW TO STOP A RUNAWAY PASSENGER TRAIN may seem like valuable advice, but apart from pulling the emergency lever whilst working your way through the train, it has little relevance in the UK (the book has a US provenance), since hardly any of our trains are loco-hauled these days, so somehow boarding the 'locomotive' seems a little quaint. Anyway, anyone in the know will realise that the way to stop a British train, nay the entire network, is to wait for Autumn. The advice to find the front is in direct variance to the other advice that the back of the train is the safest place to be in a crash. A true "Boy Scout" set on martyrdom would no doubt walk forwards whilst encouraging everyone else to move rearwards. Perhaps this section should be subtitled "How To Be A Dead Hero".

HOW TO STOP A CAR WITH NO BRAKES - Now that's more like it given the number of cars in the UK with no (or faked) MOT certificate. How to avoid an uninsured driver IN one might be more relevant though. I just loved the way that you're suppose to nudge up to the car in front and gesticulate that you'd like them to slow down. Given that we all seem to tailgate each other, we nearly do this already, especially on the M6. Still at least it introduces us to the delights of the 'handbrake turn', aka 'bootlegger's turn' in US parlance.

CRASH LANDING A LIGHT AIRCRAFT ON WATER is another somewhat hackneyed cliché. You know the kind of thing; pilot slumped over controls having eating a dodgy prawn curry whilst you sensibly had the tofu wrap, fuel gauges threatening to run on fumes any minute and a hysterical passenger that you just KNOW you're going to have to slap (I've always wanted the chance, haven't you?). It all conjures pictures of Lloyd Bridges 'talking down' an endangered 707 with a pilot called Ted Striker who'd never gotten over Macho Grande. I have it on good authority that if you've never handled the controls of a plane before, you may as well forget it, and hope that the pilot recovers. I just loved the 'when only 10 feet up, close the throttle(s)'. That's assuming that you've found them by then and not turned on the co-pilot's cup warmer instead. The most sensible advice that I could glean here was to vacate the plane ASAP. Now that I do understand!

I've no doubt that what is written is technically correct from my one brief experience at being in control of a flying object, but expecting to be able to read this book on one knee as you go may be a trifle impractical.

Therein lays the problem with any book of this kind. Will circumstances afford you the opportunity to read it? Will hostage takers give you a time-out whilst you brush up on resisting being tied up too tightly? Will all adjacent rooftops conveniently conspire to be only 10 feet away as you attempt to vault the gaps in between? (Yes it really does deal with leaping from roof to roof). Will you have enough fingers to poke aliens in the eyes?

Since I'm about to holiday in Sicily (well, October half term anyway), the advice on staying in a volcanic region made me think.

However, I DON'T think we'll be packing the goggles and portable oxygen tank recommended by the authors just on the off-chance that Mount Etna* blows her top.

*(Her? Are volcanoes 'shes' like ocean liners?)

This is not to say that I found the whole book a bit silly. The advice given on surviving a high-rise conflagration does make you sit up and think. Turntable ladders don't normally go beyond the 7th floor, and the roof can't be expected to take the 'evac' helicopter, even if there was one. Of course, specifying a lower floors room helps and it's something I'd consider doing in future, as will taking note of fire instructions before the place fills with smoke.

That goes for aircraft too. Knowing how many rows you are from an emergency exit will now be on my agenda as will specifying a rearward seat - easily done in this world of on-line check-ins. Apparently the statistics for surviving a crash are better at the back. It's nice to know that the Grim Reaper is being scrupulously UNfair to the rich folks up front for once! Likewise, I shall try to avoid indirect flights, since this halves the risk of a crash by halving the take-offs and landings, which is where most crashes occur.

As they once said in "NOT The Nine O'Clock News", "There are six emergency exits, two at the front, two over the wings and two at the rear. In the event of a headlong collision with a mountain, ALL of these exits will be at the front of the aircraft!" Of course, the guide can't advise on that.

HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A CAR HANGING OVER THE EDGE OF A CLIFF made me think of my own car. Having followed their advice to gently make my way into the back seat (assuming it's the front that's over the precipice), no amount of hitting the rear windows of my three door car would help. Why? Because it's fitted with laminated glass, not the more normal 'safety glass', that's why. The last person you'd want in the back seat is Michael Caine, as it's almost 100% sure that he'll say "'Ang on, I've got an idea!"

Given the US bias to this book, it'll come as no surprise that many of the perils on which it advises could be said to fall into the category of "WHAT TO DO ONCE THE CROWD DISCOVERS YOU'RE AMERICAN".

For example, "How to Survive a Mugging", "How To Lose a 'Tail'", "How To Jump From Rooftop to Rooftop", "How To Escape When Tied Up", "How To Ram A Barricade", "How To Escape From The Trunk Of a Car" and "How To Survive a Fall (Push?) Onto Subway Tracks".

"How To Pass A Bribe" sounds ominous.

Summing up, this book is a good-fun read, and it contains a lot of information, but I'd question its usefulness merely because you probably won't have it on you when 'it' all starts to kick off.

However, I do now know how to cross a piranha-infested river - send a least-favourite nephew in first.


ISBN 0-8118-3131-0

$14.95 US, but by now, probably 2p plus p&p from Amazon Marketplace!

Summary: Survival information for (US mainly) travellers - some of it even sensible!