7 Reasons

Tag: vault

  • 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.

  • 7 Reasons That The Pole Vault is Weird

    7 Reasons That The Pole Vault is Weird

    It’s almost Christmas, dear readers, and what better and more seasonal topic is there to ruminate over than the pole vault?  Well, possibly just about any other topic but, as I was lying in bed, unwell, with a bit of a fever, my thoughts naturally turned to the pole vault (well, whose wouldn’t?) and it struck me that the pole vault is really, really weird.  Here’s why.

    South Korea (Korean) Pole Vaulter Kim Yoo Suk
    …and so does your sport.

    1.  Titular Obscurity.  We all know what the pole vault is, because we’re introduced to it at a young age.  But what if we didn’t know?  Other athletics events are titularly obvious; the high jump; the long jump, we know what to expect from those just by their names.   But what would we expect to see if told that we were about to witness the pole vault?  It sounds like someone jumping over a pole, or a cellar for keeping Polish people in.  Or leaping over a Polish person.  Or Polish people vaulting.  Or a storage area for poles.  What the name doesn’t convey is anything at all about what you can expect to see, which is a Russian man with a stick jumping over a bar (which doesn’t resemble the sort of bar that you’d want to frequent at all, it’s just another stick the other way up, balanced between two other sticks).  It’s literally all sticks.  I would rather watch the cellar full of Polish people.

    2.  It’s Cheating.  The closest relation to the pole vault must surely be the high jump; an event in which athletes compete to see who can jump the highest – something that we can all identify with and can do ourselves at home.  But the pole vault takes the noble pursuit of seeing who can leap the highest, and adds a long pole into the mix so that competitors can go three times as high as they would naturally be able to.  But why?  Of course you can go higher if you have a ruddy great stick to help you.  I can swim much faster than normal if I’m wearing flippers and Speedos with jet propulsion, but that doesn’t make me a good swimmer.   Fortunately, I doubt that they’re going to make the 100 metres backstroke with flippers and jet-thrusting-pants an Olympic event alongside the regular swimming any time soon, which is a good thing, because I’d look bloody stupid in that getup and I never win anything anyway.  And it would be weird, and we already have the pole vault for that.

    3.  They’re Missing The Point.  Pole vaulters vault to see who can vault the highest, but that’s not even the point of vaulting.  Because vaulting originated as a way for the Dutch to cross dykes (everyone glad that I’m not AA Gill at this moment?  Good, me too).  So the true measure of the vaulter’s prowess should be distance.  In short, they’re doing it wrong.  Let’s make them vault over a river; that would be true to the origins of the sport and a damned sight more entertaining.  They’re missing the point of their own sport.

    4. Exclusion.  It keeps better events out of the Olympics.  Because I don’t need to know who can jump very high with the help of a big stick.  I want to see people test the limits of human performance without artificial aid.  Do you know what I want to know?  I want to know how fast people can spin, because we just don’t know that.  I propose the one minute spin, an event in which each competitor stands within a circle a metre in diameter and has a minute in which to spin as many times as possible (clockwise or anti-clockwise, it’s freestyle), and the winner is the person who attains the highest rate of RPM.  That’s what I want to see, and then I want to watch them trying to walk back to their chairs and attempting to put their tracksuit bottoms back on.  Because that sort of spectacle would make the Olympics ten times better.

    5.  The Equipment Is Unwieldy.  And what right-minded person would take up the bloody sport in the first place?  If I were tall, athletic and good at going over bars (rather than sitting behind them. Still, two out of three isn’t bad) I’d choose the high jump.  Because it’s exactly the same as the pole vault, but you don’t have to lug a pole around with you as a part of your kit.  Because taking up the pole vault is like taking up the double bass or the tuba.  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  What if you were reliant on public transport?  How would you fancy trying to get on a rush-hour tube train with a seventeen foot long pole?  It’s difficult enough with a modestly proportioned holdall or a large satchel.  Okay, so you’d be able to hold the doors open for as long as it took to get on but, I speak with absolute confidence here, it would be a bit burdensome.  In fact, it would be a faff.  In much the same way that holding up the world was a faff for Atlas.

    6.  Double Entendre.  There is literally nothing that you can say about pole vaulting that isn’t a double entendre.  After all, it’s a sport which involves physically exerting yourself until you’re panting and thrusting a long, rigid shaft into a box before you briefly soar heavenward and eventually end up lying sweaty and exhausted on a mattress with a horizontal pole.  And if there isn’t scope for euphemism, metaphor, allusion and plain seaside postcard bawdiness there then…um…well there just clearly is.  And Wikipedia isn’t even trying for innuendo when it says, “…pole stiffness and length are important factors to a vaulter’s performance.”  It is impossible to discuss the pole vault without innuendo.

    7.  Confusion.  Because while the name pole vault, as we have established, is misleading, once you’ve accepted the illogic of it, you’re in for further frustration and disappointment.  When I was four years old and I started school, you can have absolutely no idea how excited I was when I was told that in the school gym there was a vaulting horse.  A vaulting horse, I thought with wide-eyed astonishment.  That’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever heard in my life.  They’ve got a horse that can vault!  A raging stallion that can shoot itself into the sky with the aid of a pole!  A pony that can rocket over a lofty bar!  A mare that can soar through the air and land on a mattress!  They’ve got a wondrous, magical creature!  The most awesome beast I ever will see!  They’ve got an athletic super-horse!  They’ve got…that wooden thing in the corner that looks like a weird shed for midgets? What the hell is that? Is life always going to be like this?