7 Reasons

Tag: Safe

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Call Home Regularly While Travelling

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Call Home Regularly While Travelling

    Those wishing to avoid excessive roaming charges while exploring the far flung corners of the globe may assume that relying on emails and instant messaging services offer the best way to stay in touch with those left behind. There are, however, many cheap ways to call home while travelling, and plenty of reasons to do so – here are just seven of them.

    7 Reasons To Call Home Regularly While Travelling

    1.  To check on your housesitters. So you’re off on a year’s trip around the world and you’ve rented the house out to that lovely old Mrs Bates. Admittedly her son Norman was a little creepy, but everything will be alright, won’t it? There are simply some occasions when an email just can’t give you the reassurances you need, and a human voice can.

    2.  To gloat. You may have posted your photos on Facebook and kept your travel blog full of daring escapades and tantalising travel titbits, but nothing can make you enjoy your holidays more than hearing those miserable voices from back home still moaning about the weather, congestion on the road to work and humdrum details of their daily life. Make that call to really feel great about your break.

    3.  To borrow money. After kicking off your travels with a week in Monte Carlo, your carefully made travel budget plans may suddenly be looking about as secure as the Greek economy. When the chips are down, a pleading email for money just won’t give you the emotional edge that you require to secure that couple of thousand needed to carry out your itinerary. Make sure you’re ready to sound really desperate as your fingers dial home.

    4.  To secure favours. It’s lovely to get a phone call from a friend or relative who has been out of the country for a while and you can make that warm glow work to your advantage. Once you’ve made sure they’re feeling special and loved (“I just wanted to hear your voice to make me feel like I was home…”) you can get them working for you to finish off all those bits you didn’t get around to before dropping everything and taking off on your trip of a lifetime.

    Garden watered – check. Mail opened and answered – check. Taxing your motorbike (“It’s just impossible from this godforsaken place”) – check. With just one or two phone calls it can be a done deal.

    5.  To apologise for the lack of birthday presents. That special anniversary or birthday really shouldn’t be missed just because you’re away. If there’s an internet connection, there is always Amazon and they’ll even gift wrap it for you. It just is so easy to forget dates back home when you’re far away from it but, don’t worry, a phone call can put things right. There is, however, one date that you forget at your peril. You don’t need to send a present but this could truly be your last trip anywhere, ever, if you don’t call home on Mother’s Day.

    6.  To speak to work. Sometimes we just need to extend our travels. After all, the flights have all been paid for and we’re already in Asia, so an extra couple of weeks won’t cost the earth ─ if only it can be squared with the boss. This one is best handled by a call rather than an email. And, if you need that job when you return get your reasons, excuses and sob stories straight before you’re connected.

    7.  Because it’s just so darn cheap! Calling home from abroad simply doesn’t have to be expensive. With internet calls offered by VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services you can actually call home from most places in the world for free.

    Skype allows you to make phone or video calls but with services like those offered by Vonage.co.uk you don’t even need a computer to make an internet call. Find out how to set up a new phone number that you can use from any phone near a broadband supply and you could be calling home from anywhere for the price of a local call. Now you have no excuses!

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Would Be Safe In The Event Of An Alien Invasion

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Would Be Safe In The Event Of An Alien Invasion

    When Sam Murray knocked on our email inbox, we thought he’d come to check on the progress of our chest hairs. Thankfully, he just wanted somewhere to hide. The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! Erm…here’s Sam.

    ET
    Frustratingly, Earth's atmosphere had caused ET's breasts to sag.

    We have all been there, drifting off into a daydream you begin to wonder what you would do if you won the lottery, how long it would take for you to trap a badger out in the wilderness, or what would happen if there was an alien invasion? Well, fear not as I can answer one of them, no, not the badger daydream but the alien invasion. And the good news is, we would all be safe.

    Gone are the days that the most well protected place on Earth was the sweet cupboard or the chocolate box in your house as a child. Here we look at the 7 most well protected places on Earth not only to appease your curiosity but to let you plan the quickest route in your Sat Nav if an invasion ever did happen.

    1.  Fort Knox. Fort Knox is the commonly used name for the United States Bullion Depository. Understandably very little information about the security systems and technologies used at the Gold Depository is known to the general public but we do know the depository is protected by numerous layers of physical security, alarms, video cameras, armed guards, including; Apache helicopter gunships, around 30,000 soldiers, with associated tanks, armoured personnel carriers, attack helicopters, and artillery. It is rumoured a 3 headed dog similar to the one in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone is rumoured to guard the entrance.

    2.  Doomsday Seed Vault. The Doomsday vault opened in 2008 and is located in a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean. It is essentially a vault which contains more than 100 million seeds representing every major food crop on Earth which is why it gets its nickname as the Noah’s Ark for plant genetics. The vault is protected by an armed guard and if that doesn’t put the aliens off then hopefully the -40°C and the fact they have forgot their thermals will. The vault has also been designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes – 6.2 magnitudes – and even a direct nuclear strike.

    3.  Mormon’s Church Vaults. The Granite Mountain Record Vault, which is the Mormon church’s vaults for storing genealogical and other historical records. The vault is flood-proof, fire-proof and even earthquake-proof, unfortunately it doesn’t say anything about it being alien proof. The vault also contains 6-ton blast doors and seismic sensors can detect if anyone is drilling to get in which I think will stand you in very good stead

    4.  Bahnhof’s Underground Data Center. At first glance it may seem to be the setting for Dr Evil latest lair in Austin Powers but it is the home to Internet Service Providers Bahnhof and if you are to believe the media then if anyone needs protecting due to the amount of enemies they have made then it is these guys… I don’t think aliens are amongst that list but you should be safe if they are as the site is an old nuclear bomb shelter, situated 100 feet below a mountain in Stockholm and accessed via foot thick steel doors.

    5.  Saddam Hussein’s Bunker. Mr Hussein was a much sought after man but judging by his home he wasn’t the most sociable chap. Saddam built an impenetrable underground fortress that could and did withstand bombs. The US military dropped two 2-ton “bunker busting” bombs clean on top of Saddam’s bunker completely destroying the palace above, but not affecting the bunker below which should make you feel safer against any alien attack. Apparently, the shelter was designed by the grandson of the woman that built Hitler’s bunker and came as they called “fully furnished” as they called it in the trade. That means it had its very own power station, water treatment plant and air filtering system.

    6.  The Tower of London. [Insert funny witticism regarding the crown jewels here] Fortunately there will be no touching as the security measures are very tight. There are tower guard sentries throughout the Tower of London complex and every street and every path leading there is guarded by sentries, 24 hours a day, every day, every night. The safest part of the Tower of London is where the Queen’s Jewels are situated so if you can get in there you have made it to safety. They are hosted on a single-level, on the ground floor inside the Army barracks and with reports stating there are up to 1,000 soldiers based there.

    7.  Area 51. Area 51 is the most infamous alien crash site and probably the first place they would attack, which is why I have left this last on the list and is realistically the last place you should consider, okay, second last after the sweet cupboard. The borders of Area 51 are not fenced, but are marked with orange poles and warning signs both of which would be unlikely to deter any invasion. But stay calm as there is still hope as the base is guarded by the US military and is their test base for all new military aircraft, including stealth planes, B2 Bombers, F-117 Nighthawks and if the conspiracy theorist are right (and for once everyone hopes they are) a few top secret weapons which means they should be able to defend you.

    This article was written in association with Yale composite doors who securely protect you in your home. The doors are manufactured in the UK, adhere to the standards set by the makers of the world’s favourite lock and conform to police approved security standards.