Well done Spain for winning the World Cup, and well done England and France for providing an entertaining game for third place. Well done Wayne Rooney too for describing the final’s half-time entertainment so aptly! But now for something completely different. This week is the Farnborough International Air Show where the latest aerospace technology provides a reminder of the awesome rapidity of technological advances and also of the current hostile threat landscape that must be countered. It’s a dangerous world and so recent reports – see here and here – that the UK will, in 2027, hold its largest home defence exercise in decades, is good news. There will also apparently be a public awareness campaign later this year to inform everyone about the small steps they can take to be prepared in case of emergencies or disruptions. This seems long overdue when modern life relies on ‘digital first’ for everything.
The Badger’s parents kept candles, matches, some empty glass jam jars, a torch with spare batteries, some pencils and paper, and some tins of corned beef, SPAM, and vegetables in the back of a cupboard for emergencies. The Badger often asked whether this was necessary, and the answer was always ‘yes, because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring’. Their generation lived the hardships of World War II and its aftermath, and so their caution was understandable. In fact, their emergency candles, matches, and glass jars, often proved invaluable during prolonged power cuts when the Badger was a child. During these they sometimes enabled the Badger to complete his homework! Their simple emergency preparedness measures were sensible, especially when the world is rarely as benign or predictable as you’d wish it to be.
Today, we depend on immediacy, just-in-time supply chains, and the tech devices, communication networks, and digital data flows that make the modern world function. Online banking, online purchasing, social media, and even AI are useless if your ability to connect disappears! What would you do if electricity were suddenly unavailable for weeks? How would you get up to date information? How would you cope if supermarket shelves quickly emptied? Do you know how you would function if hostile actors damaged the ~60 undersea cables that connect the UK to the outside world? Have you ever thought about your own emergency preparedness? As individuals we rarely think about such questions. While the authorities and big business have emergency response plans, implementing them is never straightforward in practice. In the current world climate, not having some level of personal preparedness for emergencies or disruptions seems akin to putting one’s head in the sand.
The message here is thus simple. Don’t wait for an awareness campaign to start thinking about having a modern equivalent of ‘something at the back of the cupboard for emergencies’. Start now! It’s the responsible thing to do…
