An accident at a top secret weapons facility brings chaos, death and destruction onto humanity? Stephen King must have had an amazing fantasy and imagination to think of that one, as it could never possibly happen in real life. Oh, wait…
A short comedy sketch to show the similarities between science fiction and real life happenings on this fun packed planet. Controversial material, but when it becomes globally taboo to talk about something which has utterly changed every person’s life, one has to wonder why…
Change Your Destiny – 10 Things Bucket List
2020 threw a major spanner in the works for many people’s lives around the world. Many careers and businesses slammed into a brick wall and many will never come back again. Many people have spent the last year locked inside 4 walls, listening to the media drone on 24 hours a day about how many are ill or dying. Depressing stuff. And, because of this, it’s very difficult to even see a glimmer of hope for the future. In this video I suggest the 10 Things Bucket List as a means of refocusing one’s mind and self and giving oneself aims and targets for the future, both short and long term. Without goals we just wander aimlessly, and thus fall foul to political and media shenanigans. We need to have something positive to work towards or mentally we’re never going to get out of this engineered mess.
This is the path to true self-reliance. Where you become the focus of your own life and you can regain control of your destiny. After all, it’s your life to lead, and it should be you who decides how you live it.
Snow Trench – The Quickest Winter Survival Shelter?
A blizzard is coming in and you’re out there in the wilderness. You need to quickly build some sort of shelter to protect you from the elements, snow, windchill and freezing temperatures, to keep you safe during the night. Using only the basic equipment most hikers or outdoors adventurers would have on them, I show how to build a snow trench using just a shovel and a tarp or poncho. The snow trench is probably the easiest and fastest type of Winter snow shelter to construct. It also works.
It’s one thing to watch TV shows which are set in the ideal location and under the ideal conditions to build a shelter, and it’s another to find yourself alone in the woods facing a snow storm or oncoming night time and have to make do with just what you’re carrying in order to survive.
And in this video, Nature decided that I should prove my skills and turned nasty on me. Miles away from home, alone in a deciduous forest, in way below zero conditions and deep snow, and evening rapidly approaching, Nature went all The Long Dark on me.
It really helped me remember that life is an adventure, and that you can’t really appreciate life until you’ve tested your limits and survived. The adrenaline buzz that follows (once you’ve warmed up and recovered) is incredible.
The basic kit I use in this video are a vintage Czechoslovak army poncho, a Swiss Mountain rucksack and a Russian shovel (Spetznaz shovel).
Quinzee Snow Shelter – review and build (snow cave, snow kennel)
Snow shelters come in all shapes and sizes, from the renowned Inuit igloo to simple snow trenches. This is the Quinzee snow cave, made by heaping snow into a dome and then tunnelling out a living area within. In this video I make a Quinzee snow shelter and give my honest opinion on how useful it is in a survival situation. The Quinzee snow cave is useful when hard packed frozen snow is not available to build an Inuit igloo, and there is only powdery snow.
I made it primarily because it was fun to do so and so that my Jack Russell could have somewhere to hide from the constant freezing temperatures, snow and blizzard winds while he is protecting my property (he still gets to sleep in my bed though…).
Filmed with a Panasonic Lumix FZ300/FZ330 with a Polaroid UV lens and an Apeman 4k action camera
Throwing Hot Water Into Cold Air (2) – or how to make snow
Hot water freezes when exposed to cold air creating a cloud and snow. Today we finally had blue sky and freezing temperatures so I thought I’d remake the first video (and make it a lot shorter) to show what happens when you toss a cup of kettle-boiled water into sub-zero temperature air. There was a blizzard going on whilst filming so it did affect the cloud somewhat, but it still looks beautiful.
Warning – don’t try this at home as it does involve boiling water!
Filmed with a Panasonic Lumix FZ300 / FZ330 with a Polaroid UV lens
Slow Motion Garden Bird Battle – Great Tit versus Blue Tit (in snow)
All-round favourite Great Tit goes up against the tiny contender Blue Tit in this shocking battle for dominance over cake crumbs in snow in the dead of Winter. Who will come out on top? Never before seen footage of two of the most popular garden birds duking it out for their very survival, and fat bellied greed. All bets are off when it comes to ornithological aerial combat…
Filmed with a Panasonic Lumix FZ300/FZ330 with a Polaroid UV lens at 100 FPS
Soul Food – Stalking Red Deer In Snow
A short escape from city life and pandemic lockdowns. In this video I take you tracking animals with me in the deep snow. Along with a red fox hunting for rodents, I stalk a pair of red deer hinds as they try to rummage for food in the freezing conditions of the Carpathian Mountains. There’s also an old abandoned log cabin in the woods….
I live a very isolated rural life in my cottage in a small village, but this provides me with what I believe to be the most important aspect of our existence (apart from family and friends) – a deep connection to nature. Sadly, the modern world, and especially fast-paced urban city life, removes people from understanding their true selves and becoming more in tune with nature and the environment. Tracking a specific animal and stalking it over some distance in harsh winter conditions really brings me to a deeper understanding of what my ancestors must have felt, when they lived side by side with wildlife and nature, and depended on it for their existence.
This type of activity is true soul food, and I hope this video encourages others to spend a little time, leave the city, escape the office environment, and get out into the countryside to spend some time with nature. It doesn’t have to be a wilderness environment, just somewhere where you can reconnect to nature – listen to birds singing, or watch deer and rabbits eating. Somewhere away from the chaos of modern life where you can free your mind and your thoughts for a while and breathe in clean air.
Filmed with a Panasonic Lumix FZ300/FZ330 with a Polaroid UV lens and an Apeman 4k action camera
Throwing Hot Water Into Cold Air (boiling water, freezing air)
It’s minus 15 so I decided to show what throwing a cup of boiling water does upon coming into contact with freezing air. Hot water on ice, or hot water in cold air, does strange things. If you’ve ever wanted to create your own cloud, or mini snowstorm, then this is how you do it. It also exemplifies the difference between cold water and hot water – hot water freezes much faster than cold water does, bizarrely. This also shows you how to make steam.When you live in a cottage in a small rural village in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Europe, and the Siberian sub-zero Winter just keeps on going and going, you have to find ways to entertain yourself. Next week I’ll show how to lick metal poles like Dumb and Dumber….
Warning – don’t try this at home as it does involve boiling water!
Snow Thaw Self Reliance – life in a rural cottage in Winter
When Winter comes and goes, bringing with it first the snow and the ice and then the desolation of the thaw as the long road to Spring begins, the devastation that blizzards and freezing temperatures and tonnes of snow have created becomes exposed. It is at this time that one really begins to understand the concept of self-reliance in a rural, country setting. When one has to turn to one’s own inner strength to remedy the damage left behind. This is the truest part of Winter, after the romance has faded.
Choosing to live a cottage or cabin life is quite different to that shown on TV as it requires one to develop skills and inner strength – it’s not just about whimsy and fantasy.
Death, Reincarnation and the Soul (and NDEs) – some thoughts
A Death Studies Faculty should be a major part of every university, but instead any scientific research into the single most important human question – what happens when we die – is ridiculed. This video is part 2 of my Life Before Birth series, and in it I question certain illogical societal traits regarding life after death, and give some of my own views on the nature of the soul and human existence, based on many years of research into the paranormal and ancient belief systems. I also discuss doctors and neurosurgeons who have taken an interest in near death experiences (NDEs).
Again, this video is metaphysical in nature rather than wilderness based so if you are uncomfortable with such topics then please don’t watch it.
