26 Sep 2004
Survival
I was watching a programme — with featuring Ray Mears — about bush-craft and survival in the rainforest, and caught myself avidly trying to work out how he made his hammock knots. "When", I thought to myself with a smile, "am I going to have to tie a hammock knot?" But ever since I can remember, I've been fascinated by learning how to do things. It doesn't really matter if I'll never have to use that knowledge, or if I can get along fine without it.
I used to have a book called 'How to Survive', which detailed all kinds of techniques for surviving in the wild, like first aid using plants, starting fires with no matches, and building shelters. The chances of me needing to build a bivouac out of pine branches, a solar still to collect water or a rabbit snare out of saplings in suburban Surrey were extremely slim, but I just loved learning how to do those very practical, very basic things. I spent hours trying to knapp flint at the top of the garden, but only succeeded in producing very blunt fragments which wouldn't cut butter.
I think that my current interest in learning programming languages is just an extension of my flint-knapping attempts. I will probably never be an expert, but I love the process of learning a skill, and being able to do something for myself, rather than waiting for another programmer to produce something I need. We all depend on objects we haven't made, food we haven't grown and machines that we don't really understand the workings of. It's good to get a little control and understanding back, even if it's very limited.
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David: Clearly, one of the survival skills I need to work on is the ability to construct an intelligible sentence
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Re #3: Sometimes a little ambiguity keeps people on their toes.
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Ray Mears' voice on the TV show reminded me irresistably of Marcus Brigstocke doing Giles Wembbley Hogg (the Radio 4 spoof on the travellers piece to recorder stuff). So it was quite difficult to take the program too seriously, which is a bit unfair on Ray Mears as I am quite sure he is the real thing.by Keith @ 27/09/2004 12:10 am • Permalink
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27th Sept 08:38 and your site looks broken! (in IE)6
I have a shameful confession: I have an inordinate interest in primitive house building. I mean, the chances of being in need of fabricating a dwelling in central stockholm is pretty small but I often find myself thinking of how to weave a wicker wall. Actually I am bloody clueless, but facinated. The number of hours I have spent commuting and thinking about roofing techniques is probably enough to have me put away. I think its something to do with long periods of tentless camping as a yoof and seeing a 70's BBC documentary about archeologists recreating an iron age settlement. I am glad though I am not alone in my eccentricity.7
I have tons of survival books. Lots of stuff like that. I used to read non stop about it all the time then go buy another book that told me how to do the same stuff in a slightly different manner. Course... maybe it's slightly more useful for me - since I've been living in my tent for over two months now.
Learnings good, doesn't matter what, why, or if your ever going to use the knowledge. Although, you never know if you will. Maybe next year you will be living outside!
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Ray Mears' show is great. I loved seeing him teach those Amazonian chaps how to make fire - they relied on matches and lighters, he can do it with a stick! And he can happily skin a deer with a machete and roast it in an underground oven. I bet he hand-codes his web site too (raymears.com), unless his machete broke the keyboard...by pete @ 28/09/2004 4:10 pm • Permalink
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Keith: Hehe I'm a fan of Giles Wemmbley Hogg ("two m's, two g's") too. It was even more eerie because he (i.e. Marcus Brigstocke) did one episode in the Amazon, which was absolutely hilarious. I wonder if Ray goes around telling everyone that his father was Chalk-stream Angler of the Year 1985?
Ian: Excellent. I think that this kind of longing for practical things is a rather unexplored side effect of modern life.
Ryan: A tent? But tents are for wimpsâyou should make a pine branch bivouac I hope I don't end up living outside in Birmingham, that's all I can say.
pete: Do I detect a touch of sarcasm? :-D He is a bit much, isn't he...
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Nah, he's all right really. When the big meteorite hits, I'm going to invite him round to my place to set up camp... -----by pete @ 29/09/2004 7:10 pm • Permalink
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I must admit, when I first read the beginning of this post, I thought, "Wow, she was watching TV with Ray Mears?"by BlogBites @ 26/09/2004 4:09 pm • Permalink