REMEMBER: Your worst worry is the worry you haven’t thought to worry about.

      BASICALLY, LIFE IS ALL ABOUT SURVIVAL – you’re dead, you’re outta the game buster.

      Survival: sometimes life is just that. No time to skip around smelling the roses because you’re just too busy gripping onto the cliff edge by your fingernails; you’re exhausted and everything in you is telling you to let go. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is worth hanging on in there bozo, because, just as things can change for the worse, so too can they get a whole lot more appealing. One minute you’re crawling around a desert about to die of thirst, the next you’re drinking a glass of ice-cold lemonade, poolside.

      The difference between life and death: just a bad roll of the dice?

      A calamity can’t always be prevented and luck won’t always be on your side, but you gotta know luck only plays a part.

      REMEMBER: More often than not you can influence how things pan out. Your attitude counts for a lot. NEVER SAY DIE.

      This is my RULE 20: NINETY PER CENT OF SURVIVAL IS ABOUT BELIEVING YOU WILL SURVIVE.

      So long as you keep a cool head then you can make it out of there alive. And, if you make it outta there alive, you have a hope of getting your hands on that glass of ice-cold lemonade. So just keep focused on that, or whatever else it is that gives you a reason to live.

      NO MATTER HOW HOPELESS YOUR SITUATION SEEMS, no matter how tired you are, the thing you gotta do is focus. When in a desperate situation, think about what it is that makes life worth living.

      Simple as that: you have to live because your dog needs walking or Grandma needs a visit.

      Your reward: a jelly donut, an episode of your favourite show. All possible so long as you can dig your way out of that avalanche/navigate your way to land/find water/crawl out of that well/outrun that rhinoceros.

      RIGHT OFF THE BAT you need to know about some useful things to have on your person when things turn bad. OK, so you won’t necessarily carry all these things with you all the time – certainly not if you happen to be a school kid – but if you know you’re headed to the wilderness or the back of beyond then here are some survival equipment suggestions.

SURVIVAL TOOLS

      It can be super handy to have a mini flashlight with you: I usually keep one clipped to my keyring or my belt loop. Useful not only for illumination, it also can be used for signalling and SOS messages.

      Take a PENCIL (pencils are better than pens because they don’t run out of ink or freeze up in sub-zero conditions).

      A SMALL NOTEBOOK is good – you never know when you might need to note something down or leave a message for someone else. No pencil? You can make charcoal from burnt wood. Or perhaps you need to leave a message on a slightly bigger scale – depending on the terrain, you might find chalk, flints, sticks or other materials.

      UNSUITABLE STICKS:

      A) TOO SMALL B) TOO VEGETARIAN C) JUST DON'T, BOZO

      Fire is your friend in a survival situation so keep your MATCHES safe: don’t waste them and don’t get ’em wet. A good tip is to keep them in a watertight container at all times.

      For obvious reasons a PENKNIFE can be very handy in the wild. Use it for gutting fish, cutting up food, string, bandages, whittling wood, and countless other things.

      You can use SAFETY PINS to remove splinters, replace a missing button or broken zipper, as a fishing hook, to pin a note to a tree, to secure the opening to a makeshift shelter… and I’m sure you’ll find a whole bunch of other things to use ’em for.

      STRING: what can I say? String is just one of those things that can be super useful. It’s light and easy to carry so why not keep it in your backpack for any emergency? You’ll think of a use for it.

      MAGNIFYING GLASS. I’m not gonna dwell on this since I’m sure you all know (but just in case some of you have been living on Mars) you can use a magnifying glass to start a fire. Hold it over some tinder (dry grass and leaves) and let the sun shine through. It will heat up and after a short while make flames. Once you’ve done that, you can use it to look at tiny things.

      REMINDER: In case you’re being a duh brain: this method of fire lighting only works if the sun is out.

      Take a COMPASS that glows in the dark – but make sure you know how to read it or it’ll be worse than useless bozo.

      Take NEEDLES AND THREAD for fixing clothes, or making an improvised compass if you’ve forgotten yours.1 Take a few, and make sure one of them has a very big eye for use with thick threads, or for if you have taken some sinew from a deer to use as thread. You never know, it might happen.

      CANDLES are useful for light when you have made shelter. Choose tallow candles, as these are made from fat and can also be eaten in an emergency.

      If you can then take a little bit of SALT with you; it won’t take up much space and salt is an essential nutrient and often very hard to find in the wild.

      A large POLYTHENE SURVIVAL BAG about two metres by half a metre can be a life-saver. In an emergency you can get inside to preserve heat – but LEAVE YOUR HEAD OUT so you can breathe, bozo. Or, in less of an emergency, you can use it to get water from trees,2 or cut it to make a sheet shelter.3

SPECTRUM GADGETS

      OK,