They love to keep the fear levels high.

Hi, I also had the message at around 1.00 pm, though I had heard it was going to happen, a few weeks ago.

Regards Nick.

On 3 September 2025 at 21:12 Michael Gilligan Said:

Distant memories:

http://www.atomica.co.uk/main.htm

“Protect and Survive

This booklet tells you how to make your home and family as safe as possible under nuclear attack” 

Another thing which never happened, but raised anxiety levels for the population.

The advice for caravan dwellers would have been very helpful, I’m sure

Is that the one that says in the event of nuclear attack, put your head between your knees and kiss your **** goodbye

Or you could just turn your phone off.  I mean really off by choosing power off from the menu or however it’s done on iPhone. Despite rumours to the contrary once the phone is off it isn’t contactable or trackable.  This is distinct from the apparently passive standby mode that the phone goes into where just the screen blanks.

At the critical time I was not near anyone and heard nothing though others later reported phones going off all around. I did get a message appear so partly effective. It might have been that I had no signal (O2 signal crap recently) and the message was pre-delivered with a time to show system.

Agree the English is shamefully poor. You can bet a committee of 10-20 spent weeks deciding it.

On 7 September 2025 at 17:17 Bill Phinn Said:

I don’t see the point of it. …

They are testing the system to confirm it works

While we’re in whinge mode, what is a “severe alert”? “Important alert” or “emergency alert” would be fine, but “severe alert” isn’t idiomatic English, and left me in doubt what was meant when I first read it on someone else’s phone.

Idiomatic English should never be used in an Alert system.  Though it might break the ice, an alert message must not be food for thought in case it becomes clear as mud!   Bill means plain English, not idiomatic.

‘Severe alert’, isn’t bad English, though my experience is of colour codes.    Black meant “some chance of nastiness – make a judgement about what if anything should be done”, Amber meant “medium risk of nastiness, prepare seriously for it”, and a Red alert meant “high-risk of nastiness, activate all precautions”.

The US military Defcon system is a chilling example:  do we prefer the numeric level or the name?  Defcon 5 (normal peacetime) is “Fade Out”, but, depending on the situation, the system rises through ‘”Double Take”, “Round House”, “Fast Pace” up to “Cocked Pistol”, which is Defcon 1.   “Cocked Pistol” means “Nuclear war has begun or is imminent: prepare to respond”.

Assuming they still have the capability, the UK gets roughly 4 minutes warning before Russian thermonuclear warheads explode.  There will be some survivors, and the number is increased by taking relatively simple countermeasures, making it necessary for the whole population to react quickly to the alert.   Civilisation as we know it ceases to exist, so forget all cosy individual expectations – the goal of Protect and Survive was about basic survival sufficient to rebuild society from scratch over many generations.  It was never about maintaining our normality.  Might seem scaremongering, but the Defcon system is real and all the hardware necessary is in place.

Nuclear war is an extreme we hope, but there are plenty of other threats, notably severe weather.  Global warming has made serious weather events far more likely, with once per century violence now recurring once per decade, or more.   Trees and infrastructure collapsing and flying debris are dangerous, but flash floods are perhaps the worst UK risk.  Take cover if you get a Red Weather alert, and maybe evacuate if you live on a flood plain, in a sharp valley, or under a dam.  Don’t go caravanning, sailing, storm-chasing, or test a 4×4 a raging torrent!  Plenty of BF’s do!

I think it unwise to switch off alert systems.  Being unprepared for a nasty surprise is rarely advantageous!   Believing bad things can’t happen to me has never worked.

Dave

Knowing that this alarm was coming I put my smart phone in a steel biscuit tin with the lid on. It still received the alarm. I thought the sealed tin would be a Faraday cage.

JA

Fix the roads instead of sending dummy phone messages, is what I want.