The coming apocalypse and how to survive it

You have probably noticed that many of my posts are entitled "Views of Scotland". If I had chosen blogging software which allowed me to categorise my posts, I would have included "Views of Scotland" as one of the categories. Another one would have been "The coming apocalypse and how to survive it". I have a morbid fascination with the notion of an apocalypse and I am determined, if at all possible, that were an apocalypse to occur, I should be one of the survivors. So, naturally, I have read the Preparing for Emergencies booklet from cover to cover. It's a bit of a disappointment. The old Protect and Survive booklet was a much better read, containing lots of fun things to do, like building a fallout shelter in your living room. To be fair, I suppose the emergencies in question, while nasty, fall somewhat short of an apocalypse, so the target audience is likely to include many more people than your typical apocalypse enthusiasts.

One book, which looks like it might be worth a read, is the Zombie Survival Guide, excerpts of which are available here. Having been scared witless by such films as Twenty Eight Days Later, and the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, it comes as a relief to learn that

...the body of the undead is, for all practical purposes, human. What changes do occur are in the way this new, reanimated body is used by the now-infected brain. There is no way a zombie could fly unless the human it used to be could fly. The same goes for projecting force fields, teleportation, moving through solid objects, transforming into a wolf, breathing fire, or a variety of other mystical talents attributed to the walking dead. Imagine the human body as a tool kit. The somnambuli brain has those tools, and only those tools, at its disposal. It cannot create new ones out of thin air.

Snippets of information such as this are essential for reducing anxiety, so that what may, at first sight, appear to be a hopeless disaster, will in reality be a manageable ordeal.

For more on the coming apocalypse, read Brian Micklethwait's The Menace of the Apocalyptic Individual.

Heads I win, tails you lose

I regret missing Crossing Continents on Radio 4 this evening. Here's what the Radio Times had to say about it:

8.30 Crossing Continents - Crossing Europe
8/8. Taking a Chance? Rosie Goldsmith meets one man who, in an unprecedented case in France, is suing his local casino after becoming addicted to slot machines. He says the casino should have prevented him from losing all his money and destroying his life. But should a casino bear such responsibility? In Switzerland, by contrast, a government sponsored scheme trains casino staff to identify problem gamblers and offer advice.

Here is the story in more detail.

Being of a mathematical bent, I am rather fascinated by gambling and am not averse to the occasional night out in a casino. I am also intrigued by possible techniques for beating the house. One of my favourite books is The Newtonian Casino about a group of physicists who built computers for predicting the outcome of a spin of a roulette wheel. I have also earmarked card-counting as a skill to learn sometime in the future. I doubt that I'll use it for real though - I'd rather not have my legs broken if I get caught.

This one man in France, however, seems to have hit upon a remarkable wheeze. Gamble all your money away, feign a suitable amount of distress, claim that you were suffering from gambling addiction, assert that the casino is responsible for your affliction, sue the casino and get your money back, hopefully more to compensate for your suffering.

Genius. I would never have thought of it myself. I sincerely hope he loses.