Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about what might be termed situational awareness. Or possibly just looking where you're going.

I live in a city centre, in an interesting neighbourhood. I walk softly around blind corners and have seen things which have caused me to make an abrupt volte face, such as some horrible little 'erbert shooting up drugs, or some unsavoury types getting into a row. There's several ways of threading myself thru The Towers should it be necessary to take evasive action.

Or I might just find a chugger knocking on my door as I approach it and decide to walk on by until they go away again.

As I wander about my business in the city, I've noticed that a lot of people lack situational awareness. Some of them forcibly drew my attention to their lack by trying to walk right into me. Ye gods and little fishes, I'm nearly 6 feet tall, and not easily missed.

In almost every circumstance, they were playing with their phones. Men and women, boys and girls, from middle-school kids to septugenarians. All engrossed to the point where they walk into other people, unless the others are paying attention. Or into traffic. Or street furniture.

People are so busy with their texting or their mobile internetting that they are barely aware of the most commonplace activities going on around them. Should anything uncommon happen all of a sudden, they'll be looking up with a vacant Whuh? Heaven help anyone who needs an eyewitness account of an event as many people can barely be trusted to look left and right before crossing the street.

Add it the peeps who insist on wearing headphones to walk or cycle in and you have a lot of highly-oblivious people around you. A stunning amount of people aren't living in the moment.

How much attention do you pay to your surroundings? Do you know what you would normally expect to see at a certain place and time? Do you recognise the odd-car-out on your street, or something similar? Do you know which alarm belongs to what building, or the engine notes of a particlar car? I can set my clock my a neighbour who has a coughing starter-motor on his car, f'rinstance.

[Deleted User]

thriftwizard wrote: »

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[Deleted User]

Just bought one of these from ALDI.

6Kg, dry powder, for classes A, B and C.

£19-99, which I personally think is a small price to pay, for peace of mind.

When using it, please remember not to jump from the fire escape, onto discarded spaghetti.

BTW. I notice is says "Handy to have in your boot".

Well, I wouldn't fancy having to make a crash stop, with one of those floating about in the boot.

It'd probably finish up in the passenger seat, alongside you.

Perplexed_Pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about what might be termed situational awareness. Or possibly just looking where you're going.

I live in a city centre, in an interesting neighbourhood. I walk softly around blind corners and have seen things which have caused me to make an abrupt volte face, such as some horrible little 'erbert shooting up drugs, or some unsavoury types getting into a row. There's several ways of threading myself thru The Towers should it be necessary to take evasive action.

Or I might just find a chugger knocking on my door as I approach it and decide to walk on by until they go away again.

As I wander about my business in the city, I've noticed that a lot of people lack situational awareness. Some of them forcibly drew my attention to their lack by trying to walk right into me. Ye gods and little fishes, I'm nearly 6 feet tall, and not easily missed.

In almost every circumstance, they were playing with their phones. Men and women, boys and girls, from middle-school kids to septugenarians. All engrossed to the point where they walk into other people, unless the others are paying attention. Or into traffic. Or street furniture.

People are so busy with their texting or their mobile internetting that they are barely aware of the most commonplace activities going on around them. Should anything uncommon happen all of a sudden, they'll be looking up with a vacant Whuh? Heaven help anyone who needs an eyewitness account of an event as many people can barely be trusted to look left and right before crossing the street.

Add it the peeps who insist on wearing headphones to walk or cycle in and you have a lot of highly-oblivious people around you. A stunning amount of people aren't living in the moment.

How much attention do you pay to your surroundings? Do you know what you would normally expect to see at a certain place and time? Do you recognise the odd-car-out on your street, or something similar? Do you know which alarm belongs to what building, or the engine notes of a particlar car? I can set my clock my a neighbour who has a coughing starter-motor on his car, f'rinstance.

Good points GQ. In my younger days I did some martial arts, there was a lot of emphasis put on awareness of your environment. It's also a good idea I think to trust your instincts - if you have a sudden feeling that now would be a really good time to cross to the other side of the road it's best to do it, even if you can't see what has alerted you. The problem with being focused on a phone or ipod is that you are disconnected from your surroundings at both conscious and sub-conscious levels. I doubt that this would be a problem in a SHTF situation though, we'd all be on edge most of the time.

JayneC

Look at this, seems you're not allowed to take responsibility for yourself now incase it deprives the state of income:( Hope it doesn't give UK any ideas
http://www.thelocal.es/20131112/spains-solar-police-to-kick-in-your-door

[Deleted User]

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Just bought one of these from ALDI.

6Kg, dry powder, for classes A, b and C.

£19-99, which I personally think is a small price to pay, for peace of mind.

When using it, please remember not to jump from the fire escape, onto discarded spaghetti.

BTW. I notice is says "Handy to have in your boot".

Well, I wouldn't fancy having to make a crash strop, with one of those floating about in the boot.

It'd probably finish up in the passenger seat, alongside you.

Lidl also have these occasionally. I can't remember how much mine cost. I keep mine in the kitchen. I've never had to use mine in anger but it's good to know it is there.

GreyQueen

Which martial arts did you do, if you don't mind my asking? I used to practise aikido about 25 years ago and I think some of the practise stays with you, particularly about paying attention and about being grounded and balanced.

I've always detested shoes which unbalance me, and shoes which are noisy, as I like to walk around very softly. I'm a big woman, too heavy atm as well as tall, but working on the heaviness, but you'll never hear me walking on any other surface than gravel.

If your weight is centred, it's very hard for someone to shove you over, or shove you into traffic. A man I worked with a few years ago left our office one lunchtime and walked into the shopping streets. He wasn't back on time and we became concerned.

He turned up after having given his statement to the Police; he'd been accosted by a man he'd never met before, spat upon and shoved into the road, narrowly avoiding going under a car. All whilst he was bumbling around a lunchtime city centre minding his own business. He was a biggish bloke of about 30 but was left shaken by the experience.

I aim to be like McCavity - if there's trouble, I'm never there, ideally. If my spideysense goes off about a certain place or a certain person, I will just leave. Better people think you're a bit of a kook than you come to harm.

I figure that every person living is the offspring of people who survived hard and dangerous things, millenia in, millenia out. We probably know things, in the short-hairs at the nape of our necks, in that creeping sensation between our shoulderblades, that feeling of UH-OH, which don't make right a lot of sense if we try to articulate them, but serve to keep us safe.

Here's a little bit of homework for you, to be practised somewhere in public. If you can do this whilst cooling your heels somewhere, pick someone with their back to you and stare really hard with all your attention at the back of their head.

Nine times out of ten, they will turn around , sometimes after only seconds, as they sense the pressure of your stare. Whereupon you will nonchalantly avert your eyes and pretend nothing happened.:)

Some animals practise a version of this; they believe if they don't look at you and keep really still, you can't see them in return. I once took a family mog to the vet for a routine appt. This involved folding a large and unwilling animal into a top-loading basket, much against his wishes. He voiced his complaints all the way down the road in the car but once the basket was parked on the vet's examination table, he was like a rock.

I undid the top of the basket. Cat was frozen with all his limbs and tail tucked in, his nose down to almost touch the blanket. Definately no eye contact there. I remarked on how difficult it had been to get him in the basket and now we were going to have to haul him out.

The vet just chuckled and said He's pretending he isn't there. I've noticed other animals pull this stunt, too. It's a kindness to a wild creature which may have accidentally ended up in proximity to a human and be scared to honour its invisibility and pretend you can't see it either.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote:

I keep mine in the kitchen.

I've got mine in the bedroom.

Not just because I'm a red hot lover.

daz378

Thanks for the extinguisher info definitely next on my list, I work a lot of lates , coming home between 9.30-10pm, theres a shortcut to my flats but its between a secure school 7foot railings on one side and the 7 foot fenced off gardens on the other , the 3 foot wide path sandwiched between them and runs for approx 300 metres, i am super alert and my bunch of keys in my right hand ready of course... only to gain entrance to my flat outer gate... and ive grew up round here

GreyQueen

Blimey Daz, that alleyway would give me the willies. Woudn't fancy that at all.

I'm gradually learning where all the CCTV cameras are in my neighbourhood and the city centre and which way they're pointing. They cover one exit out of the Towers but not the others.

I don't know if this information will ever have a RL application but I like knowing when I'm on camera and when I'm not. Plus, never run if you don't want to be noticed. People always look at the runner.........

ETA, Bob, I keep a rolling bin just behind my pillow down the gap between the bedstead and the mattress. Just in case I need to do some nocturnal baking...........nah, it's in case of some ne'erdowell deciding to come thru the front door with extreme prejudice.

I figure if I bean an intruder with a rolling pin it would play better in a court of law than if I went after them with a knife. After all 'respectable middle-aged woman strikes home invader with a rolling-pin' sounds so homey that I'm sure I'd get let off.