I've got you beat. 10 years old, living in Wakefield, which was the same distance from RAF Finningley as Sheffield, and my uncle Malcolm was stationed at Finningley at the time. It was practically a film about exactly what would happen to me.
Earlier that year the air raid warning claxon on the town hall had gone off (apparently "accidentally" but it was probably a test) at about 7am, waking up the whole town - except me, who managed to sleep through it! I was quite cross that my mother hadn't bothered to wake me up given that I might've had just four minutes to live, but now that I think about it, it probably wasn't a bad decision.
The claxon horn went off again while we were in school assembly later that morning. It was pretty spooky to hear it in peace time.
Something I've always found comical, and worrying about tests on sirens like that, what if the event they are to warn you about happened as they was going off, everyone would just think "oh it's only a test", then by the time you work out/find out it isn't a test you are dead.
I cannot believe what I am reading! Have you, the citizens in the UK, forgot that in 1940 you got booted out of France, had all of about 12 Spitfires, London was getting firebombed, yet you persevered, Like the UK has had for the past 2,000 years.
I thought that the fine people of the United Kingdom were patriotic! If, God forbid, the UK was attacked, what are you going to do, slouch and mope at the enemy? I do not think so! You would fight like hell, like you did in so many countless wars and invasions.
The problem with a Nuke is sheer phychological effect - a bomb drops and goes bang, and will hurt you, maybe even kill you. A Nuke drops and you get vapourized. Instantly. Gone. Forever. Nothing you can do. If you survive? you get the greatest light show you could ever imagine, and then loose all your hair and die of radiating poisoning. Fun.
I'm sure the Goverments advice was simply to kerb the waves of people coming to terms with the fact there was NOTHING they could do, and they were f*cked if it ever "kicked off", and instead they were told to move doors and matresses about, if metal can be melted, people vapourized, brick houses obliterated WTF is a bit of fabric or a bit of wood gonna do?!
If you use a modern head, the governments information film showing the flash coming through some blokes window and him ducking while the newspaper he was reading catches fire, and that being it seems stupid, but at the same time it's worrying to know that 20 years ago this was all the knowledge that i hoped would saved me from Nuclear Armegeddon.
Threads is by far the scariest thing i've ever watched simply because some crappy horror film is simply completely unbelievable, and when you flick the lights back on you realise that the odds of a convict escaping from the local 30 mile away) prison and posing as a hitchiker to kill people is rediculous, but yet with threads it was only ever a stones throw away. No country wanted it, but the US and Russia both thought they were going to get attacked, and as they tried to build up defence they sparked each other. Were the same as Cavemen, only now we have bigger sticks.
Yay.
</Off Topic, Cider Induced Rant>
EDIT - Jordan, Sirens are never going to make the difference between life or death, but simply how badly you get injured.
@ Jayhawk, in the "good old days" of 1940 maybe, but i'm part of a recent generation that couldn't give a sh*t. If a Nuclear bomb hit we wouldn't do anything, we'd be so hopelessly unprepared (for the aftermath) very few people would survive.
IMO Threads highlights the thing no-one ever talks about - the Survivors. People always talk about how to "survive a nuclear attack" but never quite say what to do afterwards, and hearing that after survival we've gone back 500 years socially, and over 2000 years climatically, to a "dog eat dog" world where society is destroyed makes Vaporisation look very tempting.
It is the British disease, many brits only know how to do one thing, moan and bitch about how good they have it (The UN has said we have the best health care in the world, but brits always bitch and moan about it), very few of us are patriotic because it might be seen as racist. England is too liberal for it's own good. Brown is hoping to change that, and I hope he does.
Fun story about WWII. Before it started Hitler knew he could never beat England [edit: he also believed we are where the aryan race started], so he asked us if we wanted to become allies with him, we turned him down and warned Russia, they called us war mongers and we should piss off. Soon after Germany started attacking people and Russia was all "ohshit, do we have egg on our faces now".
Hitler knowing he couldn't get to England via the Channel as it was defended too well, he wanted to go in via Ireland, and the Irish, hating us as much as the Scots do, said yes, then they saw how much of a nutter Hitler was figured they'd be over thrown and told Hitler to piss off.
There were many times during WWII where the Germans would have finished off the British but each time we was in a position like in WWI where we was surrounded by many Germans but was able to hold them off and push them back, so each time Hitler found himself in a position like this he'd halt the advance and gave us breathing room which allowed regrouping and rearming.
When it comes to defensive, England is safe as houses. But because of our Liberal nature schools only teach the bad sides of British History, the media only talks about the bad sides of any story. We are too self critical. But it is what England is now, self hating Liberal pussies.
Think fire alarms, food warnings, anything like that, they are regularly tested, or like when I was at uni, malfunction and go off randomly. People tend to ignore them and think "oh, it is a test" or "it is on the frits again", but what if that one time the alarm was real, you'd be screwed.
IIRC Britain had over 1000 operational fighters at the end of Hitler's aborted invasion. The problem was never the supply of planes, but the supply of well-trained pilots. Bizarrely, being a pilot was considered such a prestigious job in our armed forces that it was only upper class young men from well-to-do families who got to fly the planes, whether they showed any aptitude for it or not. Which is probably why the most effective squadron we had was made up of Polish pilots!
Actually the UK hasn't successfully fought off that many invasions - the only notable one was WW2. We were famously invaded by the Romans, the Vikings, the Normans (who may well have been of Viking descent but they had French accents) - we love getting invaded, and we're very good at it.
Does it really matter? We are too busy applying labels to people, taking their opinions and classing them as a stereotype because of it to do anything. You can't have your own opinion, you have the "nationalist" opinion or whatever and whatever they now believe you apparently do to. Arguing over politics changes nothing because the only thing you can ever do to make a difference in politics is with assasination.
Sorry for yet ANOTHER random rant, but i have very... Right Wing parents who talk so much BS. Their motto is "Question what you hear", and yet if they get questioned on their beliefs their response is "erm... erm... you'd be an idiot not to realise xxx!"
I lost interest if something sounded racist a while ago, I guess I could have tarted up what I said so it wasn't as blunt, but the point still remains, that is what happened during the whole Afghan crud, made me laugh.
Extreme right is fascism, and liberalism is communism. I'd rather not be either.
Threads was such a paranoia tool, other than scaring the shite out of the English public, what was the point in it? All I took from watching it was if England does get nuked you'll find me stood directly under the nuke starkers with a bullseye taped to my forehead. I mean, come on, they had no broadband, can you believe it? I'd go insane after a month.
I did laugh at those guys saying "giveus", I assume that was because their English skills were supposed to be close to nothing, but I hear people say that a lot these days.
If the U.S. were to enter such a war with the world against Russia, we would be somewhat of a minority in the war. Here are some reasons.
1. Statistics show only ~250,000 soldiers in the military (you have to be kidding, I would have expected more from a country populated with 300 million people!)
2. The government gets so scared of soldier loss so they refuse to send in more.
3. Referring to #1- pure fear of death by citizens which is the reason they won't join the military. Our military is supposedly well trained, but it seems the numbers are down so much because people aren't committed to the hard work of training and being away from home to defend our country and help others.
The state of Russia's air-force is pathetic at the moment. They may have all the latest Sukhoi aircraft, but the majority of the pilots and ground-crew haven't been paid in years and are keeping the aircraft going purely for a love of the job on zero budget. They certainly will never have air-superiority over Europe. Missiles on the other hand, are a different question.
Incidentally the US are planning an orbital defence network called - wait for it - 'Skynet'. Have they never seen Terminator? Its only a matter of time before it acheives sentience...
The MoD is already using a satellite system called skynet, which is for communications and the launching of any satellite controlled weapons.
Thanks, though I noticed the banner when I watched Threads.
I've always loved hippies, even today they will scream for people to turn on the government and generally smash shit up then once the police get involved they scream "peaceful protest, peaceful protest".
Accurate or not, if I was to watch something like that at a time when people are crapping themselves already I'd expect some sort of survival advice from it, hell even something as simple as "Bin bags and duct tape will save you from nuclear fallout" (got to love the US Government) would have be nice.
Patriotism is an infantile emotion. It was very nearly (but unfortunately not completely) annihilated in the trenches of the first world war. Many patriotic Brits went out to fight in that war, only to realise that they had been used, exploited, and generally crapped upon by a ruling class that treated them as cannon fodder in times of trouble, and as an expendable commodity in times of growth and prosperity.
We didn't go to war in the forties out of a sense of patriotism. We went to fight fascism. We came back and built the infrastructure for a state that would work for our benefit.
The problem with Britain is that somewhere along the line we put that future back in to the hands of the people our grandparents were really fighting against.
That was a truly ungrateful, if not willfully masochistic, thing to do....
This is the best read I've seen in ages, clearly they didn't know that radiation stays radioactive for longer than 14 days.
After reading Protect and Survive I feel so much safer, who knew books and clothing were radiation proof. Forget building a lead lined bunker, just duct tape clothing and books around the walls.
People are abused in every war, as war is just to men with lots of power having an argument but too scared to fight one on one.
It doesn't mean you cannot love your country, sure the government is full of morons, but we have some of the best services available to use, sure we're not the super power we once was, doesn't mean you cannot be proud of where you live.
I like the "remove doors from there hinges and stand them at 45DEG angle to make a makeshift shelter", and then "remember to close all doors" LMAO, what close the doors you just told me to remove? hehehe.
On the brighter side, at least we all know where the "secret" government bunkers are these days
Simple, steal your neighbours doors when he is dead from radiation poisoning after he tried to steal your food.
Yeah, just follow the road signs. If S****horpe ever got hit no matter what I did I'd be dead, hell you wouldn't need a nuke to wipe S****horpe off the map and put thousands (maybe even millions) of other lives in danger, just blow up BOC, this refinery supplies around 70% of England's O2.
One of my favourite was "after a nuclear blast water can become contaminated by radiation" which was shortly followed by "after the inital blast use the this time to restock water supplies and put out small fires. From the mains if possible".
Not really the point I was trying to make.... If you want a short version: patriotism makes you blind to the fact that you are abused just as much in peace time.
Shut up, eat shit, and be proud. Not a life that I can be happy with.
Yes, you're eating shit, is this when you're starving to death, dying of thirst, or walking on land mines? I can never remember.
You have it good, in fact you have it so good you don't really know how easy your life is. Lets say you get hungry, you just walk to the cupboard, and if that is empty you walk to a store. You then need a drink, you turn on a tap. In the process of all this eating and drinking you figure you should watch some TV, read a book and arse about on the internet well telling people how shit you have it.
But oh no, you stubbed your toe on your dining table and it looks broken, but that is okay, you'll just go to the A&E where you shall receive free medical care. Where does this shit start again?
Well, thanks for demonstrating the "shut up" part, but I would be eating shit, if I was to even remotely take you seriously.
If you are happy with a life of wage slavery... keep it. If you enjoy the social alienation brought upon your life by its total commodification... then carry on. If you are happy to enjoy your own reflection, at the expense of never experiencing that tinge of fear that comes with leaving the script behind... fair enough.
By the way, the NHS and a vast amount of the other public utilities in this country, were designed, built, and maintained by people who think very differently from you. People who had ambition. People who didn't shut up.
They didn't shut up, but they still loved the country they lived in and wanted to make it better. You're just one of the many douche bags who float around bitching about how nice you have it.
Be a "rebel" and be a snow flake, free thinking and all that, but unless you do something worthwhile with it (bitch about the the luxury you have isn't worthwhile) you're no better then the people who shut up and live by wage slavery.
Sorry, I have to laugh at that, because right now you're using systems, wearing clothing and enjoying items which you only have because of "wage slavery". God dammit people like you are why I wake up in the morning laughing to myself.
Have they never seen Terminator? Its only a matter of time before it acheives sentience... 
