Is a psk really needed in the UK?
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Good points, reason i carry it is : it was £1 on ali express, it was an xmas pressi, its rugged and i constantly break things, its thick which i like, and most importantly it fits perfectly on my phone pouch which has a pocket for a notepad so makes nice set.....
i dont buy large amounts of kit, unlike some people on some of the youtube channels who seem to have dozens of everything, but normally just emough to have a few different amounts in different kits so i dont get bthe situation of moving things back and forward between kits. ie kit/backpack in car, kit on belt which is for work, and seperate kit in knapsack that is more for days out/shopping/day trips/visiting family which has a lot fo comfort items in, kite, pocket slingshot, cards etc
so if i have 2 of something, i generally spread between the 2....
but biying something slightly better and relegating the previous to a drawer.....that would drive my ADHD absolutely nuts.....often i resell things on to otehr people...
But
buying new kit is sometimes part of teh fun of the hobby.....
All good points too @neoaliphant.
We evolve, and learn, and kit changes, so of course there are going to be adaptations and improvements to what we carry. I'm the same as anyone else- having carried a Victorinox Huntsman on me since I joined the Scouts. I finally realised last year that only having one knife was a bit vulnerable, and I never actually used the saw on the Huntsman except for veteran fruit tree restoration, which is never a spur of the moment thing! I bought a Compact which is noticeably lighter and smaller, contains the tools I use the most and less of those I don't, and it is now on my person all the time except when in bed. The Huntsman now lives in the car full time.
I suppose I'm lucky hitting on something which suited me first time, and only tweaking it slightly nearly 25 years later. I can see why others keep buying, trying, and either passing on or adding to the collection, but for me it's not a hobby in itself, it's tools for living and doing other hobbies.
We evolve, and learn, and kit changes, so of course there are going to be adaptations and improvements to what we carry. I'm the same as anyone else- having carried a Victorinox Huntsman on me since I joined the Scouts. I finally realised last year that only having one knife was a bit vulnerable, and I never actually used the saw on the Huntsman except for veteran fruit tree restoration, which is never a spur of the moment thing! I bought a Compact which is noticeably lighter and smaller, contains the tools I use the most and less of those I don't, and it is now on my person all the time except when in bed. The Huntsman now lives in the car full time.
I suppose I'm lucky hitting on something which suited me first time, and only tweaking it slightly nearly 25 years later. I can see why others keep buying, trying, and either passing on or adding to the collection, but for me it's not a hobby in itself, it's tools for living and doing other hobbies.
I just bought a nitecore nu20 classic this week, first time ive had a head torch because for years i stuck to cylindral hand torches that fit in an old nitehead maglite head strap, and ive been blown away by its tiny size, versatility and brightness for the advertised lumens, which makes me think some of my otehr torches were misrepresented.....
if i didnt upgrade, i wouldnt have discovered how awesome a headtorch is, so it now lives on my belt kit
so what to do with sofirn IF23....probably go in to the car kit....
i delayed for ages because of havig the niteize headstrap..
sometimes a new gadget is just that, and i am guilty of that
and sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and upgrade rather than making do...
got my surge only couple of years ago, glad i didnt get one of the earlier leatherman waves decades ago, as the surge is so much better.....somepeople might say the surge is heavy, but its simply heavy duty and fits well in the hand and i use the saws all the time...
in summary, there isnt one philosophy re kit that coveres everyone....
but what is important is that we dont gatekeep and dictate, denigrate and belittle peoples choices/loadouts/kit selections....
not that it happens here on this forum, but ive seen it on american forums, and experienced myself doing reenactment which made me give it up as it was toxic it ruined the hobby....
if i didnt upgrade, i wouldnt have discovered how awesome a headtorch is, so it now lives on my belt kit
so what to do with sofirn IF23....probably go in to the car kit....
i delayed for ages because of havig the niteize headstrap..
sometimes a new gadget is just that, and i am guilty of that
and sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and upgrade rather than making do...
got my surge only couple of years ago, glad i didnt get one of the earlier leatherman waves decades ago, as the surge is so much better.....somepeople might say the surge is heavy, but its simply heavy duty and fits well in the hand and i use the saws all the time...
in summary, there isnt one philosophy re kit that coveres everyone....
but what is important is that we dont gatekeep and dictate, denigrate and belittle peoples choices/loadouts/kit selections....
not that it happens here on this forum, but ive seen it on american forums, and experienced myself doing reenactment which made me give it up as it was toxic it ruined the hobby....
Indeed.
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right."
(Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age": https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_neolithic.htm )
GC
Excelelnt use of poetry qutation, very impresed with any poem that features a tomahawk...
Me too, he's very under-rated. Lots of things said about his poems which are not true, the classic being the criticism of "the ballad of east and west" by persons who haven't managed to read beyond the first couple of lines.
GC
Another thought about the UKs pernicious climate and the PSK.
If that PSK included an UL waterproof, a set of warm base layers and an insulated vest then I'd say "Yes; definitely"
My home area in Oz has a better climate than most of the UK [ except in the Summer when heat is the enemy] and I usually carry a set of warm and rain gear in my day pack around town. The PSK isn't necessarily a pocket kit; although a lot of people think so they haven't read Lofty properly
If that PSK included an UL waterproof, a set of warm base layers and an insulated vest then I'd say "Yes; definitely"
My home area in Oz has a better climate than most of the UK [ except in the Summer when heat is the enemy] and I usually carry a set of warm and rain gear in my day pack around town. The PSK isn't necessarily a pocket kit; although a lot of people think so they haven't read Lofty properly
Depends on the supermarket! Well most of them are a survival kit but some might require a stab vest to negotiate in one piece. 
most of mine is tools, protection is 2nd
but in both smaller kits i have gloves, buff, lightweight poncho....
so theres kits, and then theres tins, i think the tins is only really appropriate for really wilderness, where its if youve lost your kit, or military were its E&E with no otehr kit...
for most of us its edc/possibles
This is possibly off-track, people do get themselves into difficult situations. A few years back Rod of Green-School (now sadly lost to us) and I were walking St Cuthbert Way, we then did a sharp right at Holy Island and walked down the coast to Newcastle.
As anyone can tell you all the coastal path the sea fog comes in quickly of the North Sea and is devastatingly cold. We found a couple dressed in denim (remember the old saying cotton kills) crouched down behind a wall trying to stay warm. They had got lost in the fog and lost for hours, they didn't know which direction they were going and both were suffering from hypothermia. Several crusaders later of hot chocolate and a couple Yorkie bars. Plus putting on them our spare waterproofs and a wool sweater each we managed to walk them out to a road and flagged down a car to get them back to civilisation. If we had not found them they would have been in pretty bad shape soon.
The moral of my story and the ramblings, however unlikely it may be, actually being prepared may well benefit somebody else and not actually you. So I always think of it as a just in case situation dealing with the idiot you may find freezing to death or similar situation.
About one week later they returned our kit all neatly washed and folded with a decent bottle of Scotch each
A note from the girl said 'we went to a specialist climbing shop and kitted ourselves out. We are now the owners of Marino wool base layers, Claw jackets and trousers and German military boots'.
Some people can learn from experience!
I have a similar tale.
Goes back many years and relates to language difficulties and different cultural expectations.
Australia has many old huts and shelters in our Alpine areas. I arrived at a popular hut in the late afternoon just ahead of a cold change and late forecast snow [ Late springtime] to find an older lady and her grandson in a very confused state. They were Austrian and had asked at the base of the mountain if the hut needed to be booked; being told that booking were not needed they had walked up the 14 kilometres to the hut expecting it to be like European huts, fully catered and with a resident caretaker.
This hut was ; like most Australian Alpine huts minimal and timber framed and gal steel clad; windproof but that is all; and as cold as charity most of the time except in summer when it became an oven.
I explained the situation and after hearing about the change in the weather and the forecast of snow they became a little worried because the hut had no heating apart from a small open fireplace and they were dressed in shorts and cotton T-shirts and only a light jumper and windbreaker each. No rucksacks or food, they may have had a water bottle each I can't remember.
I made sweet tea and we shared, them drinking from my spare cup. I persuaded them that the best course of action was to walk back down the hill as quickly as possible and get safe. Because of the coming rain and snow they would have been in trouble if they got wet; so I opened up my emergency bag and pulled out 4 big orange garbage bags and made them expedient raincoats, gave them my spare mini torch and wished them luck on the walk down. They had about 3 hours of daylight before it got dark
I assume they made it as I never heard otherwise. So carrying a survival kit was worth while and the only time I've ever used it to help somebody else but I had used the expedient raincoat solution a couple of times before so I know that the technique worked.
If they had stayed in the hut they may have been much worse off, I had only enough clothing for myself and a very light sleeping bag and it dropped below freezing that night, there was no firewood and cuddling only works to a degree. So you never know
Goes back many years and relates to language difficulties and different cultural expectations.
Australia has many old huts and shelters in our Alpine areas. I arrived at a popular hut in the late afternoon just ahead of a cold change and late forecast snow [ Late springtime] to find an older lady and her grandson in a very confused state. They were Austrian and had asked at the base of the mountain if the hut needed to be booked; being told that booking were not needed they had walked up the 14 kilometres to the hut expecting it to be like European huts, fully catered and with a resident caretaker.
This hut was ; like most Australian Alpine huts minimal and timber framed and gal steel clad; windproof but that is all; and as cold as charity most of the time except in summer when it became an oven.
I explained the situation and after hearing about the change in the weather and the forecast of snow they became a little worried because the hut had no heating apart from a small open fireplace and they were dressed in shorts and cotton T-shirts and only a light jumper and windbreaker each. No rucksacks or food, they may have had a water bottle each I can't remember.
I made sweet tea and we shared, them drinking from my spare cup. I persuaded them that the best course of action was to walk back down the hill as quickly as possible and get safe. Because of the coming rain and snow they would have been in trouble if they got wet; so I opened up my emergency bag and pulled out 4 big orange garbage bags and made them expedient raincoats, gave them my spare mini torch and wished them luck on the walk down. They had about 3 hours of daylight before it got dark
I assume they made it as I never heard otherwise. So carrying a survival kit was worth while and the only time I've ever used it to help somebody else but I had used the expedient raincoat solution a couple of times before so I know that the technique worked.
If they had stayed in the hut they may have been much worse off, I had only enough clothing for myself and a very light sleeping bag and it dropped below freezing that night, there was no firewood and cuddling only works to a degree. So you never know
The longest I've lived unhappily using a survival kit and pocket contents was 5 day's in Belize ''But'' that was on purpose regrettable.
it wasn't quite ''Naked and Afraid'' more like ''dressed and depressed''.
As for the UK I've done weekends with mate's for a laugh and a dare.
But I do take mine when I'm out for afew days just incase I want to live only using the Kit to keep familiar with being able to do it.
as for going down to get some Milk I don't carry mine
it wasn't quite ''Naked and Afraid'' more like ''dressed and depressed''.
As for the UK I've done weekends with mate's for a laugh and a dare.
But I do take mine when I'm out for afew days just incase I want to live only using the Kit to keep familiar with being able to do it.
as for going down to get some Milk I don't carry mine
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Interesting stories both, and I agree, ive used a lot of my kit content on otehr people, probably in anecdotes already posted, one of my gripes is when people wont provide for tthemselves and just bleat for help....loads of peiple did that during covid....sometimes as if getting in trouble and being in dissconfort is something to be proud of....
If someone gets given torch and gear to help them out...the least they could do is compensate....so getting bottle of scotch was good...but the austrians should have got in contact!
If someone gets given torch and gear to help them out...the least they could do is compensate....so getting bottle of scotch was good...but the austrians should have got in contact!
We never exchanged addresses and this was before mobile telephones so contact would have been difficult. I considered this "Paying it Forward"
Interesting how we refer to torches as flashlights these days to consider flashlights is in the same genre as EDC.
The most useful ' survival comfort blanket ' stuff I carry resides on my key bunch of which is understandably monstrous in size and necessary as I am used to losing things, hell both my wallet and phone are by string tethered to my day bag and you want to see what I do with my mittens in winter. But anyway the keybunch survival blanket comprises ; mini bic lighter, nitecore tube ' torch ' , Victorinox classic and Quattro, coin for undoing tripods, long and sharp titanium toothpick, whistle, capsule containing water purification tabs and pain killers, P38 can opener and of course a beer bottle cap lifter..
Some people do, others retain the British English expressions. In some cases they are frankly better. I have a frying pan made from mild steel. I have a knife made from tool steel. In American English they would both be described as 'carbon steel' i.e. not stainless. Grouping all non-stainless steels into one is daft. Made even more stupid by the fact stainless also includes carbon...
Whenever I use the internet I bear in mind most of it is written in a foreign language which spells a lot of words incorrectly and adds some in or misses some out.
