My shopping list for the apocalypse
But it is harder than you think, because it's not just a question of throwing a few slabs of baked beans and Stella into the boot of the car. First, there's the question of how long you are going to buy for: how long do you think the putative blackout – or attack – will last, will affect fundamental services? Will the power be down for a day, three days, or a week or longer? What if the water goes down, too?
Welcome to the prepping spiral. Let's start with water. If you reckon you need to drink 1.5 litres a day minimum, that's six litres a day for a family of four, rising to 42 litres a week plus 10-20 litres a day to cook with. But if the water and electricity are off, the gas probably isn't firing on all cylinders either so you'll need something to cook with. That'll be a few bags of barbecue coal in the mix too, then. I just hope that if and when the societal collapse takes place it's in summer so we can make a party of it.
Next, the food. You'll want rations for a week, at least, to be on the safe side. More than that and it probably doesn't bear thinking about – plus you begin to bump into storage problems. Arriving at my local B&M I'm distracted by multipacks of Pot Noodles. I've not eaten one of these since I was a student but I know that they're instant, require very little water and, come the apocalypse, a steaming pot of their chicken and mushroom offering will be the equivalent of the 15-course tasting menu at Gordon Ramsay. So that's my first impulse buy.
But I'm really here for the beans. They're one of the five a day, and they come in a tin you can plausibly heat them in and eat them from so no washing up required. And they're sort of healthy. Chickpeas are good too; a shake of curry powder and you've got a vegetable curry if you squint hard enough. So we might need some mango chutney as well.
Before you know it you are strolling along the aisles of your local budget supermarket meal-planning for the apocalypse. You are weighing the merits of Tilda golden vegetable instant rice at £1 a packet versus a brand you've never heard of called Tiori which is selling something fairly identical-looking at 55p a go. Should you really splurge on the Heinz beans (£8 for two packs of six, so 66.67p each), or go for the slightly cheaper Branston version (with 1 per cent more beans per tin) which come in at 62.5p a can? How much of a difference will it make that you didn't buy the market-leading brand when you are trapped in your house and afraid to go out because of marauding gangs of flesh-eating maniacs come the end of the world? After you've buried the kids in the back garden, will the wife turn around and say 'Darling, I really wish you'd got the Heinz'?
I compromise: 12 of each. Plus I toss in a few tins of frankfurters for the boys and a six-pack of tuna in brine. Then the Fray Bentos ham looks good, too. And I'm sorely tempted by corned beef, but any more of this and we'll need to increase the storage capacity to make way for the heartburn tablets.
I bet lots of people are quietly doing the same. Look at the other shoppers' trolleys next time you're in Tesco. Why have they got so many tins of baked beans?
Next you realise that you're going to need lots of sauces in order to endure any sustained period on a diet of beans, rice and pasta. So I get large bottle of a Lea and Perrins lookalike and some peri-peri sauce.
Then I realise I've forgotten about the dog. You'll need to feed the dog, too, unless you plan to make it part of your ultimate survival plan. She must be carrying a lot of calories. In which case you might want to fatten the dog up a bit before the moment of delectation comes, so splashing out on some top notch dog food might not be a bad idea. It's a very personal choice.
I move on to the vexed issue of toilet tissue. Loo roll. How many, for how long – and of what quality? Do you really want to scrimp on this most intimate of domestic items when you've just radically altered your diet for the worse and when you're experiencing the end of the world as we know it? Might this actually be the moment when a bit of luxury multi-ply loo roll is precisely what you need? It's a big question. At my shop the options are limited: there's Andrex Family Soft at £4.99 for eight rolls and something called Elegance Feather Soft which costs £6.99 for a whopping 32 rolls. I know how my boys burn through this stuff so Elegance it is. I buy two to be on the safe side, knowing that if I end up bleeding to death before the dysentery kills me I will regret it, sorely.
You're going to need some extra bleach, soap and rags and under-the-sink whatnot in this unwanted future, too. And toothpaste, otherwise being trapped in a small place with the family will be a nightmare. Batteries, they'll be essential. And candles. You need a portable FM radio for when there's no internet and no Netflix. And without the internet or television you will also need a complete Encyclopaedia Britannica like we had when we were children, because how else will you be able to answer the questions that inevitably arise? An old set can be bought off the internet for £200. A Scrabble dictionary would be wise too, otherwise things could turn nasty before the blackout ends.
As I said, oreparing for the apocalypse is harder than you imagine. My advice is to start prepping for the prepping now. And maybe begin to think longer term. Black-belt prepping is doing things like decommissioning the garden office and stripping back the decking to reinstate beds so you can grow your own if you need to.
I'm probably being crazy. But I bet lots of people are quietly doing the same. Look at the other shoppers' trolleys next time you're in Tesco. Why have they got so many tins of baked beans? What's the bottled water for when the stuff in the tap is perfectly good? Whatever else, get yourself to B&M before they sell out of the Elegance Feather Soft at £6.99. You'll never regret it.
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