SARAH VINE: Prepping? I’ll be relying on my cocktail Advent calendar to get me through
Ever since Eyelashes Andy first brought the subject up in his casual, bar-snacks-and-Gogglebox sort of way, every midlife woman I know has been dutifully prepping for the Apocalypse.
One friend, unable to sleep owing to prepper-induced anxiety, sat up half the night on Amazon procuring items for each of her children, to be despatched to their various digs and halls of residence.
Another has carefully laminated photocopies of everyone’s passports, attached them to lanyards and hung them by the front door in case of flooding.
Another still has decided that ‘prepper stockings’ will make ideal Christmas presents – an idea, I’m not ashamed to say, I rather wish I’d come up with.
Meanwhile, Ocado, supermarket of choice for the middle classes, reported shortages of key prepper items, such as beans and bottled water. Volvic, Highland Spring and Brecon Carreg appear to be the brands of choice, along with Heinz baked beans and Baxters soups.
I must confess that apart from the purchase of a Moth cocktail Advent calendar (essential to have a decent negroni on hand in the event of Armageddon, I always think), so far I have been somewhat lackadaisical in my stockpiling.
I have, it’s true, placed an order for extra contact lenses, since being comically short-sighted I have no desire to face the end of the world in my bottle-bottom spectacles.
But otherwise, I don’t really see the point. I already have cupboards full of out-of-date tinned goods left over from Covid, I live with my adult children and so buy loo paper in bulk anyway – and I’ve always got at least one case of Sanpellegrino in the house, a legacy of living in Italy.
Ever since Andy Burnham first brought the subject up in his casual, bar-snacks-and- Gogglebox sort of way, every midlife woman I know has been dutifully prepping for the Apocalypse
None of which has stopped my Instagram algorithm from sending me increasingly hysterical adverts featuring various unlikely gadgets intended to prolong my existence in the event of catastrophe.
Most of them look like they wouldn’t survive the postage from China, let alone a Third World War, but the very fact is contributing to a growing feeling that all this prepper talk is just a ruse to get us to buy more stuff – and distract from bigger, more important problems.
A frightened population is a compliant population. We saw that during the pandemic, when the authorities were able to impose all sorts of frankly outrageous restrictions on people with relatively little pushback – and, in many cases, active compliance. This Government’s vague reference to generalised threats is less specific but the effect is the same.
‘It’s just sensible to be prepared,’ Eyelashes told the BBC, somewhat in the manner of Lance Corporal Jones telling everyone not to panic in a way absolutely 100 per cent guaranteed to make everyone immediately panic.
But what, exactly, are we preparing for? And why now as opposed to, say, last month? What has materially changed?
The truth is, not a lot. Trump, Putin, China, the Iranian mullahs: all as mad as they ever were. Climate change, cost of living, energy crisis, immigration: as anxiety-inducing as they ever were. The Doomsday Clock hasn’t gone backwards since 1991, and has been edging inexorably towards midnight for years now.
But what has changed is that Britain now has a government that has apparently given up all pretence of trying to resolve any of these issues – and simply accepts them as the new normal.
‘It’s just sensible to be prepared,’ Eyelashes Andy told the BBC, somewhat in the manner of Lance Corporal Jones telling everyone not to panic in a way absolutely 100 per cent guaranteed to make everyone immediately panic
Indeed, one of the first things Burnham did when he took office was to declare that ‘all parts of the country’ needed to ‘play their part’ when it came to accommodating illegal migrants.
No suggestion, of course, of actually tackling the crisis. This latest campaign is essentially sending the same message. That is to say, the Government is powerless in the face of attacks on our energy infrastructure, sovereignty and digital networks, has no plan and even less appetite for dealing with any of it – so it’s up to us to prepare for the worst.
As well as the depressing air of defeatism, there is also a giant whiff of dead cat about this. After all, what’s the quickest way to distract from a terrifying crisis? An even more terrifying crisis.
In some respects, Burnham is being true to his word. I suppose this is what he means when he talks of taking us back to the 1970s.
After all, that was a decade of frequent power cuts, where no household was without a good supply of candles and matches and where strikes meant all kinds of shortages. Only back then, of course, we were in many respects far more resilient as a nation.
Rationing and the privations of war were not yet a distant memory. People like my grandmother never wasted a morsel of food or threw away a scrap of string.
All communications were analogue, meaning that even if the lights did go out, you could still phone Auntie Betty to make sure she had enough biscuits, and tune in to the radio without needing a digital signal. Cars weren’t reliant on in-built computers. As for water, everyone drank gin anyway, even us children, so there was no issue there.
I think that will be my plan if (or when) the Apocalypse comes. You can keep your tins of tuna and toilet roll. I’ll climb behind the wheel of my 20-year-old car, stick an old CD in the slot, crack open my cocktail Advent calendar and face the end of the world in style.
My diagnosis for Jools
Jamie Oliver’s wife Jools has revealed she has ADHD and autism, but she is too anxious to take the medication – adding that the condition ‘has ruined 45 years’ of her life
Jamie Oliver’s wife Jools has revealed she has ADHD and autism, but she is too anxious to take the medication – adding that the condition ‘has ruined 45 years’ of her life.
While I don’t doubt that she suffers from these afflictions (although these days there does rather seem to be an epidemic of affluent midlife women with access to private medical care being diagnosed with them), it is also the case that she has five children ranging in ages from ten to 24 and is married to a man who may be a brilliant cook but is possibly one of the most exhausting people on the planet.
Jools is also 51, and therefore likely to be perimenopausal, which is in some ways harder than being fully menopausal.
Having to deal with all this is enough to make even the most level-headed person feel like they’re losing their grip – when they are just suffering from a terminal condition called ‘life’.
Could it perhaps be that she just needs a nice bath and a long lie down in a darkened room?
Harry Kane won the Ballon D’Or at the London ceremony on Monday
Harry Kane’s triumphant night at the Ballon D’Or ceremony on Monday was almost derailed by Sadiq Khan’s deranged decision to pedestrianise half of London’s Oxford Street.
The resulting gridlock led to the ceremony being delayed – though it didn’t detract from jubilation over Kane, right.
Still, the questions remain: why is Khan such a plonker, and when can Londoners get their city back?
Insidious threat to parents
It’s a frantic week in Westminster, but somewhere in a quiet corner of Whitehall important, life-changing decisions are being made.
The Joint Committee on the Draft Conversion Practices Bill met this week, with a view to publishing its findings early next year. If this Bill passes (and it likely will), it risks criminalising parents, carers and professionals who, in good faith, attempt to deter gender-questioning children from undertaking social or medical transition.
Anyone who has ever had to deal with the moods of a teenager knows they do not always act rationally or in their own best interests. That is why the law, as it stands, accepts that the parents of anyone under the age of 16 have a right, within reason, to impose boundaries.
With this Bill, that fundamental family safeguard is stripped away. Government is effectively delivering vulnerable children into the arms of ideologues – who will stop at nothing to ensure they convert the next generation to their cause.
On a recent trip to Egypt, I visited the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, which houses the mummified remains of legendary rulers such as Ramses II and Hatshepsut.
While my companions examined the ancient dead with fascination, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of sorrow, and felt compelled to leave. There was something deeply unsettling about those ancient remains, trapped behind glass like moths on pins. Ogling them just felt (to me, at any rate) like a terrible intrusion.
That’s why I understand the decision of two museums in Glasgow to remove the remains of their mummies.
It may seem like woke overreach, but in this instance, I get it. Everyone deserves dignity in death – and there can’t be much of that when surrounded by gaggles of tourists and screaming schoolkids.