Surviving the Big One

It's been another busy week, and I haven't written as much as I would have liked for the blog as life kept intervening. Tomorrow, I have a "free conversation" lesson - this means I have to think up some good topics for discussion. I was struggling to come up with anything very interesting, or failing that, topical at least. But fortunately I have a resourceful wife (did I ever tell you she can make up jokes? - What is the character of a scallop? It's very shellfish - is one of hers that she made up while walking beside the Wirral I think it was back in my Chester days). She came up with three ideas on the spot - the oil crisis, Obama for President, and the earthquake in China. All three have got legs, as they used to say in newspaper parlance, but she plumped for the earthquake as a topic, as after watching the inept Chinese authorities bungle emergency relief, most homes in Japan (and this one too) have been assembling their own survival kits should the fabled Big One strike the Tokyo area. If you could take 10 items with you as you ran out the door, what would they be? Here's my top 10 list:

1. Water
   
2. Chocolate 
3. Sleeping bag
   
4. Rain coat (rainy season is soon)
5. Clarks shoes (one pair of)
6. Tent
7. Toilet paper
8. Swiss Army penknife
9. Torch
10. My copy of Practical English Usage by Michael Swan

(One of the above items is not really that useful.... the penknife doesn't have a corkscrew on it.)